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Co-laboring to achieve more in less time... serving as Ambassadors for Christ around the Nations of the world, especially in developing countries... 2 Cor. 5:20
| Contents | Editorial Note | A Tribute to Engr. Chidi Ugochukwu Nwaonu | Mini-Pump Camp, Ogberuru Nigeria | Meetings with Regional Directors |
|
Tribute -
Engr. Nwaonu, Mini-Pump Camp, Ogberuru, Imo State Regional Directors Meetings Equipment Repairs & Modifications Well Inspections and site visits across Nigeria. Current Challenges on Special Projects & Equipment issues Conclusions Remarks Prayer Requests & Praise Notes |
The
start-off for 2011 was slow and intimidating. For on reason, we
had two vehicles - a water truck, and a functional rig with bad
truck engines, and on the other hand, little money or no money
at the close of the year. We met them head-on through the prayer
& support of our friends and partners. By end of May 2011, the
results we see are truly miraculous with 7 successful out of 10
new well projects completed with a majority of the wells sites
in very difficult to access locations, and in a time of
advesity. In this edition, we share the synopsis with you. |
First of all, many of you have asked - who is this Engr. Nwaonu? How did he joined us? What were his accomplishments in the short time he worked with us in the South, and how come such a young man passed away so suddenly? While we can answer some of the earlier questions, we cannot quite answer the later – it’s only God that knows why the young man passed away so suddenly at barely 50 years old. [Read more...] | I worked with two crew leads / supervisors (Sunday Joseph for the Northern team and John Erodu for the Southern team) to experiment with stainless steel SimplePump model hand pump installation at a deep well in Ogberuru. [Read more...] | During the trip, we had opportunity to meet with all our regional directors and partner agencies to continue to foster better collaboration. Discussions include: staying committed to our core values, speedy delivery and handling of operational issues, ensuring everyone in all parts of Nigeria where we work are following agreed upon standards & practices as much as possible by re-visiting LWI (Living Water International) standards highlights per MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), as well as the WHO standards for water well development and rehabilitations. [Read more] |
| Equipment Repairs & Modifications | New Well Inspections & Sites Visited | Current Challenges on Special Projects | Conclusions & Prayer Requests | |
| Learn more about our equipment repairs and updates for heavy drilling equipment | Read our story on new well sites visits during the Mission trip by Dr. Okorie and Mr. Reilly | Learn more about some challenges encountered on the trip and by team in Africa. | Some
Concluding remarks Check out our Prayer and Praise Notes that follow. |
|
A Project Based Ministry Outreach-“For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever” Psalm 9:18
In retrospect, I would say that our trip went really well, and give God the glory for all we achieved despite the challenges still facing us as a ministry. Our main goal was to rebuild the structure of operational base following the sudden death of Engr. Ugochukwu Nwonu (our big Rig Manager in the South); and to correct some standards and non-compliance issues in our well drilling and project reporting processes, especially in the North. On the other hand, we wanted to also reconnect with the real beneficiaries – the poor & needy (Psalm 9:18) in order to better tell their compelling story at our 10th Anniversary Fundraising Gala coming up on Friday, Aug. 26th, 2011. This second goal was the reason why I had Michael-David Reilly joining me, curtsey – the sponsorship of a board & advisory board member. I will include a few photos and links to video clips we’ve uploaded to YouTube from the trip. Hopefully, the images or sights and sounds will tell more than my “thousand words” could. As always, if you read anything that strikes or interests you – send me a feedback, question or comment.
Ugo as he was called joined us about Nov. 2010 while we were experiencing technical challenges with managing our big Ebenezer Rig, Water Truck and crew at OKOKO ITEM village project in Abia State. The idea of finding another technical person or engineer as volunteer came so stronger during my Nov. 2010 Mission to Nigeria as we assessed issues of repeated equipment break downs, poor maintenance and use, bad safety records, and overall costly operations. His primary job was with a Shell Contractor in Port Harcourt (P.H.) Nigeria.
Engr. Chidi Ugochukwu Nwaonu
RNM had done a couple of projects at the private Christian School which he wife runs as Principal at Obigbo, near P.H. After hearing about our rig management situation, and what we were planning to do to find an experienced manager, he volunteered to do the work, but asked that we give some nitty-gritty day-to-day stuff to Pastor Sylvanus Duruoha in Aba who would work closely with him. To make a long story short, we on-boarded him before the end of Nov. 2010.
