It came back on!

View this email in your browser After 5 weeks without electricity it has come back on I had visited the electricity company and spoken to the director about the situation, that the electricity had been off for some while. He told me that the transformer for our neighbourhood had burnt out and a replacement part was coming from the capital. I was willing to accept that and after the first week and the second, but when it started to run into the third and fourth my patience was getting a little thin. Another trip to the director to find out that the part had arrived, and had been fitted but was faulty as it was second-hand. Last Friday the lights lit up and a cheer went around the neighbourhood. It later transpired that our neighbourhood had all assembled and demonstrated outside the directors office until some action was taken. His action was to connect our neighbourhoods line to another transformer from another area. The director told me that the other transformer was already running at 110%. My comment was that this is not a long-term solution, he said "what can I do, I had 100 people outside my door demanding action".  We are the fortunate as we have a solar system back-up where as our neighbourhood does not. Would you believe it that when we lost our electricity supply the Harmattan winds blew in sand from the Sahara, just to cover our panels with a layer of dust and to cover the sun from charging the batteries. There was one point in the five weeks where the batteries were low, the freezer got to -3 and we thought it was going to thaw, we had one phone charged in-case of emergencies. Caroline was going frantic as an assignment deadline was getting closer, then the next day the sand storm had passed and Victor climbed the roof to clean the panels. We visited friends to charge the necessities and the batteries started to climb. Small mercies in times of stress and doubt. Hope you saw the Lord at work in your lives over the Easter break! Prayer Points: Pray for the preparations for the Swiss missions annual conference at the end of April, our team is hosting this year, so pray all goes well. Pray that the electricity transformer continues to hold out until the repairs are made to the old one. Pray as we are finding it extremely difficult to find men for the roles of coordinator in the Self-Help-Group program.