The McPlumbing Continuum

A few snippets of a work in process...

Click on the below link to get the whole story.

https://jim-judy-wycliffe-journey.com/2017/02/05/the-mcplumbing-continuum/

Thanks for praying
Jim & Judy McCabe

Doumougou II

Into the outback and back again. Click the link below for all the details.

Doumougou II

Some times it appears that things get a little bit over loaded. I'm just saying...

Thanks for praying and your encouragement!!!

Jim and Judy McAdventure

New Years Eve McFire

New Years Eve McBombFire

Jim McPyro New Years Eve Bomb Fire

Jim McPryo panicking because the McFire has gotten TOO big and is threatening the dry desert trees just to the east.

Judy McPyro laughting at the situation, McFearless she is at times.

Jim McFireMan getting flames under control

Calm composure setting in (especially for McPyro)

Happy New Years from Chad

Ouaddai 4X4 Adventure

Dec 7 - 18th, 2016

Ouaddai 4X4 Adventure

Chad, Africa, Eastern Region

After three hours it was my turn driving the Toyota Land Cruiser dodging the pot holes, ruts, craters and massively deteriorated roadside with a 3 -5 foot drop off. This was the paved two lane main highway east through the country. In both directions vehicles were driving as if on a double diamond downhill ski slalom, taking up the whole road and at times jumping off the road to try and find smoother ground. As you might imagine, this is very focused driving. About four hours out I noticed the truck steering pulling to the left. I'm thinking to myself, that's new, why would it be pulling to the left? The light comes on in my mind, a tire is going flat! Right at this point the road is level with the surrounding terrine and I pull off.  The tire is destroyed, but still intact. This is why one buys good quality tires! It takes about 15 minutes to change the tire. Our teams always carry two spares. In the process I asked the owner of the Land Cruiser, "In your 20 years of living and working here, do you have any idea how many tires you have changed?" She said no, but in her first year, on one two week survey trip they had 13 flats. She is a prime example of the single ladies who come to work in Chad. The bold, beautiful, courageous, intelligent, enterprising, sacrificing single women who are willing to go and do what so few men would ever think of doing. I'm in awe of these women.

On this trip I was able to help out four teams with upgrades to solar systems, structural housing repairs, plumbing, electrical, automotive, refrigeration and even a kitty door installation. Before you start thinking, wow, he can do a lot, please know it's God using this cracked pot (me). I often find myself in over my head. When possible I email, call or Skype friends who are actually good at these different things and I get advice as I go. Sometimes it's just a prayer, “God, please don’t let me mess this up.” God is good, I am willing, people get helped and we all get blessed for it. 

                                                                                                    For one lady, I built a wooden box with insulation inside that slips over her tabletop solar refrigerator freezer. It's a beautiful stainless steel fridge, but it's always cold on the outside. That told me it doesn't have enough insulation in its walls. The heat transfer coils are located on the small front and side cut outs allowing me to do this type of modification. Hopefully it will be more efficient now. And it is so pretty!

                                                                                                                                                                  In this photo I am replacing dry rotted lumber and adding three 4"X4"X20' support beams to the roof, that will allow the team coming after Christmas to install a good sized set of solar panels on the roof. 

Vehicles in Chad

With my love of 4X4 vehicles, I have to digress the maintenance now. Below is an example of the bush taxi I took to the far east, near some Darfur refuge camps. In our early days in Cameroon we took bush taxis that were old beat up passenger vans, massively over loaded and going places they never should have. But today here in Chad, there are many of these Toyota Hardtop Troop carriers acting as bush taxis. In general they are the right vehicle for the job; one of the toughest production vehicles made. There were 11 of us in this one. Just as we were heading into the bush we came to a police and immigration check point. They asked all of the men for identity papers. I gave them my passport. After going page by page and back again they said they were sorry, but I didn't seem to have authorization for going into this part of the country. Oh yeah,  the special papers I was carrying that were stamped by the the proper gov't office in N'Djamena, These were my authorization for entering this area. They weren't overly happy with these additional papers. They really wanted to see a stamp inside the passport. I also don't know Chadian Arabic, which is spoken more than French out here. I called the teammate with the new fridge cover, who lived 5 minutes away. She was there in four minutes and after she spoke with the authorities, in Arabic, they allowed me to continue. Being able to communicate in the local language sure is important.

