Seta, Soroti, and Lira

I may have caused a problem.  In posting a comment on Facebook, I may have given the impression that CLM has done nothing to fix the problem surrounding the water pump. To clear that up; I will explain.

   
             Two months ago when I was just about to leave Uganda after I built the wall in Lira, I was told about the pump not working.  Some of you may remember what I wrote about that.  When I left I called Betty and told her that I could not fix it; she needed to call in a technician to fix the problem.  She assured me that she would call them, and I headed to the airport believing that this would be true.  Betty is a woman of her word and  accomplishes an incredible amount of work in a day.  She did call the the company who installed the pump to service it, and they did.  She told me that they came out several times to the orphanage.  When they finally gave Betty an explanation of what happened, they told her that the pump had burnt up due to the water table being too low. If this were true, then replacing the pump in the borehole would be useless.  If this were true, there would also be dead plants everywhere, and there would certainly not be a swamp on the bottom of the CLM property.

As you can imagine, it takes a long time to get things accomplished in Uganda.  When they gave Betty the diagnosis, it was about time for our team to return.  CLM by no means was sitting down letting the pump be broken for two months, they were actively seeking a solution to the problem.  I decided to post a picture of the jugs lined up waiting for the dirty city water which may have implications that CLM didn't do anything in the last two months, and were okay with the pump not working.  This is not true.  This was simply an attempt to make those who have supported me know that their donations are making a difference. 

Here is the Real diagnosis on the pump:

             When Davis and Shirtliff originally installed the pump they may have placed it a tad bit low in the borehole; putting it in range for gravel to stir and suck into the impeller.  This will happen when the pump is initially turned on for pumping by creating immediate flow. We know this because when we pulled the pump up we could see the rocks in the impeller. 

Davis and Shirtliff told me that the spikes in the voltage had warn on the pump and eventually was the cause of the motor failure, not the rocks in the impeller. They think this due to the fact that both a capacitor, and the regulator were spoiled on the circuit breaker. 

On Friday they came out to the orphanage, and brought the new pump with the new motor attached, the new voltage regulator, and the circuit panel with the new parts already installed. I helped them down to the location of the borehole and helped them pull the pipe out of the borehole so that we could re-attach the pump. After this I went back up to help out with container un-packing. The time drew near for the pump to be turned on. I had my phone out and ready to record a video of the water gushing out of the pipe to update everyone. 1 minute turned into 5, 5 into 30, 30 into the rest of the night. Our team left the orphanage and retuned to the hotel while the Davis and Shirtliff boys remained at the orphanage trying to fix the problem. I was called to inform me that they would be going back out to the orphanage on saturday morning to continue with the installation of the pump. 

  Today, I received a call from my man Ivan at Davis and Shirtliff saying that they had discovered a new problem with the system; The pump has been spoiled because rocks had lodged themselves into the impeller of the pump and had spoiled it. These are not round rocks, these are small shale slivers of rock from when we had the well dug with a drill rig. they are small and sliver-like making them react much more with an introduction of a drastic flow. The call was to inform me that we now, not only had to buy a new motor, but a new pump as well. 

Gene fixing some leaks in the tower

             When we had pulled the pipe from the borehole, we saw water on the pipe at around 30 meters, which means that we have around 60 meters of water in the borehole. Whoever told CLM that the water table was too low must have been really lazy; not wanting to do the work. 

Drawing this report to a close, The pump was destroyed due either to rock in the impeller, or voltage spikes. A new pump is needed, and replacement parts on the Panel. We did not anticipate this being a problem during our trip, so this is added on to the amount of things that we wanted to get accomplished. The bill was not accounted for in our budget, so we are actually hoping that someone would like to sponsor the fix. The total cost is around $2,000.00. We ended up paying for the pump with our team money, so we are now $2,000 down from what we need. 

Picture taking with the secondary students

             We had a great day today at the secondary school. I got an opportunity to speak about being a child of God from Romans 8:14-17. I came up with creative ways to relate to the children, speaking from the relationship that I had with my father. What does a child of God look like? How was my relationship with my father? I wanted to be like him. I wanted to do what he did. I wanted to go where he went. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to love me. Because God calls those who have accepted his son his children, he adopted us; he adopted me. When I made that decision, I became Royalty. I now share blood with the King. I have nothing to fear. If you had the President as your father when you were a child, do you think that you would fear very much? Do you think that you would feel safe? Just imagine what being a child of God would do for you. Who would you fear? Who could harm you?

  When you make a decision like that you must understand that Jesus said things would be hard for you. He said in this life, the world will hate you because of me, but remember it hated me first. He did not promise riches and blessings, he promised persecution and trouble. Being a child of God is an eternal thing. You may never get anything from it in this life. 

  I spoke about inheritance. Your inheritance is from the Lord of the Universe, the King of Kings; the one who created the world. Im sure that I would be confident if my father invented the iPhone; he would be loaded with cash! What then could you say about the person who created the world? God’s inheritance is bigger than you can imagine. 

