Sorry for not updating yet.  There have been major internet issues the past day or so and we have full days of work plus evenings commitments until at least Thursday evening.

Last Sunday, Pastor Dion Philips was back at the Evangelical Bible Church and we finally got to hear him for the first time.  He studied under Pastor Matham at the Evangelical Bible College in Capetown and it shows in his preaching.  Ruth Crowie invited us to dinner after church.  Pastor Dion and his wife were there also, and we had good fellowship and a delicious meal.

Measuring the burned off antenna feedline ends to make a precise splice for the repair

Each morning on Monday and Tuesday I led a four hour training session on the 100,000-watt shortwave transmitters (HC100s).  On Monday it was on the modulator section and Tuesday on the RF (radio frequency) section.  Additional training sessions were put off to next week because of some staff taking holiday time off.

Larry and Sibonginkosi tension the feedline wire to the mark for Steve to crimp the final connector

Wednesday morning is usually staff meeting time, but was cancelled.  Two Wednesdays of each month we go to work after staff meeting, but this week was one of the Wednesdays we had off.  I took Virginia into town to do some shopping, then tried to catch up on some of our email.

Sibonginkosi and Larry reattach the antenna radiating element to the feedline

Thursday was Ascension Day, which is a national holiday in Swaziland.  We had the day off, but I received a call from Steve that an antenna feedline had burned.  He asked me to go to the site to assist with the repair.

Steve pulls the antenna up with the tractor while Larry gets  ready to make the final attachment

Friday was spent at the transmitter site refurbishing the burned parts that were removed from the antenna.  I also tried, without too much success, to adjust the Optimod for one of the transmitter to reduce some low level noise that seems to be originating from the within the Optimod.  I also did some review for the upcoming training sessions next week.

The final test is applying full power to the antenna — it passed the test!

Friday evening we had quite a wind and rain storm around 10pm.  We moved ourselves to the bedroom end of our house away from the tall pines near the kitchen.   When there is a light breeze, these pines live up to the name of this ‘farm’ — Singing Pines.  They ‘roared’ during the storm, but only a few small branches came down, plus lots of pine cones.

Saturday morning we thought our internet connection had been knocked out by the storm.  Later, after checking everything else and to my chagrin, I discovered that the wireless switch on the side of our laptop had somehow gotten switched off!  Virginia spent much of the day preparing the evening meal for the new TWR missionaries and their two girls aged about 5 and 7.  We waited as long as possible to let the muddy roads dry up, before making a quick trip to pick up a couple of items for dinner at the Spar store on this side of town.  We did not get stuck, but the car’s tyres (note the British spelling) are now mud red.

What a potluck in a huge dining room. Ohh — the yummy curry dishes!!

Saturday night, we had another wind and rain storm.  I heard that we had a total of over 3 inches of rain and this is supposed to be the dry season.

Today we had a good morning service with a Mother’s Day message on how to respond when difficulties inevitably come.  After church we were invited to a Mother’s Day dinner (potluck style) with the Young/Pierce family (over 40 present) at Bradley Young’s spacious house in Coates Valley.  We lived in Coates Valley for 13 of the 16 years we previously spent in Swaziland.  Had a great time of fellowship and reminiscing and it was almost dark before we got home.  Of course, the sun is now setting at just a few minutes after 5:00 in the evenings.

This is part of the Young/Pierce family. More than this were at the meal.

An update on my tick bites — the itching is almost gone.  Still take Benadryl in the evening and morning.  The bite marks are still obvious.  It has been two weeks since I was bitten, so it looks like I have avoided the fever.  We are grateful for so many that have been concerned and praying.  Thanks!

For those who are interested in what the weather is like here.  Most days are sunny with cool evenings.  The highs are usually in the mid 70sF and the lows around 50.  There is no heating in the house so the inside temp varies around 65.  It feels quite cold inside at about 60 and we are still about 2 months away from the coolest time of the year.  We do have a fireplace if it gets unbearable and might be able to locate an electric heater.

