Creole Programming for Haitians

We broadcast programs in the Haitian Creole language each evening from Bonaire. These programs are currently being produced at Radio Trans Mundial Dominicana. That's the TWR office in the Dominican Republic, for those of you who are "Spanish challenged."

Pictured here is Pastor Joseph Leveille, who translates and voices the Creole version of the Thru The Bible program. Pray for Pastor Leveille and the staff of RTM - DR office as they work on the last year of this five year long Bible survey series.


The men in this photo supervise another 190 pastors that work with Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Here, Georgina Thompson, the director of the TWR ministry in the DR, is presenting them with 2000 copies of the just printed Creole version of the daily devotional book, "Food for Faith."


You can click on the photos to see them bigger.

biking bliss

It's been unseasonable warm here in New Jersey, up until this past weekend anyway. I must admit that Sandra and I found the weather a whole lot nicer than Bonaire at this time of the year. Actually, Sandra has had the flu or something since we arrived here a week and a half ago.

Now that it's getting a little cooler, we'll have to bundle up, especially when I'm on the bike and generating a mighty headwind.

Most of my time on the bike has consisted of going round and round good old Brookdale Park. It's pretty boring, but I can get a much better workout than I do in traffic. I'll probably venture out of the park to attack some hills this week though.

As you can see in the picture, not all of my riding has been out in the sunny spaces of the Garden State.

I thought it was named after The Parkway, ha-ha, but Aunt Teak, down in Neptune, assures me that NJ still has lots of small farms producing luscious Tomatoes, Corn, and Peaches.

We had some fresh corn on the cob on Saturday, Yum!

Bye Bye BBC

Our fearless maintenance team on Bonaire has just started painting another of our almost 500 foot tall antenna towers. I imagine it will take a couple months to complete the job. First they have to scrape the old paint and corrosion off of the tower parts. They they prime it, and finally they give it a color coat. All this while dangling high in the air, buffeted by the Caribbean trade winds.

Before they started on the tower painting, the guys were busy removing the old 500kw BBC (Brown Boveri & Company) radio transmitter. We haven't used it for quite a few years now. The main circuits of the transmitter were built into a 40 foot shipping container, but the power supplies filled another couple rooms. You can see some of the power supply components, now that the main unit is out of the building.

You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

On the Move

Our Fall Furlough has officially begun. We're in PA with my parents right now, enjoying the good life at Willow Valley. We'll be heading to NJ on Tuesday for a doctor appointment and to hang out with our son, Richard for a few days.

On the 24th and 25th, we'll be at the Asbury Park Baptist Church, in case you are in the area.

Perry and Sally Zavitz (pictured in Sub-1) are on Bonaire to help cover the work while we are away. They'll be downloading, processing, and preparing all the English programs we broadcast on the big AM transmitter.

Bike Race number 3

Our third mtn. bike race of the year was something of a fizzle, with only five riders turning out. However three of the five didn't ride the last race, so we were happy to see their fresh eager faces.

We turned it into a sporty training ride, with the faster riders waiting or even doubling back to rejoin the slower riders. That way no one got lost or discouraged.

Saturday morning I went around the course with Andre and James to trim a couple trees that were in the way and to mark the course. Here we see James and Andre posting signs at the start of the one mile long serious single track / donkey trail section.


You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Andre explains the route.


Here I am flying out from the final single track section. A big thank you to cousin Bud Gillan for taking these action photos.


Here are a few of us hanging out after the ride, with a donkey spectator in the background.

Everyone had a great time and we've already set up plans for a weekly Saturday ride starting next week. We're hoping that we can generate more interest if we don't call it a race, but merely a "fun training tour." I'll be in the States until December but the gang is planning to train hard so as to put the hurt on me when I get back to Bonaire. I do have a bike in the States, so I guess I'd better ride it as much as I can.

Planetary Parade Continues

Have you been watching Venus and Jupiter in the evening sky, as I suggested a couple days ago?

It's not too late to get outside and enjoy the show.

A skinny crescent moon will joining the planets Tuesday and Wednesday. I think Tuesday night will be especially striking.