So, this Land Cruiser climbing out of a dry river wash is exactly how we did it over and over again on our 4 hour journey. Very steep entry and exit to and from the wash. Our taxi had an excellent driver, but his vehicle had some mechanical problems. The 4X4 system was not operational and his transmission clutch mechanism was slowly becoming disabled. About two hours into our four hour trip the clutch quit completely, meaning it would no longer disengage. This meant each time he stopped he had to turn the engine off, put it in second gear and use the starter to get the vehicle moving and the engine started. He had a very difficult time shifting to a higher or lower gear after that. A diesel engine has low rpm power, so sometimes when crossing the soft sandy wash, the vehicle would sink in. When that happened the engine would slow down and he really needed to down shift to first, but couldn't. Amazingly it kept chugging along and most of the time we made it through. Just twice did it quit while in the middle of the wash. Once there were men waiting to help push people through, (for a small payment of course). The next time was a 1/4 mile wide wash and we were behind a small vehicle that did not have enough ground clearance. It got stuck when the underside of the vehicle started dragging in the sand and the drive tires just couldn't get traction any more. Its called being high centered.  Our driver did a sharp left turn trying not to hit them. As he got off the path, we sunk quickly getting stuck right along side the other vehicle. All 11 of us surrounded the other stuck vehicle and tried with all our might to get them unstuck. But we couldn't. They would have to wait for a larger vehicle to tow them out. Then 10 of us got around our stuck vehicle, pushed and got ours free. This only happened three times before we made it across that wash!!!

God is good, all the time. I love this work, but I am wearing out. 

Prayer requests:

God, please send a young maintenance couple or family to replace us.

Pray for courage and wisdom for followers of Jesus in Chad.

Pray for Gods words to bring people to Him and help them know Him.

Pray for our funding, we are still at about 75% of where we should be.

Pray for the country of Chad, its in a severe financial crisis and looks to get worse in the new year.

We are so grateful for you our team, we could never do this without you!

Jim and Judy McCabe

Good News from Chad - November 2016

We are settling back in very well. Judy is enjoying her role again in housing and overseeing the children's resource center. Jim’s busy getting projects organized and started. It takes a lot of time to research all the costs of things and then form a good project estimate.  We have a volunteer coming in January and already have many things lined up for him. This week and last Jim has been filling in for the new Chadian general maintenance supervisor who is on vacation. Jim will also be heading out to the eastern border in December to help install solar panels, get a tile floor installed, a roof repaired, a new fridge installed and a second solar system installed. Then in January he will drive with a maintenance team to south west Chad to do a maintenance survey for a national Bible translation association, then to south central Chad to install a cell phone antenna amplifier to help a translation team have better communication. Just a few things he has on his plate!

We are excited about things happening in Chad through God's word in written, spoken, and visual forms. We want you also to rejoice in what God is doing!  Like cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a distant land. Prov. 25:25

Many Adam and Abraham booklets, which were produced here in Chad, are in Switzerland in the hands of a Massalit man. Pray for the Massalit who will get those booklets, that they will be able to read them and that God will speak to them. Many have never seen their language in a written form. Also, pray for the Massalit here in Chad that were recently given French Bibles. The Massalit Bible has not been completed yet. May God build his kingdom among the Massalit! (Massalit are refugees from Sudan)

Transformed by the Word! A Scripture Engagement workshop finished well on October 21^st. 54 pastors and elders of a Chadian church denomination attended this workshop. This is the largest number of participants we’ve ever had! The Spirit of God guided us through the Bible studies. That day the Word of God touched their hearts! Many participants asked God for forgiveness for disobedience and decided to change. Some of these pastors have been at odds with each other since 2002. They met that night (from 10:00PM to 1:00AM) and were reconciled with God and with each other. PTL!! May God continue to help the participants, as they return home, to meditate on His Word, and to invite members of their family and churches to study the Bible with them and to experience the transformation and reconciliation they received! 

