First Month

I’m sitting in a café in Gulu Uganda thinking about all that has happened this past month and feeling amazed and a little nauseous at the same time. I’m sure after reading this first sentence you already have a least two questions: Why are you in Gulu Uganda and why are you feeling nauseous? Well, lets start with a little background.
Just a week after coming back to Africa we were back to drilling. Things are a different this time. We’ve hired five new employees which include two professionally trained builders for our new installation crew, a new assistant driller, a sanitation coordinator, and a ministry coordinator. These new guys combined with our existing four man drill crew (excluding me). With this small army we headed out to Jalimo area to drill three boreholes donated by three churches that had witnessed first hand the need for clean water when they went on a e3 short-term mission trip in August.
The next seven days were a whirlwind. Within those seven days, my crew drilled and completed all three boreholes, collected impressive sanitation data, and shared their faith with hundreds of people. This was all accomplished despite having some equipment malfunction delays.
Our next big contract was drilling six wells for a organization called Villages of Hope Africa (VOHA). VOHA is a US Christian organization working in Gulu, Uganda which helps new villages get their feet under them by giving them farming tools and loaning them seeds for various types of crops. They have also drilled some boreholes in the past using a different company. The way WHI and VOHA came to meet can only be described as a match made in heaven.
To make a long story short, two of VOHA’s main guys, David and Gregg, were in Uganda trying to find a driller that would drill for a lower cost then there previously contracted company that charged them about $15,000 per well. After spending some time looking and not finding anybody that would drill on the cheap, then went back to Entebbe to fly back. When they went to the airport their flight was cancelled so they went back to the hotel. While they were at the hotel they met Will and Evan Radler who where on their way back from drilling some wells with me for a week in Sudan. David, being very friendly and outgoing, went up to Evan and asked, “What are you guys doing here?” Evan explained they were working with WHI drilling water wells in Sudan. You can guess the rest of the story.

That leads me to the present moment. I’m sitting in this little café writing this update after spending a week and a half in Gulu. Within that time, we have drilled five of the six boreholes and are working on the last as I write. Our time here has been both rewarding a challenging. This has been one of our more difficult drilling locations because of community mentality as well as geologic challenges. The community in Gulu is harder to work with because they expect everything to be provided for them. This comes about because of years of living in refugee camps and also because of the hundreds of NGO’s that have aided in this dependence mentality. What I mean by “difficult” is that it is hard to get the communities to contribute to their well through labor and food, which we traditionally require. There have been some exceptions, some communities have been very generous, but in general they are pretty tough. The crew has worked unbelievably hard and have pushed through are within reach of the end.

For the most part, I spend my time with the crew, working and camping in the villages. That was until I got sick. When I first got here I came down with a cold that annoyed me more then hindered me. Near the end of the first week, I started feeling very sick. I had a pounding headache, fatigue, stomach pain, and felt nauseous. I thought I might have malaria but the symptoms felt different then the last five times I have had it. I took the meds anyways just in case but my conditions didn’t improve. I had one of my guys take me into town on Saturday morning and spent that day and night in serious pain trying to sleep and unable to move. Not so much sleep as a passed out. The next day I felt a little better but went to the clinic and got tested. It turned out I had Typhoid Fever! Wow. That's a new one. I had gotten inoculated against that but had heard that you can still get it. The treatment is simple and I have spent the last four days recovering. At this time, I feel much better except for some nausea in my stomach, which might be from the medication. I’m just ready to feel well again and be on our way back to Sudan.
My favorite experience of Gulu came yesterday when went I went with David (the VOHA director from the US) and his wife Dana to where the crew had just finished drilling the fifth site. The community was there waiting for us with singing and dancing. They had us seat as guests of honor and had a performance planned with instruments like drums, and hollowed gourds that they beat with pieces of metal. They also had traditional dancing girls in colorful multi-layered skirts. The end result was beautiful and exciting (pictures soon to come). The best part was that the community gave thanks to God before they thanked us.

Well, that's it until next time when I write you from Sudan. Keep praying for WHI, for our crew, and of course, for my health.

Thanks!

Back in Sudan

Last year I was really bad about posting to my blog. This time around I plan to be more responsible and communicate better with the few people that still read this. I hoping to post at least once per month.

Let me start this post by saying something about my time back in the US. I came back to the US from Sudan at the beginning of August and stayed until the end of October. I spend the first month at home in California with my family and my now girlfriend Ester. I lived it up by going to Yosemite, Skydiving and getting to spend a few days with my brother Justin. It was a blast! The last couple of months at home were spent in Ft. Worth Texas at the Radler Foundation office. We got a lot done during my time there. My time was spent planning for this next year as well as speaking to churches, schools, and groups about my experiences in Sudan this last year. I also got to spend a lot of time with my co-workers and I believe we grew closer as a team.

I am so excited about this next year! Last year we drilled a total of 14 water wells. This year we plan on drilling over 50! It is a pretty ambitious schedule, but God willing, I believe we can do it. We've hired on five additional staff including a installation crew, a Ministry Coordinator, and a Sanitation Coordinator. With these additional employees, we will not only be able to drill two wells per week, but we will be able to do so without sacrificing quality or our core mission of sharing Jesus Christ with the communities we serve.