Sky and Telescope has a chart showing what you can expect to see each night. Scroll about half way down the page to see it.

If you have clear skies and a clear view of the western horizon, you might take a look tonight (Monday) and see if you can spot the extra skinny crescent moon down near the horizon after sunset. I looked Sunday evening, when the moon would have been about 28.5 hours old, but I didn't see it in the haze. grrrr Monday evening should be much easier.

Annual Biker Weekend

Our mountain bike race is next weekend. This past weekend was for bikers of the Harley Davidson kind. It's become an annual event, with bikers coming from Curacao and Aruba. Here are some of the bikes parked at Habitat.

Sandra and her cousin, Bud, were snorkeling way out in the deep water off of Andrea 2 the other day when Sandra heard an ominous rumbling. The clouds were looking weird so she thought "tornado" but didn't spot one. Then she looked around for approaching boats, but none were approaching. Finally they realized that it was the 100+ motorcycles going on a tour around the north end of the island.

On Sunday, we were just leaving the TWR studio building when we heard the rumbling approaching and saw an amazing site. The bike parade came from town, rode around the traffic circle and headed back towards town. The bright colors, flashing chrome, and thundering rumbles would have made a great video sequence as the seemingly endless stream of bikes passed by itself, coming and going on both sides of the road.

Planetary Parade

We've been watching Venus and Jupiter getting closer and closer together after sunset in the west for about a week now. They made their closest approach last night.

These planets are pretty bright and if you go out tonight and for the next few evenings, you can watch them pull away from each other.

Name that Picture

Here's another chance to rev up those creative juices.

No - not your stomach juices.

Yes - that is my right leg.

Hint - A souvenir from my bike ride on Saturday am.

Click - on the picture to see it bigger....

Urrrp....

Papiamentu Programs

Our 100 kw AM transmitter can heard from Florida and the Bahamas in the north down to the middle of Brazil in the South. We broadcast daily Bible teaching programming in the English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. We also have a weekend program in Baniua and in Macuxi, the languages of large indigenous groups living in the Amazon basin.

In addition to our international broadcasting, we present programming in English, Spanish, Dutch, and Papiamentu (the language here on the ABC islands) on a FM transmitter.

A group of women from Bonaire collaborate on a program for women. I mentioned this project a couple times about a year ago. You can search on Project Hanna to see those posts. We also air Bible studies by a couple of pastors located in Curacao and Aruba.

We have Papiamentu, English, and Spanish programming for kids each afternoon. Our newest kids program, Chikitin Pa Hesus, is being created by Richandro, the very talented and very dedicated young man pictured below.


In addition to doing his regular weekly program, Laso Direkto Ku Hesus, on TWR, and working with some friends on a successful youth program aired on a popular secular station, Richandro has been working with us on a number of projects as a summer intern of sorts, after having graduated from MAVO in the local high school this past May. He is now beginning the rigorous HAVO school program.


You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Curacao and Back

There was absolutely no wind yesterday morning (Tue.) when I woke up. Normally I would take advantage of such a rare event to go for a speedy road bike ride. But I only had time for a short mtn. bike ride, because it was visit the doctor in Curacao day.

We took the Divi Divi puddle jumper plane, which is really laid back. More like hopping on a bus than a plane. When we flew back to Bonaire that afternoon, the air was super clear and the sun was behind us, and we got the best views of Bonaire that I've ever seen. I was wishing I had brought my camera, of course, but we enjoyed it none the less.

Curacao was fine. We rented a Toyota Yaris Hatchback (smaller than an Echo) and zoomed hither and yon. Visited a nice big bike shop and to see if there was any market for some carbon fiber race wheels I have left over from my road bike racing days. There is an active cycling community in Curacao, but no one seems to ride sew ups these days, so the wheels will likely end up on eBay one day.

We visited a candy store, a warehouse store where we bought Santo Domingo coffee that one can no longer get on Bonaire, the BMW/Land Rover dealer, Subway, and of course the doctor, where we learned that Sandra is doing great.

We flew back to Bonaire on the last flight of the day with most of the same seven other passengers that were on the plane in the morning. Bonaire sure seemed quiet and sleepy after spending the day in Curacao.

