Editorial Note: This entry was originally written by Fenton on September 9, 2017, and distributed to a small group of praying friends at that time. This is the second of third posts of Fenton's second trip to Zambia. Read the first post here.
Well here we are back in Zambia again, with this first week spent in the capital city of Lusaka. The last time I was here (February), everything was lush and green, This time at the end of dry season, all the grass is burnt brown and the air is quite hazy. Still the temperatures have been quite pleasant, mid 80’s in the day and near 60 early morning.
The rest of the team spent one night here and then went down to the Salvation Army mission hospital at Chikankata the next day (three hours). They will be concentrating on the water system, which is over thirty years old, and in dire need of refurbishment. One other EMI-er (Wil Kirchner, see photo below) and I stayed here, along with the Salvation Army’s technical liaison between the USA and Zambia.
We joined the SA for devotions the first morning we were here, and it was interesting to hear that here it is not too unusual for them to be involved with combatting demon possession. Definitely not the image one typically has of the SA, and least in most western countries.
It is now Saturday evening and we have had three busy days;- interviewing four potential contractors for the proposed electrical work and inspecting sites where they have work in progress. At each interview we learn something new, so our final Statement of Work will be much better than our first version, which was based solely on our visit to the mission campus in Feb. When one is talking about spending something in the region of $800k, one does not want to have amateurs doing the work!
At the beginning of these three days we read Psalm 121, where verse 2 is “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth”. And I think He has done that. At each interview we ask them if it is okay to pray a blessing on them, and that has always been well received.
The first photo above was from the night we arrived; after flying for about twenty-two hours and waiting in airports for another ten. So if you think I look a tad tired, you would be 100% correct, Very tired.
An on site visit to a 33kV / 11kV substation that one of the contractors was building; so we went to see to see how good their work is. (I'm 2nd from left). Actually quite good, perhaps not perfect, but certainly good enough. As we will need three new transformers at the mission hospital, this was quite relevant.
Wil K is the engineer I have been working with--easy to get along and knows his stuff. He has a daughter in Texas who got flooded out by the last hurricane, so he was a bit torn between coming on the trip and going to help her. Apparently her church helped her do what was required so that was good. BUT still, a tough choice.
For the four days of next week that we will at Chikankata, I have a to-do list that is a mile long with zero chance of being completed. Pray that I can get enough of it done to be sufficient.