  

In three language communities - the storytellers (nationals who are trained to tell Biblical stories) are working very well and we are seeing the impact of their work. In one village, the church is almost closed. The storytellers were invited to that village to narrate stories. The next Sunday the church reopened and the young men were encouraged to come back to the church to praise the Lord.  In another village, a film called "Walking with Jesus" was shown and 7 persons came to trust in Jesus. Pray for the 2 men and 5 young women that they will grow in their faith and be led by the Spirit. 

Scripture Apps. You should have heard the reaction of the congregation at the presentation of the Kimre NT audio app (and reading app) last Sunday morning! And you should have seen the smile on the face of one brother seeing the audio app on his device, and saying: "Now I will be able to learn to read Kimre!"

Now people are praying that they will be able to find a "Smart" phone JUST so that they can listen to and read the Kimre NT. Last Sunday morning was a special impact moment that the Lord provided for the Gabri-Kimre N’Djamena community. God is using one church member to distribute the apps. He was all smiles last Tuesday morning when he saw the reading app work on his phone after we had created it. And he was even more smiles on Friday when finally, the audio NT app worked on his tablet. Since then he keeps distributing the apps and people come to his home to get them. God’s word is going out! And I am grateful that I can see this happening. I am sure it will arrive in the village as well.

These are just some of the amazing things God is doing through His written

 and spoken words in Chad. 

Thanks again for praying for us and for Chad.  

Jim & Judy McCabe

Wycliffe JAARS SIL

Tucson, AZ April - September

N'Djamena, Chad, October - March

jim_mccabe@sil.org; judy_mccabe@sil.org

http://jim-judys-wycliffe.blogspot.com/

https://jim-judy-wycliffe-journey.com/

Everyone was yelling...

The taxi driver picked us up at 5:30 AM. We arrived at the station at 5:40 for our 6 AM departure. Our driver parked the car directly in front of the tour bus. There must have been a 50 or more people milling around that bus; some selling breakfast snacks, trinkets and water. Others, I have no idea, why there were there. But it seems everyone was yelling something. The bus driver was revving the engine and honking his musical horn. He was actually slowly creeping the bus forward. As we opened the taxi doors they started shouting "where to, where to!" The taxi driver opened the trunk to get our bags, several people shoved their hands into the trunk to get the bags and kept shouting, "where to where to".  I said, "Mongo", and the bags almost disappeared. I had to do some tugging to get my small hand carry I wanted on board and then the bags disappear to the side of the bus. The taxi driver pointed me in the direction of a small table with a man writing in a journal; it was the check in point. He grabbed our tickets, scribbled our seat numbers on them, shoved them back and said hurry, go! The bus was creeping forward honking his horn, vendors were clogging the bus door entry trying for that last sale. I was waving my tickets towards the driver, trying to let him know we are trying to get on board. The bus still creeping forward, horn honking. Judy was behind me, somewhere, I could just barely glimpse her through the throng. She was being propelled by the throng towards the bus door. Then boom, we were there, looking for our seats and trying to find a place for my hand carry.  5:45 AM and it was now moving, not creeping forward. It followed our taxi man as he backed out and we were on our way; 15 minutes early.

Bus to Mongo,  reminded me of the inside of a casino.

Because of your prayers, it was a great trip. We are so thankful for YOU our team. You are impacting lives for Jesus, because of what you are doing. (Praying, giving and advocating for us) Please keep it up! The service Judy and I did allowed our fellow front line colleagues there in the Guera to keep focused on the "main thing", working with their language teams, to get God's Words into three different languages.  But remember, these are never just languages, these are people who need to know Jesus in the pure and simple way you and I know Him. We know Him, because of the Bible in our language and the Holy Spirit working in our lives. These remote people groups in the middle of Chad are getting an incredible gift of hearing God speak their language and starting to really understand it. Judy and I have the wonderful privilege of being on the front lines and seeing the results first hand. On Sunday we attended a church that was in three languages, French, Chadian Arabic (2014 dedication) and Kenga (2012 dedication). The singing, the worship, the prayers and the power of the Holy Spirit was energizing. We thank you and they thank you, for your part in making this happen.

