Progress on the construction of the evangelical eye care training and referral hospital continues full swing, as we race to be ready for the work crew due to arrive the end of the month. We placed the first concrete for supporting beams in late July, as seen in this photo. Benjamin, one of our Bible students, waits for break time to sell peanuts and local donuts (manioc cake balls) to the workers.

Workers spent all month adjusting the re-bar, tying in anchor bolts, building wooden forms and filling them with concrete.

Front view of the hospital showing the progress of supporting beam construction first across the front, then down the four main structural beams which will run the length of the building. This phase is projected to last a good couple of months, so we started at the front where the work team will place the first steel trusses.

Masons are constantly pushing the carpenters, because those who build the forms are spurred on by those who fill them with concrete. Sand, gravel and cement are brought to the site by wheelbarrow, and water in 5 gallon jugs. All are mixed on the slab and lifted in buckets. Wood is all hand-sawn, painted with locally extracted palm nut oil (orange-colored) then nailed into place. Orange ribbons mark the position where anchors are to be tied into the re-bar. Such hard materials with which to minister healing.

As spring arrives, corn and rice which was planted last month springs forth in fields around our construction site. This rear view of the hospital shows our columns springing up with the aid of your generous watering, and the beams which have begun to “grow” between them.

Timothy instructs the workers in the use of a template which Peter suggested to give a more uniform spacing to the anchor bolts.

Can you find the three generations of Henrys in this photo? Timothy’s father, Bob, has come ahead of the work crew to assist preparations. Here Timothy and Bob inspect the day’s work and discuss the matter of anchor placement.

The critical front section of beams is completed with about one month remaining for watering and curing under tarps before the work crew will place steel beams on them.

Form and fill, form and fill will continue most of September as only half the beams are up, although the workers will be called away frequently to help with truss installation during the time the work crew is with us – the first two weeks of September. May the Lord form and fill us spiritually in preparation for the greater work ahead, touching lives, after the building is completed.

Thank the Lord for an answer to prayer! The riverboat arrived to port and this truck brought the first load of steel just ten days before the visiting team was due in Congo. Four truck loads later all the materials were in place just as the team was ready to begin their marathon. We thank the Lord and all those He used to maximize the productivity of this our first visiting work team in many years. We also thank all of you who have stood with us and continue to stand with us in this healing ministry outreach. This steel, the tools to install it and its shipping cost have totalled about $50,000, roughly twice what we had in our hospital construction account. We trust in the Lord's perpetual provision for His work.

Extra carpenters were hired to make extra ladders and cranes for the work-site, as well as saw horses as work surfaces on which to build the steel trusses on the workshop porch and other preparations.

Bob Henry visits the local ‘donut shop’ at the hospital construction site roadside entry to strengthen and encourage the workers and prepare them for the increased work load; while the visiting team is in town they will work sun-up to sun-down. The donuts are balls more like donut holes, made of sweet manioc flour (like sweet potatoes) fryed in red palm oil – all local ingredients – and sold for around 2 cents each ($0.24 a dozen)

Our faithful crew, glad to take a coffee break (without the coffee). They are not generally in the habit of eating breakfast, so this strengthening is a welcome fortification. The donuts worked so well to strengthen them physically and also in morale that I have continued to supply them every day since. Thanks, Dad, for the great idea.

Just BEFORE the work crew came from the US to jump start the project to put a steel truss tin roof on the evangelical eye care training and referral hospital in Lodja, DRCongo. See the end of the September 2007 construction photos for the AFTER photo.

Starting with the five racks of angle iron (four sizes) you see in the warehouse yard, team members put their heads together and set up two steel sawing tables in the driveway, two long truss assembly and welding table jigs under the length of the warehouse awning (with an eye toward the equatorial sun), and drill presses and equipment rooms arranged strategically, all around one central honkin’-big generator to run it all.

Joel and Gary LaCorte had lots of help as they got started sawing steel for the first efforts at trusses.

Bob Henry, Glen Bunner and Richard Smith measure, discuss and iron out kinks in the truss assembly jig.

Welders jump in and get started pronto.

The roaring of the steel saws punctuates the continual drone of the massive generator, feeding a continuous supply of cut-to-length pieces to the assembly line.

