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.