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.

 
I was thinking about how countries do things differently. When I, an American, went to Canada, I thought that there wasn’t that much that was different. But when we had breakfast, I was surprised by their milk. It comes in plastic bags. They snip the corner off, and stick it in a specially made pitcher to hold the plastic bag.

Here in Brazil, at least here in the north, the most common way to have milk is powdered milk. Now, to Americans, that may sound pretty gross. But you really get used to it. In fact, after a while, it starts to seem like the real thing, and bottled milk has a weird taste.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, July 27, 2003

 
Here are our new prayer requests. If you don't receive these by e-mail, and would like to, just send subscribe to our e-mail prayer letter by sending an e-mail to Schmidt_Newsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com


Greetings from the Equatorial Amazon Dear Prayer partners!

Prayer Requests

1. We are in a season of intense spiritual warfare, and would like to ask your prayer covering, especially over relationships.
2. Please pray that our pastors from the States, John and Cathy Lieb, would be able to come down to visit soon and see the work here, that all of the needs would be met for that.
3. The foundation of the house is almost done. We have put a wall up around the land, dug a well, put the septic system in, built the water box that we need, built a storage shed to store the construction material, and put in the foundation. Please join us in prayer that the rest of the funds that we need to finish the house will be provided by God before we have to be out of our rental house in October.
4. Please pray that God would send people to work with the children’s ministry, people with a heart to evangelize and reach the lost youth.
5. Pray that God would open doors, that His hand would be on us supernaturally, and that we could grow in favor in the sight of God and man.
6. Please pray with us that God would bless our support team: every person who gives of their time to layout, fold, and send newsletters, everyone who prays for us, everyone that financially supports us, those that take care of our finances, our taxes, our mail. We couldn’t be here without heroes like you, praying for us, and supporting us. May God richly bless you, each and every one.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, July 20, 2003

 
Got some recent calls from friends and family that was really nice. Always good to hear from people back home. I also got on echolink, which is like ham radio over the internet. Connected right with Columbus, Ohio, talked to KG8FQ and N8QZG. Amazing, this technology. Changing so fast.
If there are any hams out there on echolink, drop me an e-mail, and let me know where to connect with you. I usually only connect on Saturdays and Sundays, because those are the only days that you don't have to pay to connect to the internet.



posted by Eduardo Buck at Saturday, July 12, 2003

 
There is a place downtown that seems like a magnet for birds. It is very freaky. There is one intersection that they seem to like. It doesn't happen anywhere else in the city that I know of. Any of you birdologists out there, I would love to hear an explanation for this, or to know if this is common.

Hannah and Raquel are doing very well in Brazilian school. This is Hannah studying before a big test.

Hannah and Raquel are on vacation for the month of July.

Josiah likes to get dressed up to go to church. It almost makes the girls faint when he walks in with a tie.

For those that may be thinking of moving to South America, and are worried about your water supply, here is what we have done. We have city water, which isn't really too healthy and can be a source of worms and ameoba, so we were buying mineral water, or boiling our water. Both of those options are pretty expensive in the long run. We ended up buying a Davnor water filter when we were last in the States.

That has been a great blessing for us. We now filter our water directly into a large 5 Gallon Igloo drinking water cooler that was given to us by a very good friend. We throw in a large block of ice (made from filtered water also), and it stays cold all day, and we don't have to open the refriderator all day to get our cold water. It has been a great blessing for us.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Saturday, July 05, 2003