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.

 
Here are some important driving tips for Macapa. Indeed, most of these will apply for all of Brazil.

One thing that you really want to watch out for are manhole covers. Many are broken down, or gone completely. Sometimes concerned citizens put a stick or a piece of wood sticking up out of the ones with no cover, to keep people from hitting them. They can be fatal for people on a motorcycle.

Tcheco, a friend of mine, was driving his big Mercedes truck when he hit one without a manhole cover. Ripped his truck apart. And the police wanted to give him a ticket on top of it. In fact, if you notice when you are here, most people just completely avoid them altogether, even if they look ok, just as a matter of principle.

Another thing you really want to be careful with, especially if on a motorcycle, is kite string. In front of our house right now, there are the pieces of about four kites, broken skeletons flapping in the wind, wrapped around the electric lines. What looks like an innocent little kite string can kill you.

There is a sport here, of waging war with kites. The kids take glue, warm it up, and break and grind glass into little tiny pieces. From what they tell me, fluorescent lights work the best. They then mix it into the glue, and grab a handful, then run the string through their hands. They will sometimes wrap the string back and forth around some trees, or have a friend help them by pulling it and wrapping it around a can as they put the glue and glass, called serol, on the string. They repeat the process for the tail of the kite also.

When they are flying their kites, they will then try to either cross strings, and let the string out very fast if there is a strong wind, pull it in quickly, or do a sawing motion up and down very fast to try to cut the other persons string. Once the kite is cut, it is fair game, and you will see boys come from everywhere, each trying to claim the kite as their own, so that they can then put it up and join the battle.

It is a very addictive game, filled with suspense, and adrenaline. Making the kites is an art, and they often spend hours making the kites for the next day. The kids collect some kind of light wood, I think it is called balsam wood, and dry it out in the sun. They buy tissue paper to cover them in custom designs, gluing them together in strips. That is it, they use the balsam wood, tissue paper, glue, and tie the frame together with kite string.

They are phenomenal with the kites, and exercise an amazing control over them. I once saw my nephew Joao dive a kite down over electrical lines after a kite that was fleeing, wrap around the line of that other kite, and then bring it up fast to cut the line. I couldn’t believe it that he could pull that kind of stunt off with one string, on a kite that he made himself.

There are often competitions, and kids from one street will have ongoing and continuous battles with the kids from the next street, or even with kids from two or three blocks away. Often there will be five or ten kites in the air in a two or three block radius. Well, the fact that there is all of this string flying around, coated in glass, presents a real problem for public safety. There have been numerous cases of a motorcycle rider catching a kite string on the throat, because it really is so small that it is hard to see especially as you are flying down the street on your bike with your helmet on, they get it on the throat, and it cuts their jugular, or completely cuts their head off, and there is another dead motorist.

If you observe the motorcycles here, many of them will have big stiff antennas on the front of them. No, there are not a lot of hams on bikes, that is not for a CB, though it looks like a CB antenna, it is to keep the kite string from their necks. It is important on a bicycle also, to be very careful, as it can be almost as bad on a bicycle if you are going down hill or something, and can also be fatal.

HEADS UP: my holylamb (at) bigfoot.com address has been getting hit hard by spam, and has been going over the daily limit allowed by the greedy scumbags at bigfoot.com. Just so everyone knows how greedy those scumbags are at bigfoot.com, they want 9.95 per quarter to use their mail service, which is just forwarding. But with that outrageous price, you don't even get spam filtering. You have to pay extra for that. My advice- stay away from Bigfoot.com. The only thing big about them is the price for their services.

Please use my holylamb (at) pobox.com if you get a message that your e-mail was undeliverable.

For the spambots, please send your spam to help@bigfoot.com and abuse@bigfoot.com and stop sending it to me.



posted by Eduardo Buck at Thursday, June 26, 2003

 
About 1:30 AM, amidst the blaring music in celebration for some dead saint, I heard a loud BANG! “Now that sounded like a gunshot” I says to myself.

So, man of discernment that I am, I ran outside in front of the house to see what was going on. Police, guns drawn, have a man down. They cuff him, beat him up a little bit, slam his face into the wall a couple of times, beat him some more, and stuff him into the back of their little station wagon paddy wagon.

And they are looking at me, asking the guy where his friend is. I nonchalantly saunter back on in to my safe and dry house. They burn rubber out of there, in hot pursuit of another thug to beat up. Just another night of crime and passion in the big city of Macapá.

