This morning, the International Bible Church had their monthly men’s breakfast, so us men went. The breakfast food was pancakes with bananas, egg casserole, and sausages. The pastor had a Bible study titled “Theophany” after breakfast.  The focus was on the Trinity and on man being created in the image of God. One simple thought stood out to me—man is the only creation of God that prays to Him.

Internet is out again at the duplex, so we stopped just outside the TWR office on the way to and from the breakfast to send and receive emails plus make phones calls to moms and spouses.

After getting back to the duplex, we had time to drive around the south end of the island, since the cousins had not been there yet. What did we see? First there is the transmitter site, then the salt pans, the salt pier, slave huts, kite surfing, flamingos, radar tower for marine traffic, lighthouse (southern tip of Bonaire), crashing waves all along the rocky east coast, small windmills that pump salt water from ocean inlets into salt pans, a large wind turbine (the first one that was built on Bonaire) to generate electricity, the donkey sanctuary, then back to the duplex.

For lunch the ladies set out all the leftovers from the week. These were all consumed, freeing up much needed space in the refrigerators.

This afternoon, Jim, Jake, Philip and Brian did some exploring to find some caves located a few miles north of Kralendijk, the capital of Bonaire. Although these caves were well known and explored 40 years ago, it seems they are now kept fenced off and accessible only by using tour guides. Even so, they were able to explore the rugged terrain found outside the populated areas of Bonaire.

I took an hour long nap, before taking the ladies and Ralph to town to do some grocery shopping. Ralph and I explored a hardware store which obviously had been stocked by one of the hardware chains in the U.S. Lots of hardware in inch sizes and lots of tools. It was obvious that a lot of items had very little turnover as some of the tools had begun to rust, some more than others. The cause—probably because the store was not air conditioned like the other hardware store, Kooymans.

The ladies went to four grocery stores before they found everything on their short shopping list. Fortunately, three of the store were adjacent to each other and the fourth was just down the street about a block.

By the time we got back to the duplex, the explorers were back home and some were wanting to go for a swim before supper. So I drove Mark, Philip and Jake to Bachelor Beach and joined in on the cool-down. This evening the waves were a little higher than normal. This stirred up the sand which reduced visibility for viewing fish.

For supper the ladies made hamburgers and reheated pizza leftovers from last night. We also had applesauce and some of the young men had crackers and jam for dessert.

With all the 200, 400, 800, and 1200 amp wiring installed, the pace of the work has thankfully slowed somewhat for me.

Steven, Brian, Bruce and Philip began working on the wiring for lights and outlets (both 110v and 220v) in the new lab, just off the new transmitter hall.  This is the type of wiring they do regularly at home, and requires very little input from me.  It is neat to see how quickly these cousins work together to get the job done.

Paul continued to work in the power room installing a ceiling light and outlets.  By afternoon, we were able to back-feed the 800 amp panel which allowed him to use a vacuum cleaner to clean out all the concrete dust and metal shavings from the bottoms of all the panels and from the floor.  He installed all the panel covers, except the one for the 1,200 amp breaker panel.  We still need to design and wire the circuit for the shunt trip to be used for an emergency shutdown button to be installed inside the transmitter hall.

“Uncle’ Jim and Jake continued assembling the long copper lines by now connecting them to the condensing units.  Jim discovered the reason for the elbows not fitting onto the tubing easily.  The tubing is slightly oval.  By squeezing the larger diameter of the oval, the fittings slide on much easier.

Mid-morning, the air handlers which weigh about 1,800 lbs each finally arrived at the site and were unloaded.  These are to be located in the loft above the transmitter hall.  We quickly learned that the forklift they brought to lift them into the loft could not lift them quite high enough.  Fortunately, Amado Felix, a former TWR employee from the 1960s and now a prominent businessman on Bonaire, was overseeing this delivery.  When he saw the problem, he immediately contacted his brother at the salt company to bring their telehandler (large front-end loader type fork lift).

The air handlers had been ordered as one left-hand unit and one right-hand unit.  Immediately, we noticed that, although the cooling coils were opposite as was needed, the access doors for the filters and blowers had not been reversed.  This was a problem, because one side of the air handler is close to the wall and the doors have to be on the side away from the wall.  Steven and I quickly changed the access doors to the other side while waiting for the telehandler.

