Month: February 2025

The project crew is providing each of the 109 homes with two outlets, three overhead lights, and three light switches. At one of the first homes they wired, they encountered a young boy named Billy. Although a language barrier exists, he greeted each new friend with a smile, a fist bump and “Hi, I’m Billy!”

Ten-year-old Billy watched intently as the linemen wired his home, where he lives with his family, which includes two brothers and two half-sisters. As the linemen prepared to move on to wire the next home, they found Billy tagging along. He quickly became a great assistant, grabbing a tool, holding a ladder, fetching a part — whatever the crew needed. And he’s tagged along to each home they’ve wired since. He’s become their little assistant.

The school in the village of Palmira has one teacher. To accommodate the learning needs of the different levels, they rotate the students in 2-3 week increments, with 1-2 grade levels attending at a time. As fate would have it, Billy’s grade level isn’t in session right now.

So, Billy greets the crews when they arrive early each morning and follows them throughout the day. He just wants to be a part of it – he just wants to help. He can take pride in knowing he has played a part in making the future of his community brighter. And, maybe Billy has a future as a cooperative lineman?

And, the linemen he’s worked with on this project will certainly leave a piece of their hearts with him when they return home.

Since leaving Indianapolis this week, the Project Indiana crew has experienced long travel days, has tackled challenges placed before them, and experienced the trust the Palmira families have placed in them for the hope of a better tomorrow.

The first travel day of any project trip is always a long one, and this trip was the same. The project crew left Indianapolis Wednesday, Jan. 29, at about 6:45 a.m., and finished the day when they arrived at the Hotel Fuente Real in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, at about 1 a.m. [But, before taking off from Indy, JCREMC’s Kevin Bay snuck in an interview!]

After a good night of sleep and a good breakfast, they stopped at a convenience store to stock up on water, Gatorade and sodas – and then hit the road to finish their drive up the mountain. They settled in at their home for the next two weeks – a hotel that’s about a 35-minute drive from the project village of Palmira.

They arrived in the village mid-afternoon Thursday to get oriented and sort supplies, so they could start the ground running Friday morning. This included organizing their supply “warehouse” and getting their wire reels set.

Their plan is to start each day with breakfast at 6:30 at a restaurant that’s about a 10-minute drive from their hotel. With their bellies full, they’ll head to the village to work until around 6 each day. The plan for Friday’s work is to start pulling spans of wire and to start wiring the homes.

Friday’s work started off slower than hoped. Although used for our 2023 project build, the racks that hold the large reels of wire couldn’t withstand the weight of the reels and they broke. Doing what linemen do best, they improvised and adapted to come up with a solution. The crew ended up pulling about four spans of line and started hanging it on poles. The inside wiring crew members were able to get about 10 homes wired today.

The plan for Saturday is to pull secondary wire through the coffee fields that surround the village. The inside wiring crews will continue their work, and are expected to gain momentum as they wire each home.

The heartwarming scene of the day: four or five pickup trucks pulling into the village with refrigerators and electric stoves loaded in the bed. The modern conveniences we take for granted are about to become a reality for the families of Palmira. They’ve placed their trust in the Project Indiana linemen — gentlemen they’ve not met before Thursday. But, gentlemen with whom they’ve placed their trust of a better tomorrow.