7 Days to Chad

We are staying with our daughter Jody and husband Caleb and grand-kids, Violette and Isaac in Hickory, NC.  It’s WONDERFUL to be with them!   Oct 6 – 15. We fly out of Charlotte the evening of the 15th arriving in Chad Sunday evening the 16th. 

While here in Hickory, it’s working out that we can attend the last day of the Overland Expo being held at the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, tomorrow, Sunday the 8th of Oct.Come join us!  http://www.overlandexpo.com/east/

A reminder as to why we work in Chad and Tucson for Mexico. There are roughly 7000 languages spoken on earth today. About 1800 of these languages (500 million people) are still oral societies, meaning their language has never been written down. Our organization, SIL, assigns a team or individual to learn the language and culture and create an alphabet. They usually live in a village where it is spoken. We will help them form a language committee to eventually oversee the translation program. Together we translate basic education, health and business booklets.  Then the most important project of Bible translation begins. Often in the process some begin to put their trust in Jesus as their savior and a church is begun. Usually the culmination of our contribution is the dedication of the New Testament in that language. Learning to engage the scriptures is a challenge which continues after our translators move on to a new project where the process starts all over again.

Judy and I are support people. We serve the translators, linguists and literacy workers, so they can focus on their specialty. Imagine all the time they would have to take to just survive?  This next season in Chad, I will be working on facility maintenance and Judy will be the Housing Coordinator (Guest house/hotel manager) and Chad Child Education Supervisor (more about these in the next post).

I was reviewing the potential maintenance work load in Chad when we arrive. It looks something like this:

*   An 8 apartment complex building needs to be re-plumbed. All the old plumbing will be abandoned and properly capped off and all new plumbing will be installed on the exterior, passing through walls and not embedded in the walls where leaks occur.

   *  The main water line from the water tower to each building needs to be replaced. We will be installing a new internet fiber-optic line at the same time.

   *  The administration wants to to move the main car and person entry gate from the north wall on a busy road to the west wall on a side street.

   *  The security wall needs upgrading. Its a 8 – 12 ft tall cement block wall with electric wire running all along the top. I started installing razor wire along the top of the wall, but left before it got very far. I don’t know if its finished. That consists of building the upright steel posts attaching them to the wall, stringing support wires and then installing the razor wire.

   *  The south entry gate threshold needs to be raised 18 -24 inches because of rainy season flooding entering the compound at that point.

   *  Village projects. One planned for the end of Oct. and probably others.

   *  None of this may happen, but some or all of it might. It depends on the branch leadership priorities and the budget they have to work with. I just go with the flow when I’m there. It might be disconcerting not having a concrete plan, but its Africa, things rarely go the way I think they should.

Thanks for praying for us. None of this is possible without you!

Jim & Judy