Our one and only generator stopped working once again... a relaxing Saturday afternoon turned into craziness as the guys tried to get it going again, but this time, nothing could be done to fix it.
Sunday morning, the experts, the tribal tech guys Bill and Josh, came out to take a look, but all were in agreement... it must go to Lae to be fixed by the Cummins technicians.
.
The experts were able to help us wire up a small generator though, to alternately power parts of the campus at a time. The generator that we took to Lae that could run the whole campus, if we don't use too much of our high powered equipment, was a 43 kva generator. And the generator that we were able to borrow from another NTM base was only a 12 kva generator. But were we thankful that Bill and Josh could get it wired up so that the guys could keep all the freezers and fridges cold around campus. And this small generator was able to charge a few of the staff homes batteries as well. There were also other smaller generators scattered around at different homes as well.
So after a system was set up to keep all the food from spoiling and charge the staff homes batteries, the guys decided to load the one ton generator into the Canter and drive to Lae with it first thing Monday morning.
Ready for the drive to Lae!
Jacob and I, as well as Mike (soon to take over Jacob's ministry) and one of our interns, Jonny, headed to Lae with the generator. Normally this is a 4-5 hours drive. But because we were driving a large truck with a 1 ton generator in the back we didn't make such good time... it took us almost 8 hours! But we were so thankful for safety and such amazing scenery to enjoy along the way!
And of course we had to go slow because of the terrible roads... and the precious cargo in the back!
But like I said God's creation was amazing!
There is just one road that goes to Lae, so we came across many interesting sights and vehicles along the way.
Someplace to get a snack... and a little bit of diesel if you are running low.
I love these trees!
We went through the Ramu valley where the major PNG beef farm is located.... I actually buy all my ground beef from this company.... hmmm... we could be eating some of these cows in a few months.....
Out for a drive... on the family tractor?
An empty PMV? Strange...
A full PMV, this is more normal... a PMV is a Public Motor Vehicle, normally packed full of people with a crazy driver trying to make his schedule!
Jacob drove half way to Lae and then we rode in the back of the truck the other half of the trip... not too bad with a few cushions. Although it was hard to get a good picture in between all the bumps. We sat back and watched God's creation go by. :)
So, sometimes we had to stand up. :)
Another PMV going through one of the bad spots in the road.
The are actually a lot of smooth sections of the road... nice!
But there are a lot of really bad spots... if you don't see them before you get to them you are in for a bumpy surprise!
A few dangerous cliffs...
We made it to the NTM Guest house Monday evening. And first thing Tues morning, the guys dropped the generator off at Cummins for the technicians to take a look.
We were very thankful that Rob, the main generator technician and his team was able to drop everything and spend a whole afternoon and morning on our generator. We found out that a worn wire caused all our problems. This is the motherboard that caught on fire... the top right side is black from the fire. They finished fixing on generator Wed afternoon and the guys loaded it back into our truck.
When we were waiting for the generator to be fixed we got to go to a couple of grocery stories! And look what we found! It was Jacob's birthday so I thought about getting him a bottle. But decided against it after I saw the price. Plus we will be home in 2 months to enjoy it anyway. :)
So we were back on the road Thursday morning at 6 am, 8 hours later we arrived back at Interface. And three hours after that, we had full power once again!! We were so happy to have lights, constantly running fridges and ability to use the internet. :)
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