Kellners are Back

Trans World Radio has introduced many families to the wonders of Bonaire during the more than 40 years that we have been broadcsting from this little island. Many of the kids who spent some of their formative years here eventually make a pilgramage back to Bonaire to check out their old stomping grounds. My wife, Sandra, and I became a couple when she visited the island to check out her roots.

MK Mark Kellner garnered a mention, but no picture, in my blog, when he returned after some 31 years, in Nov. 2004, to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary with his wife Sue.

Mark was back on Bonaire again this past week with his daughter and his dad. I still don't have a picture of Mark. I think he was under water most of the time he was here. But I did snap a picture of Bob Kellner checking out the vibration isolating fabric bellows his late wife made for the studio building air handler unit, before they first came to Bonaire, some 35 years ago.

Mtn. Bike Race Trail

We'll be having another mtn. bike race on Sept. 10. Some of the race is on nice wide dirt roads, some is on washed out dirt roads, and the best part is on some donkey trails that most people don't even know exist.

As time goes by, these unused trails get overgrown with bushes and thorns. Every couple years, I have to do some thorn bush pruning so I can ride without getting all chopped up. Brer rabbit would feel right at home in some of our Bonaire briar patches.

One of my favorite trails connects some dirt roads between the Radio Netherlands antenna farm and Karpata. Here we are looking back near the start of the donkey trail.


You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Some parts of the trail are are wide with a hard rock (coral) surface, but other parts are narrow and have a loose surface made up of small to medium sized rocks. The loose parts are a challenge to power through on a bike.


Here is a narrow part of the trail. We get to enjoy the scenery much better when we walk along the trail with our pruners and clippers. When you are on a bike, you are too busy steering to check out the view.


If you look at the bottom of the picture, you'll see some of the bumpier terrain. There are a couple sections of washed out stream bed that I haven't photographed yet. They are quite tricky to ride, especially at race speeds. Novice riders may have to walk their bikes, but experienced cyclists will hammer through more or less out of control, and loving every minute of it.

School Days Again on Bonaire

If you click on the August 2004 link on the right side of the blog, you can read about the grand opening of the Pelican grammar school that meets in the old TWR office wing.

Well, its August 2005 and school started again yesterday here on Bonaire. The Pelican school has really taken off (heh-heh) with more kids and more teachers. They are using master studio too these days, as a classroom annex.

You can click on the picture to see it bigger.

Amazingly enough, there is also a new high school (HAVO-VWO) meeting in what used to be the workshop area of the Activities Building. I'll see about getting some pictures of that soon. There is a write up about the new school in this week's Bonaire Reporter.

active Weekend

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since I posted anything. Either nothing is happening here on Bonaire during the dog days of summer, or I've just been too brain dead to notice.

Sandra and I have been getting our exercise lately. We've been clearing the thorn and other bushes off of one of the old donkey trails that we'll be using as part of our next mountain bike race, come Sept. 10. It's a 1.7 km stretch that connects two dirt roads. We head out there with the dogs after work every once in a while and chop away until the sun sets around 6:50 pm. After about 17 man hours, we've cut back all the thorns and some of the regular bushes and brush. Hmmmm.... I wonder what that is in dog hours? The dogs love running around out there in the middle of nowhere. I've included a map of the course, for those of you who know the back wilds of Bonaire.

I just used a new tool to post the image. It is easy to use, but didn't put the picture where I wanted it. I'll have to play with it some more. As always, you can click on the picture to see it bigger. In this case, if your browser is set to NOT resize images, you'll see it quite big indeed.

I went for a bike ride with some friends of Miguel on Saturday. Miguel, who beat me by 10-15 seconds in our last bike race, is starting up a fitness center type business in September. Mtn. biking will be part of his program. He also is a volunteer at Jong Bonaire, an after school center for teens. (I came in second in the mtn. bike race a on July 30, but what I don't tell people is that there were only 8 riders and three of them got lost!)

