Faithful Amazon Boy

To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, December 27.

Glauco had six brothers and five sisters, and he felt rejected by them all. He felt rejected by his mother, and he felt rejected by his father, who had abandoned the family.

Why did he feel so rejected in Brazil? It all started when he was a little boy and Seventh-day Adventist missionaries came to his isolated village on the Amazon River. The missionaries built a church and left it in the hands of a missionary named Pita.

Pita taught the villagers about Jesus for three months. He taught Glauco to pray. He taught Glauco about the Sabbath and the rest of God’s commandments. Pita invited Glauco to join an Adventurers club at the church.

Glauco wasn’t sure that he wanted to be an Adventurer. But he attended an Adventurer meeting, and he liked it. It was fun, and he enjoyed hearing Bible stories. He looked forward to going back the next week.

But when he returned, the Adventurer club was closed. The church was closed. Pita had left town unexpectedly, and the boy didn’t know why. No one in the village could run the church and the Adventurer club, so both were closed.

But even though the church was closed, Glauco considered himself a Seventh-day Adventist. He found a Bible at home and read it regularly. He kept the Sabbath. Every Sabbath, he went to his bedroom to sing songs and read the Bible.

He was the youngest in the family, and his big brothers didn’t like to see him reading the Bible and keeping the Sabbath. They didn’t believe in God, and they thought Glauco didn’t need to believe in God, either.

One day, as Glauco was reading the Bible, a brother snatched it out of his hands.

“You don’t need to read this,” he said. “It’s a fairy tale.”

Glauco felt like he was too young to fight back, so he just cried.

The brothers bullied Glauco every time that they saw him reading the Bible. Sometimes they beat him. One day, they grabbed the Bible and ripped it in half.

Glauco didn’t know what to do. He tried to tell his mother, but she wouldn’t listen.

Several years passed. Glauco grew into a teenager, and his brothers kept teasing him.

Then one day, Mother said a floating church had arrived on the Amazon River. She wanted to see it.

“The pastor came to our house today and invited us to worship God on his boat,” she said. “He also said we could win prizes.”

Glauco’s brothers were excited about going to the floating church to win a soccer ball or a frying pan.

“Let’s go to the boat!” said one.

“We can win something!” said another.

Glauco wasn’t sure what kind of church met on a boat, but he decided to find out. He didn’t care about winning a prize. He just wanted to hear what the pastor would say.

The boy went with his mother and brothers to the floating church. After the pastor handed out prizes, he stayed to listen to the pastor talk about how to have good health. His eyes widened in surprise when the pastor began his talk by saying, “We are from the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”

Glauco was so happy! The pastor was a Seventh-day Adventist! He smiled from ear to ear. He had nearly given up hope of ever going to an Adventist church again.

The floating church stayed at the village for five months. Every Thursday, the pastor held a special meeting for teens, and they sang, played games, and talked. The pastor asked the teens to tell their stories.

Glauco told about being rejected by his family. He told about attending only one Adventurers meeting but still loving Jesus and keeping the Sabbath.

When he finished, the pastor said, “So, you went to a Seventh-day Adventist church in the past. Do you want to be baptized?”

Glauco was very happy with the question. He did want to be baptized.

The pastor also told Glauco that he could become a missionary for Jesus with One Year in Mission, a program for teens and young adults.

“Would you like to be a missionary?” the pastor asked.

Glauco immediately said yes.

But his mother and brothers didn’t like the idea of him being baptized. They didn’t think that he should become a missionary.

Even though Glauco was a teen, he felt like he was too young to fight back. So, he just cried.

“For all my life, you have never done anything good for me,” he said. “Can’t you just allow me to be free?”

Nobody could stop Glauco from being baptized, and he gave his heart to Jesus in baptism in the Amazon River. The pastor from the floating church baptized him together with several other people from the village. The village’s Adventist church, which had been closed for so many years, was repaired and reopened.

Glauco was so happy! He was glad that he had given his life to Jesus and that he could go to the Adventist church every Sabbath even after the floating church left. Whether or not he became a missionary, it didn’t matter. He knew God would take care of him.

As the days passed, Glauco’s mother saw how happy he was. She was curious why, and she began to talk to the pastor of the floating church. Then she studied the Bible with him. A month after Glauco’s baptism, she also was baptized.

After that, Glauco’s life changed completely. His mother changed her mind about him becoming a missionary and told him, “Go and serve the Lord!”

Now Glauco is preparing to spend a year as a missionary. He couldn’t be happier.

“It doesn’t matter what people say to you,” he said. “Just do what Jesus commands in the Bible.”

The floating church that visited Glauco’s village on the Amazon River was purchased with the help of a 2016 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering. This quarter, the offering will help another important project in Brazil: the construction of a church for children at Pernambucano Adventist Academy. The offering will also go to three projects in Chile: the opening of 100 children’s Sabbath School classrooms in low-income churches; new dormitories for 50 more students at Chile Adventist University; and an new Adventist Volunteer Service center at Chile Adventist University that will send 30 missionaries into the world each year. Thank you for your generous offering for these important projects.