Some frustration, some urgency

Yesterday started out well with Gene and I going around with Tim and David to look at some of the electrical panels we had not looked at before. At the same time it was thought necessary that the old poles in the way of the CRE incoming electrical service to the facility need to be removed before they can hook up their 28,000 volt lines. There were two poles directly under the CRE lines or just next to them that would have prevented them from hooking up the service, should they show up with the new transformer. Ronald, one of the maintenance men from Monte Blanco, climbed the first pole and disconnected the wires from it so that we could take it down. Gene and I assisted with this in pulling the rope when Ronald cut through the pole. That one went well enough, so we went back to our survey work. Then we received a call that the next pole Ronald was working on fell over with him on it. This stopped our work instantly and we went to see what we could do. In the meantime CRE did arrive to install their transformer and were on site when this incident happened. Ronald was not hurt badly, mostly bruised for which we were thankful. The pole was angled over and stressing the conductors onto the next pole greatly. So CRE agreed to assist in getting this pole out of the way, since it had to be removed before they could energize anyway. In the process the next pole then did fall over and fortunately the wires attached to it held it off the ground enough to prevent pulling any more poles over. The problem is that these poles are eucalyptus poles and they are rotted off just below the ground. We fear this is true for any more eucalyptus poles on hte entire complex and there are many. CRE agreed to re-plant both of these poles and to wait until another day to install their transformer and energize. We would have a number of wires to re-hook back up after the poles were set in place and secure so we went back to our survey work until later in the day. By now we had lost well over 4 hours of our last day at Monte Blanco, and we would lose more later in helping reconnect the critical lines, which we did. So, you can see how rapidly plans can change.

Yesterday afternoon a group of campers arrived at Monte Blanco. The group consists of about 70 young people ages 12-18 along with their counselors. Last evening we attended the first chapel service for the campers and we were very impressed with the quality of the audiovisual productions snd the skits. It got late and we left before the speaker for the evening spoke. In speaking with David Salazar, the Camp Director, we were very impressed to find that this camp in Bolivia has seen over 38,000 attendees since opening in 2005, and approximately 11,000 of these campers made commitments for Christ. This is a very impressive number and this camp is ranked in the top three Christian camps in all of South America. It is a good ministry! It is now Friday and we left very early this morning to drive to Santa Cruz to meet this afternoon with the mission leadership and an engineer to go over the details of what we have done these last few days and to determine if ITEC will be involved in the upgrading of the electrical system at Monte Blanco that is so urgently needed.