Saturday, January 7, 2023, a team of more than twenty will begin their journeys to Africa. Team members are from all over the United States, including Washington, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and places between. We will assemble for the first time in Brussels, Belgium, before heading to Bujumbura, Burundi. We expect to arrive there on Sunday night. We will all have to take a Covid test upon arrival, and go through the process of obtaining an on-arrival Visa. We could be held up in the airport for quite a while to complete all of this. We would appreciate your prayers for the team as they are doing final preparations and packing in the next few days. We will begin posting photos when we are together in Brussels.
Please follow along with us as we begin the work at hand. There has been much preparation and several preliminary trips before this one. Materials have been shipped and are now on site.
The gist of the project is this: Kibuye Hope Hospital was one of our earlier PowerPac projects, being installed in 2018. At that time the batteries were new and the system was providing 24/7 reliable power to the hospital for the first time. As loads have increased since that time it became necessary to replace the battery system (AGM) with a Lithium system. In October a team of us traveled there and replaced batteries in the existing PowerPac container. A new container was already in shipment status, which will house all of the new batteries, now. At present the October project installed 5/9 of the total batteries. The system is now being expanded. New Inverters and new Solar Modules are being added to increase the size of the power by more than double. This should provide adequate power for the hospital for years to come. Lord willing this team of workers will be able to install all of the new solar modules and inverters within the time of three weeks this month. There is a lot of work to be done, as we have to uninstall the work we did in October to make room for new equipment, reinstall it in the new container, and install all of the additional batteries, inverters, and solar equipment. Stay tuned.
Pray that everyone will remain healthy throughout this time, and that all flights will be on time without delays. Also pray that our luggage will all pass through Customs successfully, so that we have the tools and clothing we need to do the work.
In addition to working at Kibuye Hospital, we plan to send a few workers to Hope Africa University in Bujumbura, to replace some vandalized solar modules and continue some of the work we started in October. This will be at the end of our time in Kibuye, so it is possible that there will be blog posts from both locations at that time.
Also, this Blogger (Me, Gary) will be leaving earlier than the rest of the team due to another planned trip to Southeast Asia, so there will definitely be others participating in the blog. Please pass the blog address on to your friends and family. Our internet is somewhat limited in Burundi, so this is designed to be the main outlet of information for your friends and family. It will be linked on our I-TEC website at some point, but only after everyone is safe on the ground and at our final destination. We want to provide security for our team members abroad, and for their families at home, so there will not be full names or personal information divulged through this outlet. Hopefully every person on the team will at some point show up in photos, so that you can know they are safe and well.
Next post will likely be on Sunday. Hopefully we can catch any spelling errors as we go on and make any necessary corrections.
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