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 finally got some photos up from our camp. You can check them out at http://vinhamacapa.blogspot.com/
posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, February 24, 2008

 
Modest Dreams

I have been reflecting on many things lately. One of them is how modest- indeed, how really small sometimes, are the dreams we have for the future. Not really humble, not really even modest- I guess just plain small.

We dream of, indeed have dreamed for many years, of getting screens on the whole house so that we don’t get a horrible mosquito born illness like dengue fever or malaria and get ill or die. A very small dream, and yet, years later, one we are still working towards. A dream, so small, so infinitesimal, and yet, a dream yet unfulfilled.

Our dreams for the future are so often so limited, so linear. And our limited dreams, our unfulfilled dreams, can cast a shadow over us and our families. For example, our house has had this grey pallor, bland, boring, daunting grey cement, like a heavy cloud, hanging over us and over our heads for years. Having the funds to just plaster and paint, seemed like something impossible, so far out of reach, so unattainable. This last year, before Christmas, Luciene was determined that we would have a white Christmas, and not a gray one.

We had bake sales after church, we took stock of what materials we had on hand and found some old paint, some old plaster, worked towards getting some more, friends and family offered to come and help, and we started sanding the cement walls and ceiling. A certain excitement built in us as we stood in the clouds of cement dust, readying the cement surface to receive the plaster. As we plastered and painted, it was like a small miracle took place. The gray squalor was replaced by brilliant white. It was like something prophetic took place also, like some dark, depressing cloud lifted off of us, and things began to look so much brighter, so much more filled with hope and goodness. It was not just the color change, I’m sure, but also the fact that friends and family worked together to bless us, and united together the darkness was pushed back, and new hope was born.

It makes me wonder, how many other dreams, bigger dreams, much more impossible dreams, are also just waiting? Waiting until someone takes stock of the situation, and figures out what resources may already be available. Waiting until unity forms, until friends and family come together with one common goal and one common mission. Waiting for innovation and just plain stubborn perseverance to break down the barriers and lack of resources, waiting until the darkness is pushed back, and new hope is born.

Dare we to dream large, impossible dreams? If the small, infinitesimally small dreams are yet unfulfilled, dare we dream large, impossible, God sized dreams? Can we be happy living in mediocrity, knowing that our God is so big, so powerful, and that we have the Holy Spirit inside of us?

If we fail to dream large, impossible, God centered and God sized dreams, we have failed to live life to the fullest, and without a doubt will not reach the full potential that God dreams for each of us.

Labels: dreams, unity

posted by Eduardo Buck at Thursday, February 21, 2008

 
We were walking down our street, doing a survey and inviting people to church in our modern version of “evangelism”. As we talked to one of our neighbors, he started commenting on the church that is one block away, and about the way they have their all night prayer meetings.

Now, having an all night prayer meeting wouldn’t be a bad thing, except that it seems that their god has hearing problems. They find it necessary to use a very large sound system turned up to the point where the roof beams rattle, screaming at the top of their lungs, all night long. No kidding. It sounds like exaggeration, but it isn’t. I don’t know how many times I have become startled, thinking that there was a fight, only to realize that it was just those church people screaming at their god, at their neighbors, and at each other.



It reminds me ever so much of a very cool Bible story in 1 Kings 18, involving prophets of God, and false prophets of Baal. “Scream a little louder, maybe your god is meditating, or traveling! Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” And the false prophets screamed louder, and cut themselves, and prophesied frantically and danced around in ferocious circles, screaming and screaming so that their god would hear them. And it was all to no avail. Their god didn’t answer. No one responded, no one paid attention. Their god proved to be false.

How much of modern Christianity resembles those false gods of Baal, screaming, prophesying frantically, dancing and weeping and screaming? Has anyone ever done a study to critically analyze whether God answers more prayers screamed in very large sound system or prayers whispered alone in a bedroom?

I know that it is a habit, especially of Pentecostals here in Brazil, to think that they are doing a good thing by blasting the sound system so that all of the neighbors have to listen, with the thought that maybe one of them will hear the gospel and accept Jesus. But talking to our neighbor, he spoke with disdain of that church, and of the way that they perturb the sleep of all of the neighbors, and said that if he lived next to the church he would have had them shut down by now for disturbing the peace. Indeed, even a block away we can hear the screaming, I can’t imagine someone living right next door being happy with the situation.

