Today I'm acting department manager.
At 4:30pm I get a call.
"Chad, aviation called, the rain has cancelled the flight that was going to take our sat dish to Wewak.... can you pull off a miracle?"
Our two guys who are out in Aitape, have a 5 hour bumpy truck ride to Wewak, where they are trusting, our equipment will arrive for them to install a second VSAT dish for a regional centre. (Regional centres are where our translators go to get supplies, recoup, do data backups, and more).
SO... how do I, knowing that everything closes in 30 minutes, get a satellite dish all the way across the country?
HELP. I use help.
a friend in Aviation was able to make a connection with a friend from a different missions organization who had a plane that could go to Wewak.
BUT that plane was 2 hours away.
So I needed to, in 30 minutes:
-find out the flight time
-get a vehicle
-get a driver (I can't go, I'd be leaving the department without a supervisor)
-take the two to aviation
-load the equipment in the vehicle
-arrange for the trip
-book the flight at the end of the trip.
AND did I do it? no.. WE DID IT.
I felt like saying 'we're on a mission from God.'
I called the autoshop - they had a vehicle they could rent us big enough to haul the load.
I asked an employee friend of mine who knew the area, who had a license was a good driver, if he could be willing to go.
Together we loaded the equipment.
So.. thanks to the guys in:
-aviation
-autoshop
-a neighboring mission
-the helpdesk
-and communications department
we are able to deliver, (unless something else changes) the equipment 2 hours away at 6am for a flight going to Wewak to meet our installer friends, so they can do the setup.
IF the equipment fails to get there, then their long bumpy ride and plane flight home will have been wasted time, effort, and money.
AND YOU THOUGHT installing internet was easy. (-;