My apologies to some that may have been receiving multiple update emails regarding this entity.  While I was typing it up, there were multiple inquiries asking about our blog, so it was published quickly then updated as I got around to adding more photos.

Last Sunday we went to the Evangelical Bible Church, where we attended while we lived in Swaziland.  Most had not heard that we were back, so there were a lot of very surprised people.  One commented during the service how much I had ‘matured’.  I think it was a way to say that I looked older!  The singing was heavenly as you could hear the harmony of all the parts.

A few of about 150 tick bites on Larry’s leg

Monday started my daily treks to the transmitter site.  In mid afternoon I was getting sleepy from jet lag and decided to take a walk across the suspension bridge to the water tower making a point to stay in the grass that had been mowed, avoiding the tall grass.  By Thursday, I was itching badly and mentioned this to Steve Stavropoulos where we were for dinner.  He took a look at my feet and began removing pepper ticks.  They are almost invisible.  I was surprised because we had never encountered these tiny ticks during the 16 years that we were in Swaziland in the 70s and 80s — only the bigger ticks, which I was on the lookout for.  When we got home, Virginia removed a lot more in other places.  In all she counted 100 bites, without counting those on my feet and ankles!  We were told that it might take up to 3 weeks to get over the itching.  Hydrocortisone cream helps a lot.  Would appreciate prayer that I do not get tick bite fever from this.

Warthog Steaks

We were invited out to dinner three times this week.  To the Schillers on Wednesday where we ate warthog  first time.  It was very good and we found out the cost is about the same as beef.  We went to the Stavropouloses on Thursday for an evening of playing Mexican Train.  On Friday we were at the Gomes Co family for a stir fry dinner.  He is from Guinea Bissau and she is from Kenya.  They met in Denver, CO! They have one daughter of their own (the youngest) and three daughters that are adopted or fostered — the oldest is a niece who is in Bible school.  On Saturday the Stavropouloses took us to Mlilwane Game Preserve to celebrate Lorraine’s birthday.   We had a braai (BBQ) there with boerewors (spiced sausage) and some more warthog.
I have kept busy at the transmitter site working through various transmitter issues.  None that have keep the transmitters off the air, but could if they would continue to deteriorate.  The transmissions should sound better too.  Next week I am scheduled to begin a course of training on the 100,000 watt transmitters.  Pray that this will go well, since this training is a first for me.  It will probably last a couple of weeks.

Virginia has been keeping busy as well, trying to get our house stocked with food and other essentials, plus preparing meals.  She has attended a couple of ladies meetings and tried to be an encouragement there.

Today we are looking forward to church again.  This week their senior pastor Dion should be back, so we are looking forward to hearing him preach.  He is a different pastor than the one that was here last time we were in Swaziland.

It has been a little difficult to keep this up to date on a daily basis.  The internet is slow and there are other things to do.  But maybe you won’t get bored with fewer entries!

Sunday, April 28, we attended EBC, the church we attended while we were living here.  We were happy to see many familiar faces.  There have been changes as there always is over time.  It brought back lots of memories.  Memories of  bringing our children there, memories of people who have gone to be with the Lord, and so many other memories.  It was amusing, when one of the men welcomed us that he said, “Larry McGuire left us as a young man and returned to us a mature man.”  Ha ha!! I said that’s a nice way to call us old!

After church we had dinner with the Stavropoulouses, and then spent the afternoon recuperating from the trip and time changes  and settling in.

Monday, April 29, I, Virginia, attended a prayer meeting in the morning and then went to town with a friend.  We are living out of town and pretty isolated.  I have not gotten the courage to drive someone else’s car on the left side of the road on unfamiliar streets,  lots of one way streets,  lots of traffic, etc.  So I am dependent on others to take me around.  The prices of food seems about the same as the States with fruits and vegetables a little cheaper.

The Schillers — Klaus, Katja and family

Tuesday was laundry day and another trip to town.  On Wednesday evening, we had dinner with some TWR people and had grilled warthog.  It didn’t taste like pig at all.  I liked it.