The telehandler arrived shortly before lunch.  It definitely had the capability of lifting the air handlers high enough, but the boom was going to hit the ceiling trusses before the bottom of the air handler was high enough to slide into the loft.  Again, Amado Felix was there and with his contacts, and influence, was able to locate a forklift that could do the job after lunch.

Ralph and I went home for lunch, but today we did not siesta.  Instead, we went to Kooyman Hardware be pick up a couple of items for the project.

We had been forewarned that the forklift we needed was very busy on another job and that we could only use it for an hour.  Therefore, we had everything ready when the forklift arrived about 2pm.  I didn’t time how long it took to lift both air handlers into the loft, but am sure that it was done in less than 20 minutes.  We are so grateful that Amado was there to orchestrate this for us.  If TWR people were requesting this forklift, I am sure that it would have taken several days for it to come, rather than a couple of hours!

It has been awhile since I (Virginia) have written anything. The days have been so busy! I will try to give you a brief overview of what our (Mary Jane and I) days are like at home here on Bonaire.

Usually our day begins around 5:45 in the morning, at least that is the time the alarm is supposed to go off.  We usually are awake before that.  A quick cool shower wakes one up and readies us for the day.  The shower is cool because we have no hot water heater in our side of the duplex.  The water pipes run on the top of the ground and heat up during the day from the sunshine and can be very warm in the evenings, but are usually always cool in the mornings.

After getting dressed and having a little quiet time, it is time to prepare breakfast  We try to prep as much as possible the night before, but we do have cooked cereal and eggs once in awhile and pancakes on Saturday mornings.  We usually eat around 7:00, a hymn is sung after eating, then the guys get ready to leave.  They collect their lunch and make sure they have water bottles along.

When things quiet down, after the guys leave, Mary Jane and I clean up, start the laundry and then we sit down with something to drink and go over the menu for the next couple of days and begin prepping for dinner.  We do hang the clothes out on the line, but there is a dryer that is run off bottled gas, as is the stove. The dryer is slow and expensive to run, but the clothes dry quickly in the breeze so we seldom have the need for the dryer. The wind blows from the east and the clothes lines run north and south, so it is just right for drying. We have learned to not drop anything on the ground.  The ground is covered with burrs of some sort and they are literally a pain to remove.  The wind also can blow them onto things and those annoying little things  stick to shoes and track into the house as well.

Larry and Ralph, the  two grandpas (actually there are some younger grandpas here, too), come home for lunch.  They eat lunch and snooze for 15-20 minutes before going back to work.  The temperature is in the high 80’s and the humidity is fairly high,  and working with the much younger men, creates a combination that makes a break at noon very much appreciated and needed.

Most days Mary Jane or I take Ralph and Larry back to work after lunch and we take the truck to town. Everything is close here on Bonaire so it doesn’t take long to get to the site or to town.  We buy groceries that are needed and try to do a little sight seeing and visit the shops. We do have two refrigerators, but feeding 11 people keeps our refrigerators full and us constantly thinking about food. For example we use about 2-1/2 loaves of bread a day. Buying fresh bread and veggies are usually the main items on the shopping list. Sometimes we stop for some ice cream at the little ice cream shop @ $1.75 a scoop or a cool drink in the newer grocery store on the island. All the shops are air-conditioned which makes it even more pleasant to walk into the shops and linger.

We normally have to rush home to pick up the guys at 4:30 when the work day here seems to end. The guys then like to head to the water, which is less than a half mile away, to cool off and relax.  I would say ‘beach’, but there is no sand until one gets into the water.  There are stairs down the short coral cliff to the water.  When they return, they shower under the outside shower to get the sand off and get ready for dinner around 5:30 or 6:00.  After dinner we have one or two hymns and then everyone gets out their ‘device’ and talks to their families or sweethearts

I forgot to mention that mornings and evenings finds the young men sitting around with their Bibles or ‘devices’ studying God’s word. Some are memorizing portions of scripture and often we hear them reciting to each other.  Such a thoughtful, caring group of young men.

