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 didn’t even know what lice looked like until I came to Brazil. Oh, I had heard stories growing up in rural Ohio, corn country USA. I saw kids with their heads shaved, and the ominous whispers behind cupped hands explaining that they had lice. I dreaded getting lice. I thought that it must be one of the most horrible things, to get lice, get shaved, and everyone at school would talk about how your family must be very dirty, and how sick it is to have lice.

Whenever my head would itch, I wondered if it might be lice. Any flake that I pulled from my head, I would scrutinize, to see if it moved, which would thus prove that it was a head louse. As far as I remember, I never got lice. Mom, can you fill in any details? Did I ever have lice?

Lice are much different than I first supposed. I first saw a louse when I came to Brazil. They are black, the adult ones, at least the varieties I have seen. Lice are something that we have had to become accustomed to.

Jesus commanded us to visit the afflicted, to provide for the orphans and widows, to preach the gospel to the poor. I think it is because he knew that it is difficult, and with the additional trials and tribulations people would give up and decide to work only with wealthier people in more affluent neighborhoods. Working with the poor has many trials, things that sometimes makes working with the poor more difficult than working with those from the upper classes. One of them is lice. These parasites seem to prefer heads of the poor. Every Sunday, after church, when we get home, if we see one of the girls itching their heads, we get the lice comb, and a white cloth, and brush out their hair.

Through trial and error, we have found the kind of lice comb that we prefer, of the four or five different models that we have, a metal one of good quality. Almost every day and certainly any time anyone is itching excessively, just as a part of daily routine, we break out the white cloth and the lice comb. It is one of the hurdles that we have had to get past, something that we must accept as a cost of working with the poor, part of the cross that we must bear if you will.

It is not something that I had ever read about in books about being a missionary. It is not something that I ever imagined would be a problem. I never got lice as a single missionary. In fact, it is very difficult for me to get lice even now. We joke about the lice trying to crawl on my head, and then hitting the bald spot, slipping and falling off, plunging to their death on the ground far below.

Things change though with kids. Kids like to hug their friends. Kids walk arm in arm, hold hands, exchange hats, and hug some more. Kids are a lice’s greatest ally.

In reflecting on lice, and the fact that I don’t get them, I wonder, am I doing like Jesus said, and becoming like a child? Perhaps I, as an adult, would get more lice if I did like Jesus said, and become like a little child. Perhaps I need to hug my friends more, hold hands more, exhange hats, and hug some more. And buy another comb.




posted by Eduardo Buck at Friday, May 16, 2003