The Lift that Wasn’t

I must admit that Monday was a little disappointing. If you listened to the HRGS Update earlier this week, you already know that we tried and failed to put up our new FM tower. Disappointing as it was, it was still a positive event – just not as positive as we’d hoped for. First of all, no one was hurt and nothing was damaged. That was a direct answer to prayer and we are all grateful for that. We learned a lot from the experience and have since made some modifications to our equipment and methods based on what we learned after talking over the aborted attempt. All in all, it could have been a lot worse. NASA knows all about spectacular failures, so we should get perverse encouragement from their very public and impressive miscues. Of course, what we are doing isn’t exactly rocket science. I did a little Googling and found the following video that helps keep things in perspective. The music might be a little rowdy for some, but the fireworks are sure impressive!

Lots of tax money up in flames. I guess our disappointing Monday wasn’t all that bad.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so there are several thousand words worth of them at the end of this post. Mildred and Sandi both came up to document the event. Marlies brought the Henderson kids and a couple others to watch. She kept them clear over on the other side of the road so they didn’t get hurt or get under foot.

It had dawned on Frederick earlier in the day Monday that we did not have a flag to put atop the tower as is customary when raising a tower or topping out a building. So he called home and had the kids make one. Alice made a nice Honduran flag and Oliver designed and made a Radio HRGS flag. I think we should make it our official flag. Check out the picture below and let us know what you think.

Peter had rounded up a bunch of his largest friends and when they got up there we paused for prayer and then we were ready to lift. We were pulling with come-alongs fed over a pulley atop a large tripod I built last week. The main force, at least to start with, was pushing from beneath the tower, using boards with notched ends to be able to reach higher. We also had a safety rope on the pulling side of the tower and tag lines on either side to make sure it didn’t try to lean sideways. All went very well until we got to about 40-45 degrees. At that point, it was like we hit a wall. After a brief struggle, we carefully lowered the tower back to its resting blocks.

The changes we made during this week should alleviate that resistance we experienced, so we are optimistic that we’ll finally have the tower standing up before my next blog entry. Please keep praying for wisdom and safety.

On a totally different topic, we are making vacation plans. Lord willing, Mildred’s parents will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary in June. I was going to let her go and I would stay here because I didn’t want to leave the Silseths totally alone, especially with everything that’s been going on here. But Peter pretty much ordered me to go too. So, as I write this, Mildred is shopping for plane tickets. Our tentative plan is to fly to Houston. Continental has several non-stops a week from Roatán to Houston. We would spend a short time there with her sister and family and then fly to Ohio for the big celebration. From Ohio, back to Houston and then over to Tampa to rest up a few days and see some friends there. We would also be able to spend some quality time with Jesse and Kristin while we are in Tampa. Then back to Houston and  Roatán. Of course, that all depends on the tickets Mildred is able to find. Oh, and if you live in the eastern U.S. and want to come see us, Delta has non-stops between Roatán and Atlanta. Hint hint.

Now, I need to get those pictures ready for you before Mildred gets the pizza ready for me. Thanks for your prayers for us and the Lord’s work here in the Bay Islands.

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