On the 28th of February 2001, Buck and Luciene moved to the Amazon Basin of Brazil. We lived in Macapá, right on the equator. Why would a web designer give up his career and take his family from their comfortable life in Columbus, Ohio, USA, to live on the Amazon River? We came with a vision to save the Amazon, to tell people about Jesus, and plant a Vineyard church. We have planted a church, and we are turning it over to the national leaders, heading back to the States in Sept. 2009.

 
About 1:30 AM, amidst the blaring music in celebration for some dead saint, I heard a loud BANG! “Now that sounded like a gunshot” I says to myself.

So, man of discernment that I am, I ran outside in front of the house to see what was going on. Police, guns drawn, have a man down. They cuff him, beat him up a little bit, slam his face into the wall a couple of times, beat him some more, and stuff him into the back of their little station wagon paddy wagon.

And they are looking at me, asking the guy where his friend is. I nonchalantly saunter back on in to my safe and dry house. They burn rubber out of there, in hot pursuit of another thug to beat up. Just another night of crime and passion in the big city of Macapá.

Yesterday, right at the gas station in front of our house, the cops had a guy down. He had stolen a bicycle. The owner of the bike ran out of the store he was in, and saw the guy pedaling up the street on his bike. He called a mototaxi (motorcycles that act as taxi’s) and went after the guy. He caught up to him right in front of the gas station, and proceeded to beat him with the motorcycle helmet. This thief was really having a bad day. It just so happened that a police car was filling up at the gas station at that very time. His day went from bad to worse. The police proceeded to beat him some more.

Having seen first hand how out of control the crime is in Brazil, it is really hard to get mad about police brutality. I remember one time during the festival of the flesh called Carnival, the police were in front of our house. They were there to get our next-door neighbor Jean, who is a bad news gang member.

They had two guys in the back of their little Volkswagen van, and they proceeded to hit them very hard in their shins and knees. As the guys cried out, they would mock them, and hit them some more. I was shocked, as it was really the first time I had seen the police doing that to someone firsthand, though I had heard about it a lot.

Someone asked what they had done. The cop said that their whole gang had raped a 13-year-old girl all night long. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad that they were hitting those guys. I was almost glad that the police were hitting them. In fact, I might have taken a few shots myself if the cops would have allowed me.

I knew that they wouldn’t do much time if they did any at all. This might be the sum of their justice. Our neighbor, Jean, because his dad is well known, a professor at one of the local colleges, never did any time at all.

I saw him stealing from the gas station last night. I tried to call the police. They put me on hold, then gave me a different number to call to report the theft in progress. The number was busy. I tried for half an hour. I looked up the number of the gas station, but it was busy too. I tried the police some more.

By that time, he was throwing all the stuff he had stolen over the wall that runs around the gas station, and I gave up and went to bed. I feel like maybe I should have done more, but I have to live next door to him. Someone told me that the police make it so the line rings busy, so that they can sleep all night. That they sleep their in their pajamas, no intention whatsoever of going out at night. Had it been a life and death situation, death would have reigned.

I am praying that God would restore a sense of justice to Brasil. That there would be a return of justice in the courts. That the injustice for the poor would be brought down, and that there would be justice for all, no matter their social class. That God would expose the crooked judges, cops, and politicians that pervert justice. And that God’s name would be glorified by those that once served the devil in unrighteous acts.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, June 15, 2003