After cleaning up from the evening meal, Mary Jane and I make the sandwiches and lunches for the next day and prep for breakfast.  Usually we are done with all that around 8:00 and are ready to shower and drop into bed.  We are SO thankful  for air-conditioning in the bed rooms so we can relax and sleep well. The cost of utilities is about 10 times what it is in the States, so we only run it at night.  We are also thankful for air-conditioners in cars. Air -conditioning makes life so much more pleasant.

After devotions, work began on pulling in the 100 feet long 4 conductor 4/0 cable that is about 2 inches in diameter, and heavy!  I was amazed as a couple of the VanderWerf grandsons grabbed the end of the cable and shoved it through the hole into the loft.  Two more grandsons received the cable to pull it through the loft and push it through a hole in the wall onto the cable tray going to the power room.  The remaining two grandsons pulled the cable down the tray and threaded it through the entry into the power room.  I didn’t time this operation, but guess it took no more than a couple minutes.  All I know is that there was not enough time to run outside to take photos of the process before it was already done!!

This 4/0 cable ran from the 200 amp panel in the transmitter hall to a breaker in the 800 amp distribution panel.  We were trying to determine the best routing through the power room, as the cable was too short to run down to the trench then back up to the breaker.  We decided to route the cable up and across the ceiling and use 2 hole saddle clamps to attach it to the ceiling.  There were not enough clamps in stock, so Ralph and I made a trip to Kooyman, Bonaire’s hardware store.  Kooyman had exactly what we needed.  We gave these clamps to Paul and when we checked back in less than an hour, the cable was attached neatly to the ceiling and connected to its breaker.  I suspect he enlisted the aid of his brother, or a cousin, to hold it up and secure it.

Now that this 4/0 cable runs to the 200 amp panel, Ralph and I switched off power to the temporary power cable that we had attached to the 200 amp main breaker a couple of days ago.  This temporary cable keeps lights and outlets powered in the new transmitter hall.   We quickly attached this temporary feed to a 25 amp three phase breaker in the panel.  Power was then restored with the circuits now being back-fed through the 25 amp breaker.  By switching the main breaker off (and taping it off), we were now able to connect the 4/0 cables to the 200 amp main breaker.  When the power company finally connects electricity to the power room, the temporary line can be disconnected and the main breaker switched on (after removing the tape) and this panel will be receiving its power from its designed source.

Meanwhile, ten 50 foot long 500mcm (about 1″ diameter) cables were being run from the 1,200 amp breaker in the power room to where the transmitter disconnect switch will be located.  These are also routed on the cable tray.  These cables are so heavy that the small tractor with front-end loader could not lift the spool containing the cable.  The spool had to be lifted with a chain hoist to put it on the stand for unreeling the cable.  These ten cables were cut for length then pulled through one-at-time, then Paul terminated then on the 1,200 amp breaker.   The other end was left hanging to be connected to a disconnect switch that will be coming with the transmitter.

These ten 500mcm cables were bundled in two bundles of three cables and one bundle of four.  Each bundle contains one wire from each phase.  The fourth cable in the larger bundle is a ground cable.  Each bundle is tie-wrapped to the cable tray to keep about 3″ spacing between each bundle.

At noon, Ralph and I went to the duplex for lunch and siesta.  We found out that Lionel treated the rest of our team to some goat meat stew and iquana.  Apparently the iguana was female, so they also had some iquana eggs!

Jim and Jake began connecting the copper lines to the condensing units.  The air handlers and cooling coils are supposed to be delivered tomorrow, just in time to avoid delays in the process of installing the air conditioners.

Bruce completed the modifications required to connect the dual 350mcm cable to the standby generator.

Philip and Brian progressed to the point of being able to switch on the LED light fixtures located above the future transmitter.  Multiple outlet circuits are also being installed.

As we reviewed progress at the end of the day, all the heavy cabling has been completed that can be done.  The connections for incoming power need to be done by the power company and the transmitter needs to be here to connect the other end.

Since we had been invited out for desert at 7pm this evening, our swim at Bachelor Beach was shortened.  We then had ‘tater tot’ casserole, cole slaw,  applesauce and salad with craisins and sunflower seeds.

Dessert was at the guest house where the VanDykens are staying.  All the missionary staff were there and each family brought a dessert to share.  There was a carrot cake, a couple of ‘dump cakes’, and ‘glorified rice’.