Missed another day

This is Saturday night.  The Internet has been out of operation for another 24+ hours and it looks like it will be out until at least Monday when the Natcom service department comes out to investigate what the problem is.  Consequently I am using a phone SIM card for Internet access and it is much slower than the compound's Internet.  But it at least works.

To bring you up to date on what has happened here, I submit the following.  Yesterday, Friday we completed our pole work and all the connections and fired up the generator for some more testing.  We discovered that we have an unusual situation here in that we are asking the generator to start and stop at specific times when there is no National power connected.  We are using an automatic transfer switch, which works well to start and stop a generator whenever grid power is lost r returned.  We had to come up with an ingenious way of controlling the generator shutoff so that the engine can go through a normal cool down period and also not create an electrical brownout each time it shuts off.
I sat down last night to begin to explain this but the Internet went off again in the middle of it and I just ended up going to bed.  My cell phone was so low on minutes that I could not even text my wife to let her know what was happening.  I left with Wayne yesterday afternoon in the hopes of finding some relays to make this new control scheme work while picking up his parents in Port au Prince.  We got to ElMeCo about 20 minutes after they closed and this was my most possible chance for getting the stuff I needed.  So I was able to enjoy the time of fellowship with Wayne and his parents, while the rest of the team finished up the day and was treated to a YWAM staff dance routine that they use for local outreach in Saint Marc.

Today I called ElMeCo to see if they had such control relays and was told they did not.  So I did not run in to Port again when the van went in to pick up a team coming in for the next few days.  Instead I looked up the part numbers I needed from WW Grainger and sent them to Wayne in an email.  There is a couple coming to Haiti tomorrow from Washington State and there was a remote possibility they might be able to get to Grainger and pick up these parts. 

So far the day was not too bad.  But it was about to get interesting.  Upon checking power to the Sanctuary we discovered we were misled about how it was fed and that we had instead powered up the swimming pool pump and the Prayer Chapel and AquaCenter.  The men kicked it into high gear and figured out a way to get power to the sanctuary.  This required an additional run of overhead wire, a new ditch and conduit and wire underground, and a lot of sweat.  But the task worked out and we were able to get the power to the building and we were all happy.

The next interesting thing was that the EDH Metering crew showed up and decided that our American watthour metering setup was not the right way for Haiti.  Some frantic hours later the interior of the brand new Class 380 meterbase that we had installed was removed, and CT metering was installed.  As it turns out the job appears pretty normal when you look at it, but it is not the way we would do it in the states.

After the metering crew left we fired up the generator again and changed the voltage settings to what we wanted them to be.  Then we got our team together with some of the YWAM staff and had a Generator Dedication in which we had some discussion and then prayed and committed this unit to the Lord for His service.  In the process of all this we received word that the couple in Washington did indeed call Grainger to come in and open their store and they were able to buy the parts I had specified, all except for a battery charger for the generator, which we will ask Freeman to bring back with him from Florida when he returns.  This day was a day in which God showed himself true and powerful and we are very grateful to say the least.

After the generator dedication YWAM took some of the team out to a local market for about an hour.  Then they took all of us to a home in a nearby town that has ocean access.  The Caribbean Sea is so clear and blue it is amazing.  J C was able to get his feet and head wet in his first visit to any ocean in his life.  He lives in Oklahoma and is far from the Atlantic.  Later YWAM took all of our team out to a local restaurant.  It was a real treat and the food was very good.  We had many different choices, from shrimp to goat to chicken to pork and lobster.  It was a highlight of the trip and will be remembered by all.

While we were at the restaurant we received word that the electrical panel in the office was overheating.  There were no lights or fans in the dorms and the guys were packing their bags for an early trip to the airport in the morning.  So the tools came back out and some main circuit breakers we were going to leave here at YWAM came in handy, as we used one for a temporary fix to the overheat problem.  As I write this the guys have their bags ready and are getting their sleep so they can get up by 5 to get ready for leaving here at 6am.

Thank you for your prayers for this team and for the work here in Haiti.  Every team member was important in getting done what happened here, and you are important also.  Pray for the nine who will be leaving Haiti to return home in the early morning.  Pray for those picking each one up at the respective airports.  And continue to pray for myself, Tom, Gene H., and Gene F. as we stay on here to mop up and then visit some other sites for surveys and work.  I will install those relays after they arrive from Washington and we will have a normally functioning generator doing some things that are unusual.