Today we attended morning services starting 9am at International Bible Church of Bonaire.  We got there early and sat on the windward side of the church to enjoy the breeze blowing through the building.  The place was full with the regular attendees, then when a group of about 15 (that flew in yesterday for a week of helping TWR) arrived at the service the church was packed!  The pastor’s sermon seemed to us to actually be two sermons.  He started with his comments on Epiphany Day (a January 6 holiday also known as Theophany, Little Christmas, or Three Kings’ Day) which included mentioning appearances of Christ in the Old Testament.  The real sermon was titled, “This Year: Pray”.

There were a couple of rather humorous distractions during the sermon.  A tropical mocking bird landed on the sill of a high open window at the back of the church and started chirping loudly.  It was so loud that it overpower the pastor, even though he was using a PA.  At one point, he mentioned the “competition.”  Shortly after that, a donkey walked by the open windows and doors on the windward side of the building.

After the sermon, the Lord’s Supper was served.  We then stayed for adult Sunday School and viewed a video study from a series on the Holy Land produced by Focus on the Family.

We invited Marco and Vera out to dinner tonight at Captain Don’s on the waterfront, so we ate a light lunch, then spent the afternoon relaxing and working on our blog.

Just before sunset we rode with Reinstras to Captain Don’s and ate a delicious dinner while watching the sunset and enjoying the cool breeze.  Had a wonderful time of getting to know Marco and Vera better.

 

After dinner, I tried to call my mother in Colorado using my computer, only to find out something had changed and Skype would no longer work with my Firefox browser, even after updates.  Skype didn’t work on Internet Explorer either!  After an hour or so of fussing around, Virginia downloaded the Skype app onto her Kindle.  This proved successful!  Later I learned that Skype now only works on Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers.  Just what I need–another browser on my old laptop with its limited disk capacity!

The cool wind made it nice for sleeping this evening, but we still kept the ceiling fan on ‘high’ for the times that there were lulls in the breeze.  Every once in a while, I could feel the curtains brush across me.

This morning I attended the monthly men’s breakfast at the international Bible Church with Marco Rienstra.  We had scrambled eggs with peppers, etc, potato patties, bacon and pancakes that were prepared by David Peterson.  The breakfast was followed by a thought provoking Bible study on Sola Scriptura contrasting general revelation of God (Psalm 19 and Romans 1:19-20) with the special revelation of God in His Word.

Virginia went out to breakfast at Illys with Vera Reinstra and had cappuccino and a bagel.  The cappuccino also comes with a tiny ice cream cone attached (and dripping in the heat!).

I took a two hour nap around midday, while Virginia did some reading.

 

 

 

We then shopped in the afternoon for food at Bonaire Warehouse Supermarket.  They have quite a large selection of food from the U.S. and Holland.  The Holland brands are typically cheaper (only about 50 to 100% higher than in Indiana).  This is OK as long as you can read Dutch or the pictures on the packages are recognizable!  If instructions are needed to prepare the food, that becomes another factor in what to buy.

Just before sunset, we took a long walk along the road going north.  There was an old road that continued along the shore line, but in recent years a detour was made to make room of a new upper class housing development.  We walked along the ‘closed’ old road, which is now becoming overgrown with thorn bushes.  In places we could only walk single file.

 

 

 

 

There was also a rugged path down to the beach, where we could observe the sun setting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After dark, one of the neighbors set off some fireworks for our listening pleasure!  High today was in the mid 80sF so we were again able to sleep comfortably with the ceiling fan on high speed.

This morning I drove to the transmitter site alone as Marco takes Fridays off. He is a retiree from Holland and volunteers to work at TWR. I arrived at the gate a few minutes early and had to wait for someone to open it. While waiting I noticed a small yellow bird that kept momentarily landing on the passenger side rear view mirror. Every time it saw me it took off, but it kept coming back. So I grabbed the camera and waited. The photo is not the best, because it was into the sun.      [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOlfg-657Q4]

After devotions at 8am, we began to move the four transmitter cabinets for the 400,000-watt AM transmitter into position. The plywood covers had already been removed, but each cabinet had been wrapped in heavy plastic sheeting, then 1″ sytrofoam sheeting and then wrapped in plastic film, which all had to be removed. By noon, all the units weighing about 800 pounds each were moved into place onto their concrete pad.

Since all the other missionaries went home for lunch, Dave Pederson took me to his home. He lives next door to the TWR duplex. We had quesadillas for lunch. This was even better than the PBJ sandwich I had taken for my lunch. (When the large team is here next week there will be plenty of people staying for lunch at the site)

After lunch we continued to follow the Nautel installation instructions and install items including an antenna ground switch and stiffeners on the tops of the cabinets.

 

 

 

At the end of the day, we began to start leveling the cabinets on their not perfectly level pad and managed to get two of the four cabinets bolted together. We will not be working at the site tomorrow (Saturday).

During the day, Virginia helped Vera clean the duplex and did some shopping.

For supper, we had rice with meat and peanut sauce left over from the meal that Reinstra’s prepared for us last night.

Tonight, the breeze was not as strong as last night so we set the ceiling fan to high speed and still did not need to use the air conditioner.

