Bucky Mowery of Ohio is one of our faithful volunteers. He has made three trips to drill for the people in Guatemala. Usually he has made the trip with his friend, Speedy Gonzales. Speedy is from Guatemala, and it is a very special experience for him to return to help the people of his country. They are busy planning and preparing for the next trip.

Last year, the two of them worked hard for nearly three weeks to bring water to the village of Jabon Che’ which is in an extremely dry area. They were working with the propane powered drilling rig. Because propane is very expensive there, it cost nearly $120.00 per day for fuel for the rig. They drilled to nearly the limit of one of our rigs, 550 feet. There was a little water by then, but the static level is nearly 400 feet. That is too deep for our hand pumps and there is no power in the village. We have made contact with a group called Engineers without Borders who may be able to help us by coming up with a suitable pump to address this problem.

When he got back home, Bucky decided to try to find an engine for the rig which would be more economical to operate. He contacted a friend of his and learned of someone who might have a diesel engine which would work on the rig. He made the call and eventually was able to buy not only one engine, but two; and he only had to pay about what he was expecting for just one! He and Speedy are in the process of completely rebuilding one of the engines. Once finished, he will install it in one of his rigs and work with it to make sure all is well. Then he intends to remove it, ship it to Spokane and it will go in the container this fall. It will be installed in place of the thirsty propane engine on that rig. This kind of dedication is what makes the project possible.

We are saddened by the recent death of a great friend of the drilling project, Mr. Jim Bechtel. He fell while working on a ladder at his home. He and his wife drove the truck and trailer to Guatemala last fall. He was a champion of the poor people of Guatemala. Over the years he made dozens of trips in support of the orphanage and the people there. His energy and willingness to help will be missed.

During this past drilling season, we had planned to take one of the rigs from Guatemala to the International Children’s Care orphanage in El Salvador. They have had a water supply problem there for about 5 years. There are wells on the campus, but all have had problems of one sort or another and for a long time the campus has depended on the last well. There are about 100 children there who have no other place to go. While they have been waiting for us to help them, we have encountered one problem after another such that we have never been able to take one of our rigs into El Salvador. Then Steve came.

Steve Marstaller is a welder and mechanic from Fredrick Md. He and several members of his church have traveled to El Salvador for the past several years to work on projects on that campus. Over the years, Steve had seen the old rig sitting off in the weeds on the campus rusting away. The rig had been part of a well drilling project which involved 5 rigs and was run by the government. The project ended about 12 years ago and the campus was given the best of the remaining rigs. The rig was used to drill wells there and then left to rust. Parts had been cannibalized for other trucks and the engine had not been protected from the moisture. The engine was seized and useless.

In January of 2008, Steve had been impressed to look at the rig and try to find out what was needed to get it running. He looked it over and made a list of things that probably needed to be replaced. When he got home, he went to a friend and asked about the availability of parts for the Perkins 4 cyl diesel engine. He was encouraged to learn that there was no problem with any parts he might need. He went home and prayed and felt impressed to spend $3000 dollars and order the parts. In May of 2008, he and a friend went back to El Salvador and totally rebuilt the engine. It runs just fine and they were able to lift the derrick. We will not have to import a rig to fix the wells there!

Steve is gathering tools and drilling supplies and intends to ship a container this fall in support of the drilling effort there. Bucky Mowery of Ohio is committed to drill there in January and with the blessings of the Good Lord, we will have a rig up and running for him to use.

Frank Clark and Gary were headed to the village of Santa Crux. It is about 2 and ½ miles off the highway down a track with holes deep enough that the truck has to creep along in low range in places. The road is treacherous during good weather and cannot be traveled at all in poor. They were headed there to set a hand pump for the village. The dedication for the well was planned for tomorrow so there was a need to get this pump in place. The mayor would be there and everyone needed to be able to see and drink the water from the well. They were driving our donated well service truck. It is a good vehicle and indispensible for the lifting and lowering of pumps and other things.

They were about 1/3 the way down the track when (more…)

Frank Clark was in the shop when Rod Bartholomew pulled in with the Deutz diesel engine in the back of the truck. Along with it, was a crate which contained the clutch assembly, bell housing and a flywheel. It was Frank’s task to make sure these parts went together to make a replacement for the propane fueled engine on one of our drilling rigs. The engine has been obtained and shipped to Seattle through the efforts of one of our volunteers, Dominick Parmentier. What was believed to be the proper clutch had been ordered. The engine was air cooled with very low hours. If Frank could get it ready, it would be ideal for our work in Guatemala.

