Last February when I was in Guatemala for the drilling season, I spent a couple of days with Lynn and Gary Bartholomew on the drilling site in Sabonetta. I mainly sat in the shade with a couple of children for company and watched the drilling process. I am handicapped due to childhood polio, so I am not much use around the machinery but I like to watch and take pictures and visit with the villagers as much as my poor Spanish will allow.

The remainder of the time we were there, my wife Annette and I spent time at the place I like the best; the orphanage campus of Los Pinos. We are the adopted parents of several children. I think the count is now 8 or 9 depending on how you count, but we love to visit with them and try to let them know how much we love them. There is a common language that children and adults who love them share. It needs no translator. (more…)

The Guatemala Well Project began as an endeavor of volunteers working in conjunction with the established charity; International Children’s Care. Its purpose was the drilling of water wells on the campus of the charities school and orphanage near Poptun in northeast Guatemala. The facilities there had long depended on water from the local river which became seriously contaminated over time. After successfully drilling on the school and orphanage grounds our work has expanded to the local villages there.

In the early days of our project we were encouraged and blessed by the generous gift to our efforts of a 22-W Bucyrus Erie cable drill mounted on a 1946 Military 6×6 vehicle. It was the gift of R. Stadeli and Sons of Silverton, Oregon. The rig was in good condition and just needed to get to Guatemala to begin its work of bringing water to the people of the northeast highlands.

Gary and Lynn Bartholomew were excited at the prospects that the rig presented and they made arrangements to get the rig to Spokane and then shipped to Guatemala. They borrowed a low boy and started on the trip to Oregon to get the rig. They had not gone far when they made a disturbing discovery. One of the axles on the (more…)

Lee Davis operates a small shop out of his garage in Rathdrum Idaho. He is not on the main road and he does not advertise his services. He knows as much about magnetos as any living person and has forgotten more about them than most people will ever know. He has a collection of old magnetos and runs an exchange service in order to keep old engines running. One of his magnetos is on one of our rigs in Guatemala. This is the story of how he helped us.

A customer came by one day and needed a part for a lawn mower and mentioned that he had an old magneto and asked if Lee wanted it. Being interested in old magneto, Lee said sure and a few days later, there was an old magneto wrapped in a cloth outside his shop door one morning. There was no note or information with it. Lee waited a couple of weeks but did not hear from anyone about it. Finally he decided to open it up and see what was wrong with it. He had never seen one quite like it, but he was able to (more…)