Today I am finally beginning to feel normal again.  I had forgotten how difficult it is to fly so many hours and change so many time zones.  I have been so tired!  I haven’t awakened so many times at night since I had tiny babies around.

Lorraine is in charge of planning meals and tea for a meeting that TWR is sponsoring next Thursday and Friday.  The meetings are to help farmers to use their land in a more conservative, Godly and profitable manner.  It is a program that has worked very well in other parts of Africa.  Local farmers, missionaries and others are learning this technique in order to teach others a better way of farming.

So this morning Lorraine had organized a meeting of the TWR ladies (4 of them) to plan the teas and meals.  They are planning on around 70 people.  We’ll have a lot of potatoes to peel and onions to chop.  It was so good to see missionaries I have known for a long time and meet a new one.  After the meeting, Lorraine and I went into town and I exchanged some money.  I saw a lot of friends there, some that I had not seen in almost 20 years.  The surprising thing was that they recognized me.  I saw Nelson, Silvanos, Phumzile, Ethel, the lady at the cold storage place where we buy boxes of apples, Corrie, and Debbie.  They all remembered Allan and Joyce and asked about the others.

We also did a little shopping and I was very surprised at the many different brands that are available now.  When we first came the choices were very limited, but now the supermarket has nearly as many choices as a small one in the U.S.

The traffic is much worse and the drivers are more careless than before.  There are lots of traffic lights (only two in the whole country before) and people everywhere.  And that’s why we’re here is people.  They will hear the Gospel preached over the transmitter the men are installing.

Hans with HC100 beginning of Day 1

When I arrived at the transmitter site this morning, I was amazed at the progress already made by the TWR Swaziland staff and the Blosser crew from Sugar Grove Church.  The frames were together, the trim and some of the doors were already on.  All the transformers and inductors were installed and the wiring (all 192 connections) from the HV transformers to the 64 SSM modules was done.  The balun and VHF filter were on top of the transmitter and bolted into place.  All of the heat exchanger pieces, including the radiator, were bolted into place.  Unit 5 and the voltage regulator unit were in position and most of the wiring done.

Motor and air tubing installed

Today I installed all the motors and most of the plumbing.  Klaus did a lot of the wiring between the cabinets.  Hans and Steve installed the vacuum variable capacitors (excluding the balun ones) and the tube.  Two crew of Swazis were busy preparing transmission line ducting and installing the decorative fascia above the transmitter.

So far, only one thing needs to be redone — the bottom trims pieces were attached without their shims.

Today we attended church and Sunday School with Steve and Lorraine Stavropoulos. We quite enjoyed hearing the Swazi praise team.  They  were dressed with Swazi cloths tied around them as the Swazis used to dress.  They  sang and danced to many of the praise songs that we sing in church.

We did take some pictures and will hopefully be writing more and posting tne pictures.

James Burnett, Steve Stavropoulos and Larry

The Stravropouloses picked us up this morning for the trip to Swaziland.  The first half of the trip is through open county that is similar to the terrain and vegetation of central Kansas.  We then entered more hilly country with man made forest of gum (eucalyptus) trees, used for electric, telephone and other poles, and pine trees used for lumber.  There were newly planted areas and others of various sizes up to those ready for ‘harvest’.  The hills then became more mountainous, similar to mountains in the Appalachians.

We reached the Swaziland border in about three hours.  First passing through the South Afrian border post then the Swaziland one.  Big changes have occurred here.  No papers to fill out anymore!!  Passports are scanned by a computer now resulting in much faster processing.

We made two stops on the way to where we are staying.  First at the Ngwenya Glass Factory then a side trip to a new dam on the Komati River just off the road to Piggs Peak.  It is an earthen dam which has won engineering awards for design.  The Swaziland Electricity Board has a 20 megawatt turbine in operation there.

We are staying in a one room cottage with bathroom next to the Stavropoulos’ house and will be eating meals with them.

We made it into Johannesburg about 10:00pm (about an hour delayed) last night.  Spent almost 2 hours going through immigration.  There were only 3 persons there to process over 400 passengers and we ended up near the end of the line.  It was past midnight before we got to James and Lynn Burnett’s home.  They are former colleagues from our days in Swaziland and have visited us two or three times in Elkhart.   Slept soundly from 1am til 7am we got up to start the day.  We hope recovery from jet lag will not take long.  So far, so good.

We visited the TWR Africa Regional Office this morning, met many old friends, met many that we have only read about in TWR correspondence and made many more new friends.

Steve and Lorraine Stavropoulos plan to drive up from Swaziland this evening and drive us the 250 miles back to Swaziland tomorrow.  Actually the roads are quite good, so it should take less than 5 hours.  Thanks for your continuing prayers