He quickly did some work on our water truck, got the rig & supplies demobilized from OKOKO ITEM to Amangwu. Unfortunately, the rig engine broke down just about 7 KM to the site after doing a little over 35 KM from OKOKO. The rig operator, truck driver and other local mechanics tried their best to fix it but without success. They pointed to bigger problems inside the engine that would require taking it down and doing a major overhaul. Christmas was fast approaching, just about a few days away.
Engr. Ugo made an arrangement with a big tow vehicle all the way from Aba and towed the rig to site and enable the crew to start drilling since the rig deck engine was still operational. With a mud pump that was still marginal and a small centrifugal water pump used for fetching stream water into our Ebenezer water truck, they were able to begin and finish the borehole in 4 days, just after the New Year. The project cost us less than the former operator would have spent drilling a similar hole.
Soon another issue came up for RNM in Nigeria – the challenge of clearing the two vehicles we shipped into PH – Onne Port. He quickly shifted his energy there, working with a clearing agent we selected to clear the vehicles sooner than expected.
Just after that, he turned back his attention to the rig and water truck engine issues we were having, as well as the heavy duty Indian mud pump. Unfortunately, mid-way along the resolution of these issues, he passed away while attending to other personal business he had in Nsukka, Enugu State.
We heard that he started choking just after checking into his hotel room and showed some bleeding from nose and mouth. Despite their rushing him to the hospital, it was too late. He was said to have had about two such experiences in the past, but had his life spared due in part to how quickly he got medical attention in those instances. He was a born again Christian and co-founder of the God’s Liberation Primary-Nursery and Vocational School at Obigbo, near P.H. He is survived by his wife, a teenage son, his parents, and five siblings. May his soul rest in peace, till we meet again at the return of Christ our Lord!
We got the pump cylinder lowered to about 110 feet, then installed the base unit and pump handle. We got the well covered up again with the new casing cover, with dual pipe channels – one for the existing submersible pump below 180 feet, and the other for the new hand pump. We tested it and within a few strokes or less than 1 minute, out came gushing some water from the pump spout. It was elating for us and the villagers who can now get water anytime they need it without waiting for a generator or electricity to pump water out the well into storage tanks.
As the villagers came around during our work, they expressed appreciation for the addition, and we used the opportunity to share the gospel with very attractive tracts – like the “Obama $1M Question, or Abraham Lincoln Trillion $ Question”. It basically presents the 10 Commandments on the bank of the unreal paper money, and asks if you can keep all or if you have not falter on any? It follows up to say if you miss one, you’ve missed all and you are guilty before God and deserve judgment. However, accepting Christ as God’s substitute saves us.
a. Another experiment we conducted was to determine the water flow rate for a 12 Volts DC powered brushless solar submersible pump. We used a 12 Volts heavy duty AGM Battery to power the newly imported Chinese submersible pump. The pump cylinder was submerged in a shallow container with about 150 liters of water for testing and learning.
b. The solar panels we had available would not produce enough power to power the pump. They were mostly for small lighting units. We deferred the full test with PVs and Solar Panels to our next Mission trip in the last quarter of 2011 when appropriate panels we import would have arrived Nigeria to complete the test in a shallow well of about 100 feet (33 meters) or below.
Also my village was blessed with this functional fetching area built for its first hand-dug well – see it on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sm4mHLDp3s&feature=related
To date, RNM has done work in 13 States of Nigeria, namely: Abia, Abuja FCT, Akwa-Ibom, Benue, Delta, Edo, Imo, Lagos, East and West Kogi (a geographically spread out State like TX in the USA), Nassarawa, Ondo, Rivers, and Taraba; with prospective projects lined up in Anambara, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Gombe States – all waiting for new donors and additional funds from other new sources. The partners behind us in Nigeria are:
a. South Central States – Rev. Dr. Linus Ihetuge: based in Aba - Dr. Linus Ihetuge of Jesus Brethren Ministries – oversees our work in Abia, Imo, and Akwa-Ibom States. He has been in ministry for over 25 years. His ministry also manages two primary schools, a Bible College; and he Pastors a Church congregation of about 100 people at the Aba Worship Center. He recently celebrated his 50th Marriage Anniversary in Feb. of 2011. Dr. Linus has seven children in his family. He is a great man of God and Father to the ministry.
b. Ben Onos: based in Port Harcourt, Bro. Ben Onos is a driller and pastors a new Church in Port Harcourt. He has over 12 years experience in the drilling industry. Ben is married with three children.
