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.

 
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