The long awaited generator arrives!
Monday was the day. A truck, packed to the gills with market produce, rolled up to the house in the early morning with a special surprise. The generator arrived. There it was, snugly tucked away, under a barrage of cabbage, onions, pineapples, and other tasty market produce. We had been anticipating it’s arrival, but it was that much sweeter to see this day in person.
Using a local transport company in Madang turned out to be unfruitful. Unfortunatly, they were not able to help us with picking up the unit in Goroka. However, on Friday last week, we were able to secure a a flatbed truck from Mt. Hagen on its way back to Madang. Patrick, one of our friends in Madang, was able to set-up the meeting that made it all happen. We are so thankful to him for his help on this!
The unloading procedure was rather, well, interesting… Basically, we planned to wait for a forklift to unload it, but that would have taken over an hour. So there we were, dealing with the one hour wait or something else. So they (not me), decided to unload a 1,100lb generator by hand. It would have been a GREAT video for a “what not to do” OSHA safety training seminar. Two small planks of wood were securely placed on the back of the truck, and we slowly led the unit down the ramp to the ground. Then, we balanced the unit on the front of it’s frame, until the truck drove forward to get out of the way. In just 20 minutes, the truck was gone and the generator was on the ground!
Stretim, stretim em (fixing, fixing it)
Patrick, Jon and I, lifted an edge of the unit was a stud, and positioned a 4″ steel pipe under it. From there, we balanced and pushed the generator to it’s temporary resting place, next to the house. Needless to say, we were all a little tired after the whole ordeal. We placed a tarp on the unit until the following day. After looking at everything, we decided it was time to add a battery to the shopping list.
Today, Patrick and I were able to get the new battery attached. We primed the diesel and started it up. There were a few things that delayed us, but after a little while we had her purring like a kitten. Praise the Lord it’s running well. Over the next two days, I plan to get it attached to the house for load testing. If all is well, it will be time to build a small shed for the new unit. Lord willing, it will be a helpful tool to keep operations running in Madang for many years to come.
Thank you to all of you, who have been praying for this generator to made the trip to Madang. Thank you as well for all of you that have prayed it would work well and run. We are praying that the load testing goes well.
Recent Comments