It was a good day today in spite of being without power for more than four hours. The inspector from PNG Power stopped by to drop off some "Buried Electric Lines" tape for us to put into our trenches before closing them. It has been good to have his friendship and support for what we are doing. In spite of the fact that he has forced us to re-think some of our plans and do some things a little differently than we had originally planned, we feel pretty good about the overall picture. He indicated to me that he will have PNG Power here on Thursday to install the new service into the compound. We will be ready.
We made a few strides toward connecting the five staff houses and the store and shop to the new power system. Until we have PNG Power's new service we will not be able to make permanent connections, but there is much preliminary work to be done. We worked somewhat on a temporary generator powered feed to the lower campus today when the power was off for so long, only to have it restored before we could turn the generator on. This was the hand of God because in our preparations we thought we had the temporary wires connected to the existing generator leads only to find this was not the case, and they had to be removed for some future reconnection. Perhaps we will have another opportunity before Thursday to power the lower compound from the new generator before making permanent connections.
We thought we had two new 3-phase Watthour Meters in the lot of meters that were bought for the project, but upon further investigation we discovered these are just larger Single-Phase Meters. We are not sure if we will be able to reuse the 3-phase meters that will be abandoned by PNG Power or not, but are certainly hoping this is a possibility.
Tomorrow morning, Tom and Gerard are leaving us to go to Mt. Hagen to look at the future I-TEC project that is anticipated to be done there in the spring of 2014. we would appreciate your prayers for their safety there and back. This look at the project will benefit the team coming next year.
The float plane has now been repaired, thanks to Mike from Friends In Action, and it looks like Linda, Tom, and Karen will get to May River as hoped, perhaps on Thursday. Please pray for this as well as there are many variables involved in this trip to this remote location here in PNG. This evening we had the privilege of sharing dinner with Steve, a helicopter pilot with Samaritan Aviation. It was a great time of fellowship listening to him share his faith journey with us and then to just share together as a team.
As I look at what has been done this past week and what is anticipated to be done the week ahead, I am confident that the Lord is in total control of all that we do. One week from today Dave and I will be the sole electricians left here to complete the project and we will have our work cut out for us. Please pray with us that the work will go smoothly as planned this week, that we will be able to get the special supplies that we have been trying to get from Australia and that they will not be held up in customs. We have thus far had very few cuts and abrasions from the work, and this is also due to your prayers for us. I hope to have some photos to post tomorrow.
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