Orientation Tour-Day 1

On our first full day here in Igieduma I took advantage my "I just got here yesterday and am so extremely tired" excuse (which also happened to be true by the way) and "slept in." Til like 6:45 a.m. Which is 15 minutes past when morning worship starts.  Morning worship starts at 6:30 a.m. here. Most places it is at 7 a.m. Here they have us start early to stock up time for our meeting night when we get off much earlier so as to be back from meeting before dark.

So we went on tour of the Bethel here.  It is so big.  The sister who was our tour guide told us how big but I've forgotten.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 and some acres. I think.  Anyways, it's big.    We met so many people.  The brothers here are incredibly welcoming and outgoing.  It seemed like everyone we came across we would shake hands with and exchange names.  We had a long morning of walking and meeting people.

Matt and me with our guide Sister Ebere. Ebere means Kindness

 Many departments have recently moved into new or renovated spaces also so there is a sense of newness and excitement everywhere.

Part of the printery building.

We toured the generator building.  Now, that may not seem exciting to you sisters and you may be tempted to skim past these next pictures but stop and think of this.  These 4 generators run on fuel stored underground.  Well over 90 percent of the time these generators are running.  A very small amount of time we receive actual electricity from the power lines.  This means most of the time our power comes from these generators and the fuel that feeds them.  The printery, the offices, the construction site are all powered by these.  And more critically to me, my air conditioner, laptop, iPad, hair straightener (which I almost might as well have left at home since its HOT season), fridge, lights, hot water and the list goes on, are all powered by these. I have deep respect for these machines let me tell you! I am just in awe that so much energy and expense goes into maintaining a comfortable, beautiful and functional PRINTING Bethel in the middle of the African jungle!!!  Now, for the pictures:

Remember there are 4 of these! But they don't all run at the same time, that's how powerful they are.

Oooooohhhhh

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh

See what I mean?  Now to you electricians and mechanically inclined brothers, you might appreciate talking to Matt about the essential details of this room.  It all sounded QUITE amazing but went a little over my head.  However, this building is HIGH on my list of favorite sites in Bethel for the aforementioned reasons. It's so cool that even I could appreciate how involved and amazing it was.

Last place we toured was the BEX building.  Which I was puzzled about too..BEX, what is this BEX?  It means Bethel Expansion.  So we went past their and saw some of the resident animals.

See the monkey trying to ride the motorcycle?

After our tour we had an amazing lunch.  We even had some ice cream.  It was more cream and less ice when we got to eating it, but it was still yum!  After coffee (and tea for Matt of course) with a couple we went on with our day which consisted of some of our home orientation.