Frank had never worked on one of these engines and he had just three days before the container was to be loaded. His job was to get make sure the clutch and PTO fit together and the accessories; battery box, alternator cables and ignition wires, fuel supply lines and filters sorted out and ready for hook up to the drilling rig. He made some calls around the Spokane area and found a shop that worked on Deutz diesels. It was Pacific Power Products. He called and they told him if he could have the engine at their shop at 7am the next day, they would look at it and see if they could help.

When he got there in the morning, he met Charlie Knight. He had just started to work on another engine of the exact same type that very morning, so Frank was able to look at it and talk Mr. Knight about the engine and the hookups. Mr. Knight had a lot of experience with these engines and noticed that there was a problem with the cooling system on our engine. It was missing a shroud in the rear of the engine and had the wrong size fan pulley. What was on it was correct for the stationary, but not correct for how it needed to be for us. He helped Frank get the correct shroud fabricated, and the correct size pulley ordered. It had to be air freighted from the Midwest and we hoped it would arrive before the container left.

As Frank talked to Mr. Knight, he learned that if the changes had not been made, the engine would have not cooled properly and would have been destroyed after a very short time in operation. Without this assistance, we would have had a new engine ruined and a season of drilling put in jeopardy. Another coincidence? No, another providence.

P.S. The correct size pulley arrived at 10:30 am, about 1 hour before the container left.

Change of Plans
This past fall we had intended to send a container as usual, but the last few weeks before December as the economic situation ground down we began to be concerned about the wisdom of that decision. We had two items to get to Guatemala. One was a donated Ford F250 truck and the other was a heavy duty trailer capable of carrying drill casing and heavy equipment. Our board made a decision to try to find someone to drive the truck and trailer to Guatemala and save the cost of the container. Our quote on for shipping the 40 ft container was nearly $12,000. All we had to do was find someone to make the nearly 6,000 mile journey.

Enter Jim Bechtel and his faithful wife Vonny. Jim is in his seventies and a veteran of over 50 trips to Guatemala in support of the International Children’s Care facilities. Over the years he has brought trucks, busses, tractors, endless amounts of tools, machinery and just about anything imaginable to the ICC school and orphanage there. Over the years he has established a small shop there in one of the bays of a garage where he keeps his tools secure and where he would make special repairs for the campus. He is fluent in Spanish and over the years has developed unique skills at the delicate negotiations necessary to get loads of material into Guatemala

Jim told me that the main difficulty was often getting the load into and out of Mexico. To accomplish that, a careful inventory is made at the border of what comes in and it must match the inventory of what is leaving at the other end of the country. Sometimes Jim has simply been refused entry. His technique for these issues is simple. He will turn around at the border and drive back a few miles, find a place to stay, and he and Vonny will fast and pray until he feels the time is right. Then he will come back to the border and try again. It may take more than one try, but he will usually find a border guard that will simply wave him on into the country with out a hassle.

We hope and pray that he makes it safely through Mexico because that country is especially dangerous now.

In June, My wife Annette and I went to Guatemala to visit with the orphanage children and to try to make some assessment of the priorities for next year’s drilling season. We had never been there in the middle of summer and now I understand why. It was hot and very humid. It rained a little each day and seemed like it was raining hot water.

We visited the villages where we had worked last January through March. The first village, Tan Hoc, was a village without grid power, so we installed a (more…)

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…)

For months Annette and I had planned to go to Guatemala on Jan 3, 2006. It was to be our second trip in support of the drilling project. Tickets had long ago been purchased and we had told many people we were going on that day and to expect us at the orphanage campus on the evening of the 4th. But then reality intervened in the form of serious illness of her father in California. For a short time we debated whether or not we should cancel altogether or whether I should make the journey alone. I decided I did not want to go alone and that we would postpone the trip for three weeks to see how her father progressed. It was a difficult decision but we made it and cancelled with the airlines on Jan 3, rebooking for the 21st.

On Jan 4, I went to work and felt a little sick and had a mysterious pain in the right upper portion of my abdomen. It got worse and about 2:00 went to the doctor to ask his opinion. He examined me and told me (more…)