We were up at 2:30am to get ready for our journey to Bonaire. Joshua drove us to the airport. We left our house at 3:45 to allow extra time because of lake effect snow falling in South Bend. Roads were mostly snow packed as we got closer to South Bend. Arrived about 4:45 at the airport, checked one bag, and proceeded to the TSA security check. Both of us had ‘TSA Pre’ check written on our boarding passes (which has happened for all our trips the past couple years). This means we don’t have to take our shoes off or go through the scanner. We still go through the metal detector and our baggage goes through the Xray. We were not really surprised when every one of our carry-ons were searched by hand. I had moved some heavy items our of our large checked bag to keep it under 50 pounds, so the small steel box to be used for an emergency switch in my bag and the cake mixes in Virginia’s bag were the ‘suspicious’ items!

Our flight was to leave at 6:00 and the status board showed it leaving at 5:55am. About 5:50 an announcement was made that the aircraft was too cold inside (it had sat out all night in the cold and snow) and needed to be warmed up. About 6:10 we boarded a plane that was still freezing cold inside. After everyone was on board, the pilot said we would be backing away from the gate for a 20 minute de-icing. That was not a surprise because there were big icicles on the windows because melting snow on top of the plane had refrozen on the windows! About 40 minutes later, after the de-icing vehicle had made at least two passes around the aircraft, we finally were on our way–an hour after the scheduled departure time.

With only 90 minute layover in Atlanta, it was fortunate that the flight took 20 minutes less than scheduled, we landed and proceeded without delay to the gate. We had to change terminals, but Atlanta’s shuttle train makes that quick. We arrived at the gate for the Bonaire flight with plenty of time to spare.

The flight to Bonaire was scheduled to take 4 hours but it only took 3-1/2 hours. Bonaire’s airport consists of one runway, which is also the taxiway to or from the terminal. We got through immigration fairly quickly as ours was the only flight at the terminal, plus our flight was not very full. There was no one at customs, so that was a ‘walk through’.

Vera Rienstra met us at the airport. We will be staying in a bedroom/kitchenette with bath, which is part of the Rienstra house. The duplex that we stayed induring our last trip will be full this coming week. We should be moving into the duplex in about 10 days.

We have the use of a 2001 Hyundai Atos 1.1 for part (maybe all) of the time we are here. It will have to be used to take Marco (Vera’s husband) to work, so if Virginia wants to use it she will have to drive us to work (about seven miles through town from where we are staying to the transmitter site).

When we opened our checked bag we discovered that it had also been opened by TSA in South Bend.  Again we were not surprised, as we were carrying some special heavy bars for bending large electric cable. These bars would have just fit into my carry-on, but I had second thoughts that TSA may consider them potential weapons and take them away if packed into my carry-on!

The weather here is cooler (high of 85F) than last time and there are strong breezes.  We can sit in our room and not feel like we are sweating. We slept a little warm, but comfortably, our first night without using the air conditioner.

There were four of us again at the transmitter site devotions this morning — Kevin, Lionel, Ivan and I.

I spent most of the morning making final revisions on our May 2017 McGuiReport and compiling the page of listener responses to be included with the mailing of this report.   For some reason, this process seems to take longer from a remote location, than it does from Elkhart.  Everything was completed and emailed with instructions to TWR Cary by noon.

For lunch we had leftover pizza and lettuce with carrots and sunflower seeds.  We also shared a small bag of Sun chips (original style).  Virginia said that our supper tonight should be really interesting.

My nap lasted almost 20 minutes–my ‘alarm clock’ forgot to wake me up!!

Shortly after lunch, an email came announcing that enough funds had come in for the Bonaire Power Up project to allow the ordering of the new 400,000-watt AM transmitter.  Praise the LORD!!  The order was signed and sent to Nautel, the transmitter company, today.  Delivery is anticipated in about 5 months.

This afternoon, I investigated what was going to be needed to connect power and control wiring to the 600kw dummy load.  In the process, I discovered a large stack of cardboard boxes that had been packed inside the dummy load.  They appear to be mostly installation and spare parts for the dummy load.   These were removed from the dummy load and moved into the transmitter hall for Jonas or Dave to handle next week.

Virginia went to town again this afternoon to pick up some last minute items to take home with us, then picked me up at 4:30.

Today was my last day of work for this trip to Bonaire.  Tomorrow we are scheduled to fly out at 2:50 pm.  We plan to spend that night with my niece and her family in the Atlanta area, then fly to South Bend on Sunday arriving just after 8 pm.

Yes, our supper was ‘interesting’!  Virginia called it ‘self-assembled shepherds pie’ using a variety of leftovers that needed to be used up.  The first layer was mixed vegetables, with leftover hamburger pizza topping next, then pizza sauce.  The Dutch equivalent of ‘Tater Tots’ were then put on top.  Not exactly shepherd’s pie, but close!

We went to Bachelor Beach for about 1/2 hour before the sun went down.  Tonight, seemed a little clearer than last night, but there was too much haze on the horizon to see the sun set.  We did notice a ship coming in from the southeast.  As it got closer, it looked like the ship that brings about 10 containers per load.

We now need to get busy packing!!