October 2007 Adventures

October 2007 Adventures

We only spent 8 days in our house in Santani during October, and they weren’t consecutive! What did we do the other 23 days? Let’s take a look.

The first week in October we were finishing the well at the technical training center being built by a Methodist Church from New Jersey. As we had reported in August, the well is our 21^st project. We were too busy in September to do the finishing touches, so this month we cleaned the well and did various pump tests. We are finished with the well portion of the project, but the construction still has a few months of work left to be done.

Next we headed back to Nuevo Horizonte Church. This well has a hand pump, and was completed in October-November, 2006. The pump has been used so much that the leather pump seals had worn out. We replaced the PVC pump body with a brass pump body with new leather seals. Hopefully, this will keep them in business for much longer.

We finished our 22^rd project this month for the “city” of Yrybucua. This project was a little different. This was for a community and not for a church or church facility. The community paid for the PVC well casing, diesel fuel and our laborers. We provided the drill rig and our labor as a good will offering to the community on the behalf of the local Methodist Church.

This well is 286’ deep, so breaking rod can be difficult.

This young man has been with us for 4 projects and has become a great driller.

We were again invited to a first birthday for a little guy who is special to us. In November 2006, we reported taking a little 21 day old baby to the hospital. He had kidney problems. Today he is an active little boy who celebrated his first birthday with lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Part of the party celebration is a dedication of the child. Pastor Rutildo took this opportunity to preach a real revival type of sermon to the families present. We were honored to be included in this great fiesta, praising God for Junior’s life. Here Junior is with his parents, brother, and sister.

The highlight of this month was our trip to Santiago, Chile. Linda was invited to attend a Women of the Harvest conference October 21-24^th. Women of the Harvest is a group that caters to women on the mission field. They also produce an on-line magazine. The group sponsors 2 international conferences a year, plus 1 in the United States. There are only 50 invitees per conference, and all that the attendee has to pay is their flight to the location and a $90 registration fee. All other expenses are provided as a gift by a donor in the United States. Linda stayed at a 5 star hotel, had terrific morning sessions with a great speaker, afternoons were for pampering (pedicures, hair stylists, etc.), and evenings were for fellowship. This year’s speaker was Shelly Volkhardt. She is an MK (missionary kid), and as an adult served in Ecuador for 20 years. She is the author of Holy Habits and Kitchen Table Counseling. If you are interested in finding out information about Women of the Harvest or reading some of their terrific articles, check them out at www.womenoftheharvest.com .

For the remainder of the week, Ed joined Linda for a short 4 day vacation. We visited Santiago, went to Valparaiso (which is on the Pacific Ocean), ate great seafood, and just relaxed without any commitments.

Women from all over South America were represented. Here Linda is with new friends from Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Peru

Here we are touring the beautiful city of Santiago.

As soon as we got back from Chile, we headed back to Yrybucua. We have 2 more wells we want to finish before heading to the states for Christmas. We started a well at the Yrybucua central Methodist church the last day of October. To know the details of this well you will have to wait for November!

Thanks for being part of the Paraguay team. We could never continue without your support and prayers!