WFGC Television
John Monteiro Lucena
The youngest of 8 children, I was born in Brazil, on September 9th, 1963, in a small province called “Soure”, on an island that is bathed by the Amazon River and the Atlantic Ocean on the same latitude as Ecuador called Marajó. My father was the mayor of our town and my mother was a nurse at the only health facility there. My parents also owned a bakery and small ice cream shop adjacent to our house.
Growing up, I saw docile water buffaloes roaming free in the few streets there. My grandfather was a fisherman and told me lots of histories and my dad frequently took me on official visits by boat to the inland river villages, where I was able to see and interact with native Indians in their local habitat. The island is famed for the century-old hand made artisan ceramic pottery, which is known nationwide as “Cerâmica Marajoara” (see picture). My elementary school was at a house next door to mine. Our family moved to São Paulo in 1970 and a year later, settled in Rio de Janeiro where I went to middle school and completed high school. In 1986 I moved to the United States, Santa Ana, California, where I went to Cypress College and finished a computer science class I had started in Brazil. Always involved with TV and cameras, I was a director and editor at Eagles Nest Christian Fellowship Church in Santa Ana, and the Trinity Broadcasting Network in Tustin, California where, while there, I helped start a TV station in São Paulo, Brazil. In 1988 I had the opportunity to direct and produce the Portuguese version of the Praise the Lord television program at a TBN Network affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona. It was love at first sight when I laid eyes on my wife Lidia,whom I met in a church in Brazil while there for citywide crusades. Married in São Paulo in 1993, we stayed in Brazil for the next 4 years. In 1995 our first daughter Jacqueline was born in Rio de Janeiro. What a joy it was to be able to see the fruit of our love. Then in 1998 we moved to California for one year and then to south Florida in 1999, where my second daughter Michelle was born just one day after Valentines day; an awesome sign of our love for each other and God's love for us. Lidia and I have been married for 20 years. Another very proud moment in my life was to see my daughter being chosen by classmates at her high school graduation as the "most spiritual person". As Lidia and I have been faithful to train our daughter in the way of the Lord, it gives us great pleasure to see spiritual values shine through her life and to see those values acknowledged by her peers. I grew up in a Christian household and my mother took us to church everywhere we lived, whether a small village in the Amazon or the big city of Rio de Janeiro. As with many young kids, I walked away from God as a teenager, but returned to the Lord after witnessing a friend being executed right in front of me in Rio de Janeiro in 1982. In February of that same year, I gave my heart and life to the lord, I was forgiven and my life has changed 180 degrees. Today I am an ordained pastor with the Assemblies of God and an associate volunteer pastor and treasurer at my local Brazilian church in Boca Raton, Florida. I make a daily effort to never forget were I came from, no matter were the Lord leads me. |
Quick Facts About
John Lucena
Cerâmica Marajoara
See the famous hand made artisan ceramic pottery.
Brazil
The youngest of 8 children, I was born in Brazil, on September 9th, 1963, in a small province called “Soure”, on an island that is bathed by the Amazon River and the Atlantic Ocean on the same latitude as Ecuador called Marajó.
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