Two unique double-sided steel girder beams were assembled, then truss after simple truss was turned out to complete the 32 needed to complete the targeted front end of the hospital. The team and workers built trusses of four designs ranging from 18 to 35 feet long. The whole hospital will require 102 trusses and 7 girders.

Workers carry the main girder beam from the assembly area to the construction site some 200 yards away: across the warehouse yard, across the Henrys’ yard, through the fence gate, across a dirt track to the hospital site.

Bob Henry leads the workmen carrying the main girder to the place where it will be erected, when enough trusses are turned out to stabilize it once set up and welded onto its two steel pipe columns.

Glen Bunner started early to train his replacements in the use of the new welding equipment the team brought. Here Lomanga gets a few pointers on the continuous-feed welding gun.

We had several days of sawing and welding to do at the warehouse assembly area before any trusses could be erected at the hospital construction site.

Hot out of the welders’ hands, workers carry fresh-made trusses every hour or so off the assembly line porch to stack up in the yard.

Our good old diehard team of masons and carpenters worked every day until sundown, along with everyone else during the work crew’s stay, in order to keep moving forward the production of concrete supporting beams in advance of the growing number of steel trusses.

Bob Henry and Gary LaCorte discuss metal to be cut while others saw away with the second saw in the background. Thanks to our carpenter, Paul, at least this hot work can be done in the shade.

Gary Bunner, our high output welder, starts another truss while the team’s esteemed leader, Ron Gray, holds things down at the other end of the assembly line.

The time arrives at last to carry all the assembled trusses over to the construction site, for installation over the main reception and waiting area of the eye hospital.

Preparing Ground Zero – the hospital’s front entry and reception area – for Friday’s work of raising the central girder and attaching the stabilizing trusses.

One more day of high output steel truss production with all the welders at the warehouse side while workers keep on carrying trusses over to stockpile on the construction side.

I (Timothy) took most of the pictures you see here, but an occasional shot from another’s camera catches me in action. Here I put mortar under the bearing plates which are bolted to the beams by the anchors and upon which the trusses will soon sit. It is the junction of two long and laborious processes inasmuch as the anchors were an urgent purchase in Kin (Kinshasa) months ago, air-shipped to us at great expense, and carefully measured out and tied into the concrete beams before any concrete could be placed in the beams. The plates were oversized angle iron, bought months ago in Kin, where no one had flat steel plates. They wanted too much money in Kin rip them lengthwise into plates, so we brought them here to Lodja with all the steel, and Papa Koy used up many saw blades and hours of sweat over saw and drill to produce these simple 8mm thick steel plates which will hold our roof on.

Cut-off blade crisis! Half way through the project, a looming shortage of cut-off blades threatened to stop us in our tracks. Air France had misplaced three of the twelve trunks of tools and supplies the men had checked as excess baggage, and the most critical missing item turned out to be the steel cutting blades. The unreliability and infrequence of flights from Kinshasa added to the difficulties in trying to re-supply from there. In this photo, as a last ditch effort, Richard Smith explains to Sharon Henry exactly what kind of blade is needed and what hole size or bushing would work, so she can look for some in town. In short, no-go. Lodja is a small non-electric place with hardly any general hardware stores, much less specialty suppliers. In the end we cut only what was essential for the trusses that the team would erect themselves; two nubbins of blades were left at their departure. Dean Jordon did succeed in sending us 20 more blades from Kin on the charter flight which extracted the team, which should do us until the lost trunks arrive some day with a fresh supply. Just add faith.

Reminiscent of Iwo Jima, workers strain to raise the heavy steel pipe crane which must be lifted 12 feet into the air then inserted into the wooden scaffold, which they humorously call a truck. This weighty apparatus is one of two which will be used to lift all the heavy double-sided girder beams into place. Yet another preparation for tomorrow’s big day.

All hands on deck! Time to build! Richard Smith prepares to weld as Timothy holds the level on the steel pipe column, one of two which will hold up the center-line main girder.

Plan A : Blocks and tackle were brought to hoist the weighty girders with relative ease onto the steel posts using the nifty locally made cranes. Due to some minor modifications made to the block and tackle to accommodate the actual field conditions… it failed, CRASH! – just after this photo was taken. No one injured, thank the Lord, and the girder only suffered a couple of bent brackets.

Plan B : We re-arranged the scaffolds so as to walk the girders up the steps to the accompaniment of many loud and animated comments, gestures and expressions, with some minor assistance by the overrated blocks and tackle.

