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.

 
Thank God that Carnival is over. We live right near the monument for the equator, very close to the Sambódromo where the carnival celebration takes place here in Macapá. The noise was just incredible. We shut all the windows, turned on the fan, and still the booming just penetrated the walls. The first night we only slept fitfully, and from 3 AM until 7 AM music about Macumba, the Brazilian word for voodoo, just boomed on and on. After that first night, we wised up, and put some praise music on, so that we could at least be hearing worship instead of glorification of demons.

The next morning, at about 10 AM, we saw a guy lying alongside the road, in only his underwear, passed out from too much drinking. Someone stole everything from him, and left the poor guy with only his underwear. There were like 90 cases of people injured that they went to the emergency room, and two deaths that same night. That was just one night.

Tonight, for Ash Wednesday they all go to church, to show some repentance for the wrongs that they have done for the last five days in their "Festival of the Flesh", and get some ashes on their forehead. Nine months from now there will be a large slew of "Carnival babies" born. Lord, help us to reach these poor, lost people with the Good News.

The construction has been going forward. The wooden support for the concrete is done, they started putting the steel up this week. We may be able to pour the concrete next week if all goes well.

Here you can see Antonio putting down plastic over the wooden supports. After that, they will put down the steel and tie the whole thing together.

I recently got the tower painted, the kids like the colors.

The cockroaches have been horrible. They are big for one thing. Huge. And they are venemous, someone told me that they can kill a person. I haven't had to find out if that is the truth or not thank goodness. I have been killing a couple of them a day. The city has had like an infestation of the things. Here Hannah is holding one that I stabbed after we found it in the kitchen sink.

Here are a couple of things I have been playing with, having fun creating.

Hannah and Raquel showing off the new clothes they just got from Grandma

Thanks for your prayers!

posted by Eduardo Buck at Wednesday, February 25, 2004

 
I just posted a web album of some photos of the time that Heather and Forrest were here. You can see it at: http://www.holylamb.com/webalbums/webphotoalbum
posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, February 01, 2004

 
Yesterday we said goodbye to Heather and Forrest. It was so good to have them here with us, though the time went by so fast, too fast, amazingly fast. It was very hard to say goodbye, we had gotten used to having them around. They met us for Christmas in Santarém, with two other traveling friends, Richard and Emer. We had a big party on Christmas Eve night, as is the Brazilian custom, with too much food and too much fun too late for people that spent too much time in the too hot sun on the beautiful beaches. We then had a huge breakfast Christmas morning, trays of fresh fruit, cheese, fresh juices, coffee, bread, . We spent Christmas day on the beach, swimming and eating fish.

This trip was such a blessing for us. This was the first Christmas that Luciene has been able to spend with her family in about 10 years, so she enjoyed it all the more.

For New Years, Luciene's whole family rented a boat together, and we went to a nearby beach, where we had another cookout; fish and chicken, beef and pork, as well as some phenomenal soup made from Surubim, a type of freshwater catfish. We ate, played Frisbee on the beach, laid in hammocks, swam, ate some more, and laid around in hammocks some more.

Our families trip from Macapá to Santarém was smooth, very nice, just a great trip even though the boat broke down on the trip, at least it broke down in site of Santarém, only about an hour away. The trip back, from Santarém to Macapá, was really rough. There was some idiot that wanted to fight about hammock hanging rights, and there was very rough water and storms. Hammocks slammed into each other the whole night, and there were many seasick people.

The time here in Macapá was filled with lots of talking, intense discussions, car troubles, (the poor old Volkswagen bug broke down five times just in the three weeks while Forrest and Heather were here in Macapá), visits to the fort, to friends, and just a lot of good "hanging out" time. It really was hard to say goodbye as we left them at the port, where their ship had not come in yet because it was running late. There were more than a few tears shed as we hugged each other.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Sunday, February 01, 2004