This season will be different because I am taking a step back and handing over the rig to Asiki. Asiki has shown such amazing leadership and wisdom this past year that I have full confidence that he is ready for such a responsibility.

We are starting our drilling season tomorrow so please be praying for God's blessing to be over us. Also, please pray for the crew for strength and for God's protection over our equipment. As always, keep the leaders of WHI in your prayers asking God to give us wisdom and that we will always seek His will first. Also on my prayer list is for my brother Justin left for Afganistan about the same time I left and will be there for about nine months. My family and I would love the extra prayer support for him.

We will be drilling three boreholes in S. Sudan before going down to Gulu, Uganda to drill six wells for an organization called Villages of Hope Africa (VOHA). These guys are awesome Christians and I'm excited to be partnered with them.

Make sure to check out MY new website at: www.whiwater.org/stephen

Also, our official website is: www.whiwater.org

Thanks all! Will post again soon.

WWMGD?

Last week we finished up our five well contract with the Catholic Missionaries. The last well was in Jale, at the border between Uganda and Sudan. It was such a blessing to get abundant, clean water for the people of Jale since prior attempts by other companies and organizations had failed. As one drilling company put it, "There's no water in Jale." Well, we prayed fervently for God to grant us success and He delivered to Jale a well that produces over 1000 liters of water per hour! This amount of water is near the max a handpump can pump if pumped constantly for one hour. The crew and I are just so happy that God is allowing us to find water where bigger, more experienced companies have drilled deeper without finding a drop.

What Would Macguyver Do? When we first started drilling at Jale we had a problem with the compressor. An O-ring burst in one of the valves causing all the air be released. This sounds like a small problem but it wasn't. Where could we get a spare O-ring in South Sudan? The closest place that would case a assortment of O-rings would be Kampala, a nine hour drive away. I was starting to panic when Aboi, one of my employees, used his black rubber bracelet and some superglue to create a new O-ring that worked perfectly. I realized that in the U.S. we always have the right tool available to do any job. Having the convenience of having everything available to us has dulled our creativity when it comes to fixing things.

This last weekend I got sick again with Giardia but was all better by Sunday evening. Other than that, everything else is going fairly normal. My farm is expanding as I now have lots of chickens, a goat, and a garden.

There is still lots of de-mining going on in Kajo Keji. It is kind of a hassle because they always seem to be closing off the roads I need to use that day, but I'm glad they're here. Asiki and I were talking about the de-mining when he made a comment that made me laugh. He said, "With de-mining, your first mistake is also your last mistake." I'm just thankful I work in a job where most of my mistakes don't have permanent consequences.

Well that's all I have for you for now. I uploaded pictures of most of the new wells on my facebook profile. Sorry to all you that don't have facebook... You would understand why I only upload to one source if you could see how slow the internet is here.

Its Been Awhile

Hey Everyone,
So its been two months since I last posted so I'm pretty sure nobody reads this anymore, but I'll go ahead and post anyways. Sorry for the long delay. I've been http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1488835733477829574&postID=2772257371554856067so busy with drilling and visitors that the time has just flown by. Plus, since I've moved into my new house, internet access has almost been non-existent. This is the first time I've gotten to use the internet/check my email in over three weeks! Since I've last wrote, we've completed three more water wells. Just this last week, we drilled a completed a water well for a village called Nyabara deep in the bush. It was our first well were we had to camp on site. The village was very hospitable and gave us raw honey, fresh milk, and a goat. The last two boreholes (water wells) are part of a five borehole contract we got from a big Catholic organization that works in the area. The great thing about our strategy is that for every water well we are contracted for, we can drill an additional one where we want. So, since the Catholics contracted us for five, we will actually end up drilling ten wells. We start drilling the third well on Tuesday.

It has been a lot of long, tiring, and sometimes discouraging work but I feel so blessed to be apart of it. I get chills to think that I could been stuck in a cubicle in San Francisco somewhere doing something that doesn't bring meaning to my life. Instead, I rejoice in the fact that I'm making a real, tangible, and practical difference in people's lives by bringing them the something as basic and important as clean water. I've recently been having difficulty thinking of what other job I could do that would have this much meaning and purpose.

Thank you to everyone again for your continued prayer and financial support. I know things are rough right now on that side of the Atlantic, and I pray that things get better over there.

I'm planning on spending a day or more this next week dedicated to catching up on paperwork and uploading pictures. Make sure to check out my Facebook to see the pictures. I'll post a link when I upload.

A Good Night

So one of my employees, Asiki, out of the blue invited me to dinner last night. He also invited George, Aboi, Muli,David and Gloria, Pastor Edward and his wife Rose, and Pastor Kenneth. I didn't find this unusual coming from a America were we have people over for dinner all the time, but apparently in Sudan this is something new. The pastors all thought they had been called because something was wrong!