Judy after church in Bitkine

Back to the bus... It was a tour bus! These are brand new here in Chad and used for general long distant travel. Assigned seats, one person to a seat, very comfortable overall and very nice.  We were the only non Chadians on board and felt very comfortable. They have thick plush curtains inside covering the windows, very pretty, probably made it cooler inside, but very difficult to see the outdoor scenery or get a foggy idea of where one is. There was working air-conditioning and two drop down video screens playing Chadian or French African music videos. Mostly conservative, so as to not offend the Islamic culture. Then they played a video, "The Gods Must be Crazy 2". It was in English, sub-titled in Arabic. If you haven't seen it you need to. It's roughly 25 - 30 years old, but the Chadians on the bus were laughing so hard it was enjoyable just watching them.

This trip to Mongo took us 6 hours. Twenty five years ago when I first drove a 4X4 on this same road it took about 18 hours. We did an over-night half way back then. It was slow and rough. Progress is being made in many areas.

Its been a month since the last rain, but its still humid with temperature highs 95 - 105F and lows in the mid to upper 80's There is no air-conditioning at the Mongo center, just a small 12v fan in our bedroom. Judy has a spray bottle and we would spray ourselves in front of the fan to cool down.  We took bucket showers from well water. It was an adventure!

End of rainy season, lots of small lakes

The work Judy and I do is not rocket science, its just basic service through maintenance and assistance. If you could imagine your current workload and having to add to that, doing all of the maintenance and repair of the the buildings and equipment you work with, in addition to your job. How much of your actual job might you get done? That is what our translators are up against. Without people like Judy and I, they  spend 1/2 of their time just surviving, trying to accomplish work they have no training or skill sets in. They really thank you for sending and keeping us here.

Pumping water to the tower

Ab Touyour peak near Bitkine

African bush water hole

Millet in field

Trucks on a narrow Mongo road

Thanks for your partnership,

Jim & Judy McCabe 

Wycliffe

Tucson, AZ April - September

N'Djamena, Chad, October - March

jim_mccabe@sil.org; judy_mccabe@sil.org

http://jim-judys-wycliffe.blogspot.com/

https://wordpress6628.wordpress.com

Greetings from Chad, Africa

Greetings from Chad

Yes, we made it. It was a wonderfully safe trip. Thanks for praying for our driving part to the East from Tucson. We visited my dad and other family in Wichita, plus, a supporting church there. Dad is doing very well too.  We stayed with our daughter, her husband and family in Hickory, NC for almost a week. Great times with the grands and I helped move their washer and dryer from the basement to the main level. Lots more work than anticipated, but always glad to help.  Aren't projects usually like that?  For us it’s always such a pleasure visiting family and friends along the way.

Our flights went great with minimal waiting between them. The longer, nearly 9 hours, from Atlanta to Paris seemed to go fast.

The N'Djamena airport looked brand new and it appears to be fully open. It now has an escalator, better lighting, good signage, air conditioning and our experience going through was the best yet. Always amazing to see how many foreigners are coming to Chad. The SIL facility in Chad looks great, as expected. Our old apartment was waiting for us and we are nearly unpacked and settled in.  It is good to be back here and see our dear colleagues! Temps are still warm with humidity so we feel like we are in Louisiana. Thankful for the AC in our bedroom. 

We will do our best to keep you well informed during this six-month assignment. As always we continually count on your prayers. Here are some now: 

*That we stay in good health

*That we maintain a good life balance, spiritual, physical, mental, emotional.

*That neither of us will allow work to push our lives out of balance. (we have a very hard time keeping this one.) Judy will be returning to be the guest apartment coordinator and I to maintenance project manager. 

*That our families have peace about our being here for this season.

*That our Wycliffe ministry funding will get back up to 100% . Currently we are at 75%

*That we will be the light and love of Jesus to all we meet and work with.