  We finished distributing our clothing from the container, and cleaned it out to prepare it for the School’s use. They spoke of using the container as a computer Lab. We allowed them to show us where to place it, and how to orient it. During our last day, we moved up to one of our older containers and grabbed pencils, pens, notebooks, pencil sharpeners, dictionaries, flash cards, erasers, crayons, markers, rulers, story books, and bibles. We began to move around in a systematic manner and distribute those items to the homes as best we could. We figure that these items were not donated to sit in a container, they were donated to give to the children so they could be used. When we began, the children were still in school. It was relatively easy to move freely and distribute the items. As the children started to come home from school, a crowd began to form around us and made it very difficult to work. They were buzzing with excitement as we would approach their homes. I remember more than a few occasions tripping over some of them as I would try to sift through them to get our gifts into their homes. They were all so happy. We distributed all of the pencils and bibles as best we could until we had cleaned out the container of all the supplies that had been waiting since last year to be distributed. Gene is amazing. Brittany is a liar.

We had our last day in Seta and began our trip north to Lira quite early in the morning. The road from Seta to Soroti was one of the worst roads in Uganda. It took us 8 hours to travel what in the USA would take us maybe an hour and a half. After a long day on the bus we arrived in Soroti at the house of Rachael and Daniel Graham. Daniel is a Vet serving the people of Karamojo, which is one of the less advanced regions in Uganda. These people actually still war with their neighbors, they believe that all cattle in the world belong to them and will raid other tribes stealing their cattle. This is still a much feared region of Uganda, yet the Grahams have a ministry deep in the region where they can spread the gospel to them by helping them care for their animals. 

We spent 1 night with them. We walked into the city and walked through the market. Several of the team members purchased loose leaf black tea from the dark, aromatic, and ridiculously crowded shopping bowels of Soroti. I think they will be quite pleased with the quality of the tea. We walked back to a restaurant near their house and all sat down to have BBQ pork. I usually would not recommend eating pork in a 3rd world country, but this place is rad and is wonderfully delicious. They skewer pieces of pork that was well seasoned and barbeque them. The skewers are actually bicycle spokes and they would call it “Spork”.

We stayed the night in their guest house, which was actually quite nice. People were all over the place. The girls were in two different rooms, and the boys were stuffed into one. Robert actually had a sleeping pad set in the kitchen. I was on the floor in the “Boy’s” room with a mosquito net dangled over me. I distinctly remember waking up in the morning to a cockroach climbing between my neck and pillow. After I sprung up and flipped around, I batted at the pillow, trying to wipe the cockroach off the mat and out of my mosquito net. I came to realize that somehow that was a psychedelic mirage brought on by the Doxycyclene. It was actually little bill: a kitten that Daniel and Racheal rescued  and was batting at my feet through the mosquito net. Either way, I was awake from the adrenaline brought on my the cockroach mirage and was now just waiting until the rest of the team woke up. We all went the the clinic where Daniel works and had a devotional with his team and concluded our visit. 

Store where we purchased our digging tools in Lira

The drive from Soroti to Lira is actually the best road in Uganda and only took us an hour and a half to travel almost the same distance as before. We arrived in Lira and stopped into the Pauline Hotel. It was really very good to be back. It really felt like I was coming home. After staying in Lira for 2 months, I didn't realize how connected I had gotten to the people that live and work here. It was so good to see them. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and made our way to the orphanage. All of the children were in school, but it was so good to come back after I had left so early in the morning two months before. The Mums were so happy to see me; the feeling was mutual. They came running up to me and gave me big hugs. I had forgotten much of the greetings that I had learned while I was here, but they have been slowly coming back to me. The kids started to show up from school, and I tried to give each one of them a nice big hug. One of the Mums started to tell me about the day I went back home. She said, “when the children began to wake up, they started to say, ‘Where is Adam?’”. I felt bad for leaving so quiet that night, but it was a sweet reunion when we got there. 

Water trench going up to the new water tower

We have now started our construction projects here in Lira. Gene and Eddie have been chomping at the bit like work-horses to start into some real physical work. While we were in Seta we didn’t have a whole lot to do, but now that we are here in Lira, there is digging. Everyone seems to love serving by digging. I could barely get into the orphanage the next morning before Gene and Eddie had the digging tools out and were ripping into the ground. We had a crew show up to start digging the pit for the pit latrine. We have made a decision to get away from the modern flushing systems that Americans love to build, and go back to a big hole under a few slabs of concrete. We decided to dig it in a place that I have dug in before. It is basically the highest point in the orphanage. It just so happens that you go 1 foot into the ground and you run into some kind of lava flow. Henry, whom I have offered the work to, was sure to tell me that this is possible with the use of salt water. He said that it would break down the hard composition of the stone and make digging much easier. “You will see”, he said. They think the pit should be somewhere around 25 feet deep when they are finished. Not even kidding. TWENTY FIVE FEET. That is a hole 3 feet wide, 15 feet long, and 25 feet deep; hand dug. Your not getting me near that thing, talk about a death trap. Gene, Eddie, and I were able to finish around 400’ of trench (with a little help from the girls) that will send water up to the same corner where we are building the latrines. 

Pit Latrine

This is the highest point of the property; where the water pressure will be the greatest. This water will supply the kitchen and provide a spigot on the other side of the orphanage. This is not going to be filtered water, but the children understand this water is not for drinking. It is used for cooking only because the water is always boiled when cooking. 

The day drew to a close as the children all gathered around and sang praise and worship. Oh yeah, thats the sound that I love...