When Asiki explained his reason for having us come he said, "I am calling this a 'Coming Together Dinner" and just wanted to have Christian fellowship with all of you. He then proceeded to tell us the schedule for the evening. 1.Fellowship , 2. Eating, 3. Word from God, 4. Worship, and 5. More fellowship. At first I thought this was strange to have a "schedule" for a dinner party but ended up appreciating it. The dinner was amazing and the fellowship even better. Throughout the night verses came to mind like in Acts, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." We talked, laughed, ate food, read the Word, and sang praises to God. It was one of the truest forms of fellowship I have ever been apart of. I think that's how church was originally designed to be like.

For me it was like a burden was lifted off my shoulders during that night. I finally got a few hours of rest from constantly thinking about work and all the stress, duties, and tasks that accompany it. It was my evening of rest, my Sabbath, if only for one night.

Disaster Avoided

So, just got time for a few quick stories but I did want to update you all. I did attempt to drill a test borehole a little over a week ago but had a problem: we struck water. That's right, the problem was we got water sooner than we expected which caused a part of the borehole to cave in on top of our drilling bit. We for half a day and into the next morning before we got it out. Not everyone is so blessed and if we had not got unstuck it could have much as $7000 buried 100ft underground. In the end it was a good lesson to learn and the entire crew got gained experience. I celebrated getting unstuck by mud wrestling with one of the bible school students.

This next week I just preparing to drill our two test boreholes next week so then I can focus on our first real community borehole that will be drilled when the e3 team is here.

I'm almost in my house! It's not "finished" yet but good enough to move in. I'll hopefully be in there by the end of the week.

Prayer Request:
-I got a lot of stress right now with so much to do. Pray that God helps me stay organized and to help get everything done.

Getting Close

So the last time I wrote I was about to leave for R&R in Italy. A lot has happened since then. Before I left for Italy I got to meet up with my friend named Issac who worked in Burundi and who I attended MTI mission training with in Colorado last summer before I left for Sudan. Italy with my brother Justin was amazing. We had a great time and I definitely felt rejuvenated after I got back. It was so nice getting to see our family friends the Nespolis in Bergamo.

After getting back to Africa I spend a day in Kampala and got to meet up with the outgoing e3 team which was fun too.

Getting back to Sudan I was only there for a few days before I left to go to Juba to get a multiple entrance visa for Uganda. It's one of those strange African ineffiencies that I can't get a Ugandan multiple entrance visa in Uganda... This was my first time to Juba (the capital of S. Sudan), and I was amazed not only at the dirtiness of the city, but also at how expensive it is. Once we got near the city we had to drive literally through the city dump before making it into the city. All of the mainstream hotels in the area were at least $150/night for a dingy prefab trailer made into two separate bedrooms. My employee Asiki and I drove around for hours visiting at least six different hotels until Asiki contacted a friend who lives in Juba to help us. When we told his friend our budget was about 40 Sudanese Pounds (about $20) he just laughed at us. The friend told us he knew of one place for that price but, "it is not good." You have to understand that "not good" to a Sudanese man is probably not good to anyone in the world. In the end, he took us to the slums where we found a room without windows and a tin roof for 40 pounds each a night. Keep in mind the temperature in Juba is in the high 90's. The next day I got my visa so the trip ended successfully.

After getting back from Juba I spend one full day in Kajo Keji before driving to Kampala again with another employee of mine Aboi in our big Tata lorry. The Tata doesn't have A/C so we had to drive with the windows down and were covered in dirt by the end of the 14 hour trip. It took 14 hours because we were stopped at every police checkpoint where the cops come up with every excuse in the world to try to get a bribe from us. Some succeeded. I only spend a day in Kampala gettng the Tata serviced and buying some household furniture. One fun thing I did was bring my Yamaha dirt bike and ride it around Kampala. Let me tell you, riding a motorcycle around Kampala is a pretty big adrenaline rush! The next day we drove back to Sudan.

Since getting back from Kampala I've just been in a rush to get the compound done and the drilling started. I'm intervewing a retired driller tomorrow to have him supervise us for our first few boreholes just in case something goes wrong. If everything goes ok with the interview, I expect to drill this week. I'm getting very close to being able to move into my new house. It will be awesome to have my own space.

Last night I decided to host a movie night for the bible school students. I bought a case of sodas and connected my laptop to my Landcruiser's speakers and had the laptop sitting on top of the truck. We watched Iron Man and I couldn't help but laugh through most of it. The students were so funny! Throughout the entire movie they were all giving commentary. Whenever the lead actor would come on the screen the would say, "There he is! That is him." Also, Arabs are not liked much in this part of S. Sudan so whenever the terrorist would come on screen the would have a few choice comments for them as well. Many of those students had never seen a movie or had seen only acoupe so after the movie I had a few students come up to me and ask, "Is Tony a real person? Did the old man really die?"

Well, I apologize for the long delay between my last post and this one. It seems that whenever I have time to use the internet, I just end up responding to emails.

I am really looking forward to telling you how our first borehole goes.