YIPEEE - I received some notes to pass along and some very specific prayer
requests. I also got a call from our son today so I'll start with that. Thanks
to all of you who are sending me stuff. It makes SUUUCH a difference in
knowing what's going on over there.
Here are the highlights of today's update:
~~Phone call from Chris Jost
~~Notes from Doug Smith
~~Note from Jim Hulse
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~~Phone call from Chris Jost
Chris said he is doing fine. He is working hard and may stay an extra 2 weeks if
things work out. Please pray with us that if this is what the Lord wants, that
everything will work out smoothly for him to stay and that his flight home will
go smoothly. He said they have the roof mostly finished and are finishing
putting the tiles on it (I may not have that perfectly correct.... when he said
he almost slipped off a couple of times I sort of lost my focus about what work
was getting done and the "Mom" instincts kicked in.) It does make me
more aware of our need to pray for the safety of these men. The crates have all
arrived except for the one with the cars and the one with the tower. The bees
and horseflies are almost unbearable (in his opinion - but this kid HATES bees
and may be allergic to them so he's a bit nervous about anything that stings).
He's made some friends there so he isn't as homesick as he was his first phone call. There is a family there from Ohio whose granddad is Estonian. The father teaches in the seminary and they have lived there for about 5 years. The daughter is about CJ's age I think, which would help explain some of the reason for not being quite so homesick although he denies it.
He is learning much and sounded great.
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~~Email from Doug Smith
The roof is nearly finished, and we are done with the wiring and plumbing
inside.
Will start the insulation soon (yuck), and the sheetrock shortly after.
The tower has not been started yet as the containers have been held up as
of yet. They are supposed to be here any day now. I will probably not see
any of it go up before I leave.
(and then from another email the next day)
The work went well today. We almost finished the roof. I worked on the
air conditioning and the roof. Sheetrock most likely tomorrow. Today was a
good day as my body was not as sore today, and the weather was a little cooler.
We will likely go into Tallinn Saturday morning rather than Friday night.
I am looking forward to tickling both the girls. (he has 2 darling
daughters)
Love to hear from you.
Doug.
<<THANKS so much Tricia for sharing these!! This makes me so aware that while we are here wanting to know ALL that is going on over there, THEY are missing us and wanting to know what is going on here too!! Be sure to let me know if you are not able to get a message through. If nothing else works I can always FAX a message over for you.>>
AND ANOTHER NOTE FROM DOUG
This will most likely be my last e-mail message as I will be leaving
Friday evening or Sat morning to head back to Tallinn for my flight back
Sat morning. About 8 of us are returning on Sat. Flight at around
10:00am. I arrive Saturday night at SF around 10:30pm. Will be
exhausted I am sure.
The work went really well the last few days. Today (Thursday) we nearly
finished the roof, put in most of the insulation, put in the air
conditioning ducts, poured concrete for the footings of the braces that
hold the guy wires for the tower. Also started on the brick exterior of
the building. Great weather today, slightly overcast, which keeps the
heat down, and makes the work go easier. I am looking forward to coming
home to see my family, but will miss the ministry going on here as
well. Going to read a little and then go to bed. Thanks for all the
e-mails over the past 2 weeks. It is nice to keep up with what is going
on at home. If you send an e-mail your Thursday night I will probably
still get it before I leave.
See you soon. Love, Doug.
<<THANKS Nancy for sending this in!! I will GREATLY miss having these
updates from Doug. Please pray someone over there will continue to send us info
as well as Doug has!! :-) >>
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~~Email from Jim Hulse
Greetings from the tower crew leader in Estonia.
My wife and 2 other children arrived safely, although it was a tiring trip.
Satan is doing what ever he can to discourage this project, we need to pray
that all will start to work out better.
Great news today from Endel as he had a lengthy phone call today from HCJB in
Europe who is interested in partnering in some programming on the new radio
station we are building.
Today we finished pouring the inner anchors and are now at around 200,000
pounds of concrete installed on the tower portion of the job.
Today we turned two problems into praises. One of the cement trucks got stuck
in our field and the concrete was setting up in the truck but we were able to
use our skid loader to shuttle around 5,000 pounds of concrete to the hole in
time.
While deep in one anchor hole one worker was doing some finish work just
before
the pour was to commence when the front wall collapsed narrowly missing and
burying him. Praise God he was not hurt.
Two nights ago I returned after supper and worked till ten PM on the road. At
one point while looking back I saw a moose cross our road. Every day we have
storks on our site too. Have also seen several foxes and wolves so far.
URGENT PRAYER NEEDED, Our containers are stuck at the border in a strike by
the
local farmers. Road is blocked and they are allowing no one to pass. We need
the 2 containers from PiRod with tower in ASAP and also the one Dr. Carlson
sent with the vehicles in.
The building is moving at breakneck speed at this time, however we are
running
out of materials until the containers arrive.
Praise God that some brave soul emptied the porta jon today.
Tower crew now building outer rebar cages and hope to dig and pour Monday and
Tuesday. We are expecting much trouble with these anchors as they are deeper,
wider and next to water.
Today a crew installed a satellite on our roof at the dairy and installed a
TV
for us to see CNN and other programming.
All for now
May God Bless You All
Jim Hulse
<<THANKS so much for the update Jim!! >>
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Well folks - we certainly have some praying to do!!! It is soooo apparent we need to continue to pray for the safety of our friends and families there!! A friend emailed me this verse today and how appropriate it is: "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Psalm 34:7 " I wonder if we couldn't pray this over crates that need to be delivered also?? :-) I just praise God for all the times I've already heard of different ones NOT being hurt when it truly could have been bad.
Well that's all for today..... I've added some things to the ECRP web page if you want to go check it out. http://www.geocities.com/computerbasicsmodesto/Estonia/index.html Nothing great but hopefully we'll have pictures by the end of this weekend.
Blessings
lynda jost