c. Ademola Banjoko: based in Lagos and Southwest of Nigeria, Ademola is a hydro-geologist and has his own water well and water resources business in Lagos and also Pastors a small Foursquare Gospel Church. Ademola is married with two children.
d. North Central States - Engr. Moses Aende: based in Gboko, Benue State, Central North, Engr. Aende is our second rig handler responsible for the use of our Chinese Rock Coring rig, (the HGY-200), the Air Compressor, a Dodge 150 Pickup Cab Crew truck, and an 18-feet Utility Trailer. We committed these resources to him to manage for our projects under a 3-year renewable MOU. He has a crew of five others for drilling projects covering Benue State, Taraba State, Niger, Abuja FCT and Nassarawa State, and East Kogi States. Engr. Moses is also a building contractor and was Managing Director of Benue Cement Company in Gboko, and is an ex-Shell Senior Mechanical Engineer. He is married to Sarah Aende and they have more than 8 adopted children.
e. Stanley Madu: based in Aba, Abia State, Stanley handles all deep well projects for us in the South done with Ebenezer I, and II equipment and does other hand-turning well projects at locations where we drill shallow wells. He is married and has 3 children.
a. Work done or in-progress: We’ve worked on our new crane equipped water truck to restore it’s lifting capability as it was DOA (dead on arrival for some reason); we’ve added some carriage rack for drill rods to be carried above the water tank mounted on the truck, and it has since been deployed helping lift a rig engine at Amangwu while repair work is going on with the Ebenezer I Schramm T-64 big truck engine. [See the YouTube video of it being tested as it lifted an entire heavy truck engine from one side of truck over to the other side - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgHngC-iOQk&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL].
Further we have completely overhauled our big Indian Mud Pump (a 300 meter depth capacity pump which started having problems about 2 years ago. This happened after the trailer it was mounted on broke off the towing truck and crashing into a road side ditch on its assignment to East Kogi State. Repair was done with all new parts we procured from the manufacturer in India recently. We have also replaced the rim / wheels and tires of the mud pump trailer, and reconstructed to be on 4-wheels instead of the original 2 wheel base which would tip up and need jacking or other support to stabilize. By end of June, the team in the South should be ready to mobilize to some new well site and start using the rig again following a general clean up and maintenance work on all the other subsystems of the Ebenezer I rig: the air compressor, the deck engine service and oil change, the deck mounted mud pump PTO repair or retrofit, general lubrication, and testing to ensure every part is working as expected.
b. Crew / Team and Structure: In order to improve our operations, reduce waste, and have better accountability, following my November 2010 visit to Nigeria, we decided to create a separate rig management team in the South, distinct from the Well Drilling team. That team’s first leader was late Engr. Ugochukwu. The main Well Drilling Team is managed by our affiliate contractor, Stallon Drilling Services Company owned by Mr. Stanley Madu – a geologist, and my former student at the Federal University of Technology Owerri. He manages all drilling, well developing, casing, and pump installations at all deep wells done by the Ebenezer I, II, and II equipment. He supplements team with his own staff or workers as needed on a project basis. The maintenance and equipment support is now an RNM function under the field oversight of Pastor Sylvanus Duruoha who is also the rig-crew operations supervisor. The main rig operator is also an RNM employee in the person of John Erondu. The third employee on the RNM Southern team is the team’s truck driver, Mr. Chibueze Shadrack who presently handles the rig and water truck movements. The team is blessed also by the new addition of a volunteer technical advisor, Mr. Ini Udok, a Christian rig & mud pump expert technician based in Port Harcourt who will now provide some of the more technical insights and manage rig upkeep better than anyone else we know in the South. The ministry will pay him for services he renders, and he has agreed to do such repairs for us at greatly discounted labor rates or donated for less time-consuming gigs, while the ministry pays for all the parts needed for any repairs. Ini was instrumental in fixing the crane lifting capacity by replacing the hydraulic motor in the system and cleaning up the internal barrels. All staff, contractor and volunteer will report to Dr. Linus Ihetuge, the Zonal Program Director.
Acknowledgements: On behalf of our Board of Directors, I wish to gratefully acknowledge with many thanks - all the donors and volunteers / partners that make our work possible and easy.
Your gifts and prayers are deeply appreciated.
May the good Lord of Heaven keep you safe in the palm of His Hands. A. Sunny & Florence Ochi-Okorie for RNM, Inc.
www.relief-networks.org . Praise the Lord!