Possibly our funnest week yet

I’m a little late getting this written because we’ve had a full plate this week. But it was full in a good way.
A large group of teens and chaperons from a church in New Jersey that supports the Hendersons arrived here last Sunday, the 6th. Since the Hendersons are away right now, we volunteered to help out with meals and other little logistical concerns. You should see our little house with 24 people all eating lunch here at once!

They had prearranged times when various school teachers would bring their classes to the field between our house and the radio station. The teens would then have games, crafts, and a Gospel presentation with each class. We made our house available to the team for restrooms and lunch.

To show their gratitude, they took us to lunch the first Sunday and then to supper on Friday. We had a GREAT time with all of them. I had some encouraging spiritual conversations with their leader, Pastor Jack Klose. Since they didn’t have any classes on Thursday, most of them did free labor at the hotel where they were staying, but about six of them came here and did all sorts of chores for us. I think they pushed our tower project ahead by two or three days! To top it all off, they took us snorkeling with them Saturday morning.

We found out that they were planning to go to Coxen Hole for church yesterday and that was where we were planning to go as well. Dr. Solomon had asked me on Friday to preach for him. Talk about short notice! But everyone said it went well. Four of the teens gave excellent testimonies and a few of them sang a song as well. They didn’t get the full island church experience, but at least they got a big piece of it.

I’ve been spending most of the week prepping and painting tower sections. Peter has helped in addition to the help we got Thursday from the kids. Now the Silseths have some guests, who also helped out today. Since the tower is galvanized, but has old paint on it, we have to scrape and then pressure wash it. We finished that today. We have the zinc primer on all but one and a quarter of the four and a half sections needing paint. I have the marine primer on the part sticking out of the base plus one whole section. So there is still quite a bit of painting left to do.

We do have a major concern that just came up today. We’ve been praying that we would soon hear from Conatel (the Honduran FCC). Peter heard from them today and it wasn’t good. They sent an email eight days ago that he never got. They are confused, for some reason, about both the kind of antenna we’re planning to use and the height of the transmitter site. They are concerned that we’ll interfere with a station on the coast at the same frequency. But the engineering plots show that we will be no where near interfering because we’re using a directional antenna and we’re more than 200 feet lower than they say we are, so we’re mystified about how this happened. Peter has been trying to get this sorted out with the engineer who made the presentation for us. The problem is that the email sent eight days ago says that if we don’t reply in ten days the project will be canceled. So please pray that we will get this sorted our quickly because that would be an absolute catastrophe. We know the King of Kings is in charge, but it’s still pretty tense around here right now. We’re all asking for special guidance and clear, rapid communication.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, here is an assortment of pictures from the week.