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.

 
There was recently an earthquake here in Macapá. There was a large one in the Caribbean, and we felt shocks here in Macapá. It cracked some buildings, and caused a bit of a panic. It was also felt in Belém. We used to talk about how blessed Brazil was that there weren’t any tornados, earthquakes, or volcanoes. We have personally seen a tornado and been saved by the hand of God from it, we have now been through an earthquake, and they recently discovered that one of the oldest volcanoes in the world is right here in the Amazon, somewhere on the Tapajos river if I remember right (it was reported in Time magazine I think). I still think Brazil is blessed though. When I think about what heaven will be like, it looks a lot like the Amazon- without the mosquitoes, venomous snakes, stingrays, and with vegetarian piranhas of course.

Then on Sunday afternoon while a storm was brewing, there was a boom, probably an exploding transformer, and then a crackling in the house. I ran and unplugged the computer, and my nephew yelled that the DVD player was smoking. I ran and there was smoke pouring out of the DVD player, so I unplugged the DVD players and TV, and ran back to the office to unplug the rest, but they were smoking also. We lost our American DVD player, our printer, and our speakers. They were all plugged into surge protectors (the computer stuff into two, one plugged into the other).

Even though this was a tough blow, we give thanks that it wasn’t worse. We got the fridge and the computer unplugged in time, I turned off the water pump, all of the things that we most need and are most expensive were spared, and for that we give thanks to God.

I have been thinking about thankfulness for weeks. A couple of weeks ago, there were forty accidents in one weekend as it was reported on the local news. We have had our car for almost three years, and have never had a serious accident. I am so thankful to God for that. There have been times, like when a truck ran a stop sign and almost side swiped me, that God’s hand of protection was so evident. I thank God, and each one of you too, that lifts us up in prayer. We are very grateful for each one of you, and couldn’t be doing what we are doing here without your prayer support. May God bless you!
posted by Eduardo Buck at Tuesday, December 04, 2007