20Jan11 – Final thoughts from the Beach (this time)

20Jan11

Today was even lazier than yesterday I think. 🙂
But, it was amazing.

Found out that Dr. Jay was not coming today, he will be here tomorrow morning. So, I spent the day doing random things.

First, I fixed A.J. Edme’s headphones that he had broken. It was very Haitian fix, but they work now. Since my soldering iron wouldn’t heat up due (due to very bad power from the power company), I had to use a lighter to burn off the light insulation on the hairstrand gauge wire. Then I just twisted the wires together as needed, and duct-taped them in place. Welcome to Haiti.

Then, I tried to catch up on email and news, after turning off all pictures in my internet browser to save bandwidth. MOH is being very gracious in housing me, so I don’t want to hog their internet. 🙂 It’s a whole new way to look at websites when none of the pictures are loading. In exciting news, Kathleen Macneil is going back to Prague sometime soon. She will be working again as a music teacher at the international school. This is an awesome answer to prayer as she has had an amazing impact for Christ on a mostly athiest country already.

After that, I headed back to the beach and read Proverbs a bit. In an interesting note, after reading the first 6 chapters of Proverbs, Job’s friends seem to have had a point about a properity gospel. Not saying I agree with them, I just have a good idea where they got their ideas from. There is a chance some things were lost in translation, but if you take these chapters literally, a life of faith, love and wisdom will result in properity and bad things will not happen to you. *shrug*
Part of me wishes it was that simple, but then I realize how difficult life would be, and that we could not attain such a perfect standard of living. It is with that thought that I praise God for His grace, and the knowledge that these promises will hold true in an eternal perspective, even if things start going “poorly” in my eyes around this life.

I did manage to do some engineering work today; drawing up some designs to mount the solar panels Lex has at the beach property. I hope the welder can understand what I am saying. If there are goggle, I may try to make a demonstration piece tomorrow. My main concern though is the lack of a drill press. I’m not real sure how they put holes in metal around here. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

Wish List (if anyone heads this way): [also, mailing stuff is not possible, unless we mail to someone stateside that we know is coming]
-Legos (assorted bricks, colors not important, mainly 2×4, 2×3, 2×2, 2×1 blocks) Basically, I want to model houses with legos to figure out the best passive ventilation systems. These bricks will be my concrete block, but some flat pieces to act like roof slabs would be great too. Also, look for used ones (like at my parents house), Legos are expensive to buy these days. 🙂
-Solder, cause I forgot to bring any. Don’t need it much, but it’d be nice to have. Electronics thickness, not plumbing thickness.
-A small power inverter (200-400W) and the battery clips that are in my Jeep’s glove box. 🙂

Projects for any engineers who happen to be reading this:
-I am in need of some switching regulators.
-First, I want some that are buck/boost with high input voltage (60-180V) with a 140V (150Watt) output and high temperature durable (~120 ambient minimum rated)
-Second, I want some that are buck/boost with 5-30V input, 12V output. Gimme ideas for wattage and price availability.
-Also, I need a power logging system. Something that will log voltage and current outputs of my solar panels in their test fixtures. An idea for a load bank would be great too. My load would be 150W peak, 70-150Volts. Charging batteries is great, but I may get invalid results if the batteries pass their bulk charging cycle. Shoot me ideas.
-Finally, at some point I would like to pick up a handheld scope of some sort. I just want to look at power lines, so very low bandwidth. There has to be something to ultility work like this right? I just want to see waveforms, true RMS voltage, peak voltages, power factor, and THD on power lines. Let me know if you have any ideas for this too. I’m just utterly confused by power that will not run my soldering iron. lol.

Prayer Requests:
-Dr. Jay’s Team is traveling
-Kathleen is prepping to go back to Prague
-Haiti, and it’s governmental issues
-Jeannette Herdman, who is coming down this week to Jacmel and I am sad I will miss
-Jean-Jean and Christalin, the two Haitians that finally made it to the U.S. this week after being adopted by Marc Stuart and his wife, Aegis
-the unpersecuted church. we pray for the persecuted church many times, but in all reality, they tend to be much stronger spiritually, and much more faithful than those that are not persecuted. let us pray especially today for those that are complacent, lukewarm, and quite honestly, unfaithful, cause it seems after reading the gospels that they are most likely to be the ones that reach heaven and don’t get in, despite all the things they have “done in His Name”.

P.S. Haiti’s governement is in an odd place right now. Their current election is in turmoil, with the results of the primary being hotly debated and contested, leading to a long recount, and the accusations of many that this is all a phony election. Then, one ex-president(dictator?) “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned after a 25 year exile, with his intentions unknown, and another Artistide jumping into international news, seeking to return to his home country to “help” after being forced to leave in the midst of a militant uprising in 2004.
Pray for the situation, cause I know God cares, but I also remember that God is sovereign, and He is the one who ultimately allows someone to take office. Whether in Haiti, the U.S., or ancient Rome. He allowed Saul, David, Herod, Nero, Napolean, Churchill, Eisenhower, FDR, JFK, Bush, Papa Doc, Baby Doc, Aristide, Mandela, Obama, Mao, and even Hitler. It is with this in mind that we remember our roots. As His people, we are looking beyond the government for answers, we have the answers. It is our job to spread His message, despite any other influences. The greatest expansion of the cause of Christ happened in the early church, under hostile threat and attacks in persection. Let us look to Christ for guidance and be the beacon in this world to guide others. I am tired of people politicizing Christianity and morality. Let us be the light we are called to be, regardless of the government, and show people where the true kingdom is based.
And with that, I will step off my soap box. I hope that made sense as I am kinda tired and ready for bed (despite it being 7pm, guess that can be owed to the utter darkness around me).