Solar Electric System
The Electrical Hub with Grounding Plate
(FYI this is a long post in an attempt to explain a big concept)
Where do we begin? Neither one of us are savvy in the area of electricity, technology, or mechanics and yet we are going into tribal church planting which requires us to live in isolated jungles far away from anything familiar. We will need electricity to power our laptops for language learning and developing lessons, lights to read (and see), a freezer to have consistent food in
order to have physical energy to minister to the tribal p
eople, oh and we have to have clean water to drink, keep stored, to clean, and to cook with. We will have to learn many things in order to have a functioning house with the end
Soldering Alligator Clips
goal of being able to best serve in that foreign context. Obviously we can’t run electrical wires hundreds of miles from the USA, nor can we have giant windmills because they are far too
dangerous. Hydroelectricity is very sensitive and requires a mere perfect set-up with so much maintenance that it would be a full-time job just to maintain them. Running everything through generators can be expensive for a long period of time, fuel is very expensive overseas (as if it wasn’t bad enough here). Generators are relatively loud and many tribal locations are rather quiet which would cause disturbance to our neighbors and they also require frequent maintenance.
This leaves us with only one option: Photovoltaic Systems (PV) (also known as solar power). You say that is nice for during the day, but what about at night? Solar Panels make DC (direct current) electricity that can be stored very much like a battery (a battery is DC electricity). AC electricity is what we in America have in all of our outlets
Soldering
, lights; pretty much everything we have is AC electricity. The beauty of DC electricity is that it can be stored. The solar panels collect the energy and then the excess of which is not being used gets stored into giant 100lb batteries. A car battery is typically ¼ the size of these batteries. In this technology class, we are learning how to set up these systems and what appliances can be used on them along with how to maintain them. This has been a challenge to the comforts we have as Americans because of how reliant we are on electricity for everything and it has shown us how much we actually “need’’ and compared to how much is really a “comfort”.
First, we had to learn how to solder and de-solder because many if not all of the P.V. panel and other system connections get soldered. Soldering is long-lasting connection and provides great continuity between connections for electricity. Also, we are learning how to maintain batteries and in this process we learn how dendrites build up in batteries and that is what kills a battery. We will be learning how to slow down that process in order to preserve our batteries, so that we can get the most out of them.
We plan to serve on the foreign field long-term so we are preparing for many years at one time. We are learning all this because we see the value in discipleship and building up the church to maturity, as was Paul’s desire. He lived with the people he ministered among, he taught them from the scriptures (we have to learn the indigenous language, translate the scriptures first, and many other steps Paul did not have to do), built them up to maturity, appointed elders/overseers from that local assembly to then take responsibility of that congregation, and then moved on to the next location. This was his pattern of ministry. This is our desire as well. We were not given the gift of tongues (in foreign languages) so the process of living with the people will take longer before we can teach them. We will have to learn the culture and language of the people, and unlike Paul who was inspired by God and wrote to the people God’s Word, we will have to translate from another language into the indigenous language, present the Gospel from Creation to Christ (as Paul did) teach the people and bring them up to maturity in their belief and then have the elders take over and phase out. Then we would go to the next place (as Paul did) all of that to say this: it is a BIG and LONG process that will take time! We plan on doing this for the rest of our lives so we are being equipped for a Big job which will take many years.
Stoking The Fires 