Well, the slowest rider on our ride last Sat. got a leak in her tire near the start of the ride, so they pumped it up and headed her back to town... with the suggestion that she ride fast.
ha-ha...

That left three guys and me. Turns out that one of them races bikes in Venezuela and our ride turned into a race of sorts. At least I had to ride at race pace to keep up! It was great 'cause I would never have ridden that hard by myself. It was also great 'cause there was a guy a little slower than me who we had to wait for periodically, which let me catch my breath. The poor guy was in double trouble, because not only could he not climb as fast as us, but he didn't feel comfortable descending like a bat out of you-know-where. So he was always playing catch up.

Then Sunday, there was actually some wind, so I zoomed out to Sorobon around 4 pm and got in an hour and a half of windsurfing. I've been 4 times now since June, for the first time in quite a few years, and am enjoying it a lot. My windsurfing muscles, not to mention the calluses on my hands are totally out of shape for windsurfing, so short sessions are all I can handle.

So, it will be good to vegetate in front of my computer and edit audio files all day today. It will give my aged bod a chance to recover from an active weekend.

Inter Island Church Gathering

The churches of the Evangelical Alliance of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba held their annual summer get together on Bonaire this year. The main meetings were held in the TWR Activities Building. It was great to see old friends and to make new ones.

There were lots of people at the big meetings held Wednesday through Saturday nights and on Sunday morning. As always, you can click on these pictures to see them bigger.


These young guys are VERY talented musicians, and they switched between instruments with ease. TWR's Jon Savage sat in with them on bass for the Sunday meeting.


In the foreground we can see some of the pastors from the ABC islands. Pastor Zeifinger from Aruba, on the left in the light shirt and dark tie was the pastor in North Salina when I first came to Bonaire. At the right edge of the picture, with the dark skirt and pink blouse is Esther, widow of Clavis White.


The singers did a great job too. Miguel Martis, on the left, was the coordinator and MC for the meetings. His wife is in the middle with the pink dress. Gregory Van Arnamon, from Rincon, is on the right. I don't know who the three girls are, but if I were my son's age, I'd want to find out, heh-heh.


Ah yes, the sound guys. You can't have great meetings without good sound guys. These two young men were with the Curacao contingent and did a wonderful job all week.

MKs all over the place

We are currently enjoying a invasion of MKs (missionary kids) here on Bonaire.

Christophe Lusse and his familiy are visiting. There is a picture of Christophe in a posting from July 14 or so.

Bob(by) Flaming was just here to help with the CEF camp last week, and his sister Sara Lyn is here for a couple months working on a book.

And I had a nice chat with David Romo, who was at the Sunday say-goodby-to-Renata pot luck at the Church. David is married, living on Bonaire with his wife and two sons, and teaching in a school here. He is building a house in Bel Nem, in what used to be the mondi where he played and built forts when he was a kid.

There is now a huge housing development to the East of the coast road in Bel Nem. The mondi area East of the original houses in Hato has also been completely built up.

Renata Fairwell

Renata has been a fixture here at TWR, Bonaire since she came from Brazil in 1976. Yesterday, we said our good-byes at the airport as she left to join the team at the TWR headquarters in Cary, NC.

We had a reception for her at our staff meeting last week, as well as a ladies lunch on Friday, and a pot luck reception at the church on Sunday.

Here we are, hanging out in the mail room - staff lounge. TWR old timers may recognise this room as the entrance lobby of the office wing. We have our weekly staff meeting in here now.


Renata received a Bonaire book, that her friends were all able to sign for her.


Yum yum!


Here we see Azalea and Ivan Statia, and Sara Lyn (Flaming), with Udo lurking on the right edge of the picture.

moon map

I mentioned Google's cool maps and satellite images a while ago. Our son, Richard, just alerted us to Google's new moon maps.

They are pretty cool, and if you zoom all the way in, you'll finally find the answer to an age old question.

What is Wrong with this Picture - Emily Edition

Here are two photos I took on Thursday, around 5 pm.

Here is the first view.


Here is the same scene from a bit further back.


You can click on these pictures to see them bigger, in case that helps.
Or you can look at my post from April 25 (I think) to get some clues.