Progress

​Getting the mud rotary through customs took a month but some of the 

longer time was expected because of the holidays around Christmas and 

New Years.  Our volunteer cable driller from Ohio had offered to haul 

the rotary from Iowa to the port in Florida but had some heart issues 

which postponed the transport.  We're hoping he can come drill but he 

still doesn't have the Doctor's clearance.  Another driller has leukemia 

but is in Guatemala.  He will be here Tuesday to help with some pump 

work then cut the box end off a drill stem and weld on a new box end.  

Another driller just had hiatyl hernia surgery and he's hoping he can 

still come. The devil has been jabbing us and we appreciate your 

faithful prayers.


We have met our goal of getting the rotary here and determining the best 

approach for it's continued work here.  An air compressor will be 

necessary and a system to drill a larger surface hole to enable us to 

install a temporary 6" pvc or steel casing.  In 3 of the wells the 

drilling fluid came up the hole to usually between 6' and 15' then then 

fluid and cuttings went horizontally.  We were able to clean the hole 

sufficiently to go deeper and not get stuck.  The pdc bit is awesome and 

really makes hole rapidly in this limestone.


4 of the wells were in very remote villages where the crew sometimes 

stayed overnight, 1 well was at a health clinic at the edge of a larger 

town, and the last one was in a little barrio with no water source at 

the edge of Poptun.  The wells were 60' - 140' with plenty of water.  

This 8 working days represent 8 weeks of cable tool drilling.  We're now 

in the process of cleaning the wells by pumping, then we'll set hand 

pumps in all except the clinic well which will get a submersible.


We appreciate your support and we're accomplishing things we could not 

have otherwise done:  The diesel tender truck with 20' flatbed is on 

it's way from Tacoma presently.  We're able to hire two local men to 

learn pumps and drilling.  We believe we have 2 Godly men and we are 

blessed by that.  We are able to replace all 6 tires on the drill one by 

one.  They didn't look too bad but are so old they're really checked and 

weak.  The first one blew as we drove through the river going to the 

first village.  We've put steel shelving in the North storage container 

which will prevent those termites from eating our shelving.  We've 

leveled a spot for another container and it may be here this week.  We 

purchased some new equipment for producing bushings for the hand pumps 

and Larry is doing an excellent job there.  We purchased 1,000' of 250 

psi, 4" pvc and that's really saved a lot of time and hassle.  Usually 

we buy 5 or 10 pieces at a time.  I know there's more but that's what I 

think of.


We appreciate you!


Gary, Angie, & WFL