Success – the main center-line girder is on top of its posts and ready to be leveled and welded into place.

Glen Bunner does the honors of welding up the back bone of our eye hospital’s main Entry-Reception-Waiting area. There is now a visible change in the profile and the highest point is up.

The very first truss goes up amid cheers of celebration and flashes of cameras. Hooray and praise the Lord!

As the sun is setting, this view from the back of the hospital shows that the carpenters and masons are nearing the end of their scaffolding and concrete work as the visiting work crew erects the first day’s steel trusses in the background, which is the front of the hospital.

By quitting time on day 7 the main girder is up with 6 trusses welded in place to stabilize it. Tomorrow’s work, a smaller girder, lies in the grass in the foreground.

Lots of folks pitch in to carry over the longest trusses which will span the reception office and staff conference and medical education room. Seen from left to right are Evarist, Papi, Paul, Lomanga, Augustin, Joel LaCorte, Daniel, Lievan, Omadikele, Onyumbe, Timothy, Jean, and Koy.

Trusses are lifted into place over the future laboratory, computer room and eye-drop production areas in the section south of the central reception area, as others bring continue to bring the trusses which are still being turned out, back at the warehouse assembly area.

This is my view of things, a little blurry, as I help to carry a truss over to the hospital site.

Party Time already! Just over half the visiting crew’s time is completed, but this Saturday evening was the best time to have a dinner party to thank the workers and celebrate the recent past and future progress on the construction. No surprises on the menu: rice, greens and pork with palm oil sauce.

Welders are now split up to work both sides: assembly at the warehouse and installation at the hospital. The general workers are all off to get another truss as Glen puts on some final welds to finish the basic trusses over the reception area. The smaller girder is now up on the left. Next come the bridging, bracing, purlin seats and purlins before the tin can start going up, but the hope is to get at least some of the tin on before the team has to pull back to America.

Before the day was out the longest trusses started going up on the last section over the office and medical education areas, north of the reception area. The silver-capped guys are Beya and Albert, literature translation team members who spent these 12 days with the workers on the hospital project translating for the English speaking visitors.

God is in the details… Glen stretches to weld into place the first of almost 1000 purlin seats needed for the entire hospital. On step closer to getting some tin on.

Bob lays the line to position and clamp down the purlin seats over the panel points, while Richard and Glen follow behind welding them down.

Bob and Glen get the first purlins up… with a little help from their friends. Albert is helping with translation from the ground, while Richard can be seen through the scaffolding watching alignment from the other side.

Working into the dusk with a glorious backdrop, all to get a little tin on before departure time.

FODESA workers keep up the truss assembly welding at the warehouse while the work team members put all their efforts on roof construction this last morning of their visit.

Gary kept sawing especially needed pieces of steel right up to the final hour, and the Lord helped the nubbin of a last saw blade to last as long as it was needed. A new stock of blades came this very afternoon on the chartered flight from Kinshasa which rescued the team from their involuntary confinement in Lodja.

Finally a little SHADE to work in as the first pieces of tin are lain up in line with the string on the ends of the purlins. Glen welds in some eave diagonals as a last touch on this side before the tin gets screwed into place.

In the last few minutes, tin is passed up to the rooftop under Bob’s direction, as Richard and Glen weld up the last purlins near the peak of the south face.

On the morning of the team’s departure we see the whole crew in front of this work in progress. Team members (L-R): Ron Gray, Joel LaCorte, Gary LaCorte, Richard Smith, Glen Bunner and Bob Henry, surrounded by all the workers: welders, cutters, carpenters, masons, translators, general laborers and even Dr. Timothy Henry seated on the ground.

This AFTER shot was taken just before the work crew had to go to the airport for their return home. Kids and often adults would hang around in the shade just outside the fence to watch the roof go up at an amazing rate. Folks from town were heard to say that nothing like this has ever been seen in Lodja. They'll have a while more to talk. After the team has gone we plan on continuing at a normal workday pace until the roof is finished, which could be two or three more months. Funds for wages and fuel for the generators which run the saws and welding machines will be the limiting factor. It will cost us around $2,000 a month to continue, at a time when the account for hospital construction has been $25,000 in the red since we bought the steel 4 months ago. Once the roof is completely on it could lay dormant another year or two before everything, including finances, is in place to begin moving on walls, doors and windows.