Pap (corn meal) and Warthog

Warthog and Boerewors

It’s been one week since we left home.  Today is a holiday here and I have the day off after Wednesday morning staff meeting.  We did some shopping at the Pick N Pay supermarket while we were in town, but nearly all other stores are closed.

We are finding communication fairly time consuming.  The internet connection to TWR is very slow.  Just to check our email, it takes a couple minutes for the login page to load.  After putting in our login information, it takes several minutes (this morning it took 10 minutes) to connect to the email site, then another two minutes to show the email that had come in.  Our co-workers in the U.S. think the DSL that we use at home is slow — it works like lightning compared to this!

Connecting to Facebook usually takes a long time, so we use it a lot less than back home.  It looks like email will be our primary method of communication.

We can use Skype and it seems to connect more quickly than doing email.   If you want to contact us using your Skype connection, send us an email with your Skype address and we can provide our Skype information.  The ‘call’ is free if you have a Skype account.  We are typically on Skype from noon to 3pm Indiana time (CDT).

If you do not have a Skype account and would like for us to call you, send an email  with the phone number and  we can call your phone directly for less than 2 cents per minute.   If you have a time that you would prefer a call, let us know.  Just remember that we try to sleep from about 3pm t0 midnight Indiana time (CDT).

My time here is mostly spent at the transmitter site — two days so far.  Initially I have been catching up on changes that have taken place since we were here a little over four years ago and trying to determine the current status of the transmitters.  So far, I found out that the drive control on one of the three transmitters was performing quite differently than the other two.  Yesterday, we determined that it had an old version of EPROMS on the CPU card.  These were changed out for the newer version.  Both spare CPU cards now have the old version.

The front door with its security gate

We are beginning to get into the routine of things here.  Before going to bed, there is a ‘ritual’ of locking security gates  (there are four — two to the outside, one to the attached garage and one in the hallway between the main house and bedrooms) and certain doors.  Then after we are securely in our bedroom, we activate the alarm, if it has not already activated itself at 10pm.  We can move between the bedrooms and bathrooms without setting off the alarms.  First thing in the morning, we deactivate the alarm and switch on the hot water heater for about 30 minutes so we can have warm showers.

When a co-worker and his family visited two nights ago we discovered that the alarm also activates some outside motion sensors.  Our visitors had to explain to us what the intermittent squawking sound was.  We assume that it automatically activates around dusk.

The front of our ‘home away from home’ in Swaziland. If you look closely you can see the security bars on the windows. The dark rectangular shape on the roof is an experimental solar heater for the geyser (hot water heater) made from black plastic pipe.

When we leave the house there is a similar routine of locking doors and gates.  We have a remote device that we take with us, which has four buttons on it.  One button is to open and close the garage door, the second button sets the alarm (there are bright LED lights in two of the house windows to indicate the alarm status), the third button opens the fence gate to drive out (it closes automatically once the car passes through) and one is a ‘panic’ button — pushing that one results in alerting TWR staff and a rapid response team from the security company.  Of course the car has its own start-up sequence using its own remote button, plus hidden switch inside, which Virginia mentioned in her previous post.  There is a similar reverse routine to return to the house.

Should the alarm sound while we are gone, it will call our cell phone as well as the cell phones of two other staff members.  I think the security company is also alerted.

Many of the gates for vehicles are automatic and controlled with remote buttons carried in the vehicles.  In addition, many of the gates can be opened by a call to a cell phone incorporated within that gate’s controls.  The gate’s cell phone determines whether a valid number is calling before opening the gate.  Since the gate phone never actually ‘answers’, there is no fee charged to either phone.  If someone arrives at the gate off the main road which is about five miles from the site, that person can call the site, or other person with a valid phone, who can then open the gate by calling that gate’s cell phone number.  If I should forget my remote gate opener, I can pull out my cell phone and call the gate’s cell phone number myself and not incur a fee to do so.  If I forget both the remote and cell phone, it would be a long walk to the site or a long drive back home!