When we first opened the church, we rented a building a short distance from where we are now at. We were talking to the next-door neighbor of the building we had just rented. They were all smiles, and asked us what we were going to use the building for. When we said a church, their smile vanished. They looked very much like a school child that had just been given a wedgie right before they had to go to the front of the class to give a speech. I didn’t understand it at the time. After becoming more familiar with churches here, I think I now understand it.

Frankly, I wouldn’t want to live next to someone else’s church. It’s kind of like living next to a bar, with less cuss words, and less beer can litter. I mean, our church is on the second floor of our house. I am a pastor. And I don’t much care for “church” the way it is usually done here in Brazil. I like to think that our church is different. I certainly hope it is.

Most of what we know as “church” just isn’t very culturally relative. Somehow we have turned the Bride of Christ, the most powerful force of positive change in the whole world, into a weekly meeting where bench warmers are screamed at by the professionals that they just aren’t doing enough, and they go home feeling guilty and fully determined to do more at some point in the future. By the rise in crime, the rise in divorce, the rise in murders, it is clear that we as the church of Christ are not affecting the culture the way we should be. Somehow, we need to break out of the traditional, sterile, screaming ineffectually on large obnoxious sound systems kind of religion that is doing very little to bring people to know the real Jesus, and reignite the consuming fire of God in the people of God.

There must be something more. There must be an incarnational model, a model of radical Christians going and being, in the society, distinct and yet a part, somehow being a transforming force without just being just weird. We must become an incarnational force that releases God’s people to fulfill their full potential and really transform society from the ground up. I can’t wait to see what that looks like.

Our neighbor concluded his rant against the loud obnoxious church by praising our church. “Now that pastor”, he said pointing at our church, (I had a hat on, he must not have recognized me without my shining bald spot, or more likely, just can’t believe that someone with long hair and an earring could be a pastor, thinking that I am just a member or that we just let the church meet in our home), “that pastor, they don’t bother anyone, they do their church service and everyone goes home, we all sleep at night.”

Somehow, being a church that doesn’t really bother anyone wasn’t really comforting at all either.

Labels: brasil, incarnational, missions, pentacostals

posted by Eduardo Buck at Saturday, February 16, 2008

 
Here is an excerpt from our most recent prayer letter. Some of the prayer letters are coming back undeliverable, so if you didn't get one, it is possible that you need to update to a new e-mail address. If you would like to subscribe, simply send an e-mail to Schmidt_Newsletter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .

Our camp will start this year on Sunday, Feb. 3rd, and will go through the sixth of Feb. Please pray with us that the Holy Spirit would impact these young people’s lives, that there would be a profound repentance of sin, and renewed joy in serving the Lord.

Evangelism teams went out into the neighborhood from the church last Saturday, the 19th of January. One of the teams talked to a group of guys who were drinking. One of them, Nae, explained that his girlfriend was in the hospital waiting for their baby to be born. They talked to him about Jesus and invited him to church. Their baby girl was born on Tuesday, the 22nd. Nae was walking home from work that night at about 10:30pm. He was clutching some baby clothes for his daughter who he had just heard was born. A car pulled up beside him and someone inside started shooting. The assailants got out of the car to finish him off, put a shotgun to his head, and left a widow and an orphan to fend for themselves. He never even got to see his daughter. The thief has stolen again, the destroyer has seemingly had his way. But it will not always be so. The King will prevail . . . We often forget that we are in a war and that lives hang in the balance. The bloody carnage that the enemy leaves is a vibrant reminder that eternal souls are at stake.

Would you join us in prayer asking that the Holy Spirit would give us insight, innovation and creativity to seek and save the lost and that we could beat down the gates of hell and fill the straight and narrow road? The need is urgent and we so desperately need your help is this spiritual battle.

Labels: evangelism, Macapa, murder, save the lost

posted by Eduardo Buck at Friday, February 01, 2008