Please feel free to let us know you are praying for us and in what ways we can pray for you.

Jim and Judy McCabe

Wycliffe 

Tucson, AZ April - September

N'Djamena, Chad, October - March

jim_mccabe@sil.org; judy_mccabe@sil.org

http://jim-judys-wycliffe.blogspot.com/

https://wordpress6628.wordpress.com

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

The times, they are a changing...

There is a lookout tower in the back ground. 

Yes, its the Grand Canyon. Jordan is a fireman there again this fire season. We camped just outside the park, to the east of Tusayan, just in the forest. Its called dispersed camping. Its allowed, even encouraged by the forest service. They tell me its "my" national forest, and I am welcomed to access it, camp, hunt, fish, enjoy it, free of charge. 

Now for the real reason I am writing... We must change our "Blog" provider. We have been using www.Blogger.com for years. We have 190 write-ups posted and almost 20,000 page views. But our Chad IT department feels it is a "questionable" blog provider site and will no longer provide access from Chad. So we are hunting for a new provider. I have set up an account with "Wordpress", transferred my write ups from Blogger and starting writing new posts. Those of you who are subscribed to our Blogger site are probably not receiving notices of the new site. https://wordpress6628.wordpress.com

There is a lot to setting up and figgering out how to properly use a new site. I'm on a steep learning curve. If we like it, we will need to "buy in", to gain a whole lot of the features that were free on the old blogger site. I'm waiting on the Chad IT department to let me know if this new provider will be approved, before investing $$$. 

We'll try and publish in both providers for a while.

So, that's the news from J&J today.

Two days touring the Normandy coast in France

We took a couple of days of R&R in France and Belgium. 

Who can identify the cross and this location on the French coast?

My next economy truck. It fits a person and a dog, or a person and a child or two dogs or two children or... 

Cool looking church with a pipe organ in the balcony. 

Here we are hiking up a belfry, that was a jail and now is a tourist  site. 

Jail door. I want one. This thing is solid for being 500 years old.

View from almost the top.

This young man is one of the Syrian refugees who came over in one of those massively overcrowded boats six months ago. He has an incredible story, but he doesn't see it that way. He is happy to be alive and sorry he can never return to his home country.

Still on the belfry, church in background getting a complete renovation. Another Syrian refugee trying to learn French. He already speaks English, Arabic and Persian. He risked his life trying to get to freedom. Ten of thousands are trying the same thing. Freedom is worth risking ones life for.

This is near the top of the belfry. Its a "key board" for playing the bells. They are all connected by cables. It has been modified to computerized electronics for pulling the cables, but can still be played by hand from this seat. 

Finally, at the very top of the belfry. Well... there was still another 50 foot of pointed roof.

The little item at the very top was a winged golden dragon about 18 inches long. Totally unidentifiable from the ground. 

Friends we stayed with in Belgium, Paul and Lauren. 

The loan red tulip. and Judy's purse in the background. That purse helped us get our lost luggage back. A great story for another time. 

This is the North sea, Judy and Jim and our trusted GPS, Joan. Yes, the car came with a name, or at least the talking GPS did. There was a button on the steering wheel that is suppose to allow one to actually speak to Joan, but the artificial intelligence of Joan had already learned how to turn that feature off. She had many similarities to the talking computer, "Hal", in the film 2001 a Space Odyssey.  She was very much an independent thinker, who frequently took us on short side trips off the main route. Once, randomly she did a circle around a stone quarry. We don't know why... I am starting to suspect she was testing how far she could go in dealing with these stupid humans. But, she was always polite and rarely showed emotion when I made a wrong turn. Not like the McDonalds menu computer. They actually programed in a cartoon girl who appears on the screen when you make a mistake ordering. At first she is pleasant and helpful, but progressively gets an attitude. The third time attempting the same mistake and she shows an attitude and tells us to go over to the counter and get help. Technology...

It was a tiring blast! Thanks for praying. We are currently in Asheville, visiting our grandkids and their parents.