Yesterday, right at the gas station in front of our house, the cops had a guy down. He had stolen a bicycle. The owner of the bike ran out of the store he was in, and saw the guy pedaling up the street on his bike. He called a mototaxi (motorcycles that act as taxi’s) and went after the guy. He caught up to him right in front of the gas station, and proceeded to beat him with the motorcycle helmet. This thief was really having a bad day. It just so happened that a police car was filling up at the gas station at that very time. His day went from bad to worse. The police proceeded to beat him some more.

Having seen first hand how out of control the crime is in Brazil, it is really hard to get mad about police brutality. I remember one time during the festival of the flesh called Carnival, the police were in front of our house. They were there to get our next-door neighbor Jean, who is a bad news gang member.

They had two guys in the back of their little Volkswagen van, and they proceeded to hit them very hard in their shins and knees. As the guys cried out, they would mock them, and hit them some more. I was shocked, as it was really the first time I had seen the police doing that to someone firsthand, though I had heard about it a lot.

Someone asked what they had done. The cop said that their whole gang had raped a 13-year-old girl all night long. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad that they were hitting those guys. I was almost glad that the police were hitting them. In fact, I might have taken a few shots myself if the cops would have allowed me.

I knew that they wouldn’t do much time if they did any at all. This might be the sum of their justice. Our neighbor, Jean, because his dad is well known, a professor at one of the local colleges, never did any time at all.

I saw him stealing from the gas station last night. I tried to call the police. They put me on hold, then gave me a different number to call to report the theft in progress. The number was busy. I tried for half an hour. I looked up the number of the gas station, but it was busy too. I tried the police some more.

By that time, he was throwing all the stuff he had stolen over the wall that runs around the gas station, and I gave up and went to bed. I feel like maybe I should have done more, but I have to live next door to him. Someone told me that the police make it so the line rings busy, so that they can sleep all night. That they sleep their in their pajamas, no intention whatsoever of going out at night. Had it been a life and death situation, death would have reigned.

I am praying that God would restore a sense of justice to Brasil. That there would be a return of justice in the courts. That the injustice for the poor would be brought down, and that there would be justice for all, no matter their social class. That God would expose the crooked judges, cops, and politicians that pervert justice. And that God’s name would be glorified by those that once served the devil in unrighteous acts.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, June 15, 2003

 
My eyes are clearing, though they are still red. God has been so good to us. He has provided everything that we need. I have to sit down and write about all the blessings. Man, we can really tell that people are praying. We just heard from the rental place, they said we will be able to stay until October. That is a huge answer to prayer. A dear friend in Columbus sent a very generous gift that has enabled us to begin the process to build our own house. An architect friend of ours did up some plans, and they are really great. We should have the permission to build from the government in about a month or so.

Thanks so much to each of you that pray for us regularly! We really truly appreciate it! Eduardo Buck and Luciene

posted by Eduardo Buck at Saturday, June 07, 2003

 
The sun hurts. Any breeze hurts. Dust can just about bring you to your knees. There is an epidemic right now of conjunctivitis here in northern Brazil. At least I think that is what they call it in English. Red swollen eyes, very contagious, very painful. We all got it, but I got it the worst.



Only those that have had it can truly understand the pain. For those of you that don’t understand it, I hope you never do.



I went to the emergency room yesterday, on a Sunday. My eyes were so swollen and sore that I thought that they would burst. There was no eye doctor person on duty. So then I went to a local health clinic, so I could at least see a doctor. They gave me some really good injection for pain, gave me an emergency admittance for the public hospital for Monday, and sent me home.

I went to the public hospital today. They said it was full, to return after 7pm. And I got that quick response because I had an emergency admittance from the health clinic. So I decided to shell out the money, and went to a private eye doctor. She gave me some medicine, and wiped down everything I had touched with alcohol. Ten days she told me to be a hermit, to stay home, cancel all activities.

I have been told so many home remedies. Eye wash with water and lime. Now that hurt. One guy told me today to make a solution of laundry soap and water, and it will take care of it. Another guy told me that there is nothing better for this than a person's own urine, just splash it in your eyes. I have had my fill of home remedies, and I think I will pass on that advice and stick with what the expensive doctor told me. Have been through three different medicines. This last one was expensive, and seems to be helping. But what has seemed to help ease the pain the most, other than that shot of course, is cold compresses.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Monday, June 02, 2003