My trip to the UK provided RFIS and myself not only some great professional continuing education and fun, but a lot of baggage allowance. As any good international traveler knows (especially if they are a missionary) it is almost criminal to leave that allowance unused. So of course I didn’t! Instead my friends in the UK (thankfully they are still friends) allowed their home to be turned into a warehouse for a few days and I packed over 250 pounds of books and science supplies into the suitcases I had brought.
My friend with a very full and heavy luggage cart that we managed to bang into a number of walls trying to get it into the hotel in Heathrow’s terminal 4. It was a daunting challenge for us to get it all to Terminal 2 the next morning without causing to much damage to ourselves or the surroundings.
Some of these supplies were specifically destined for the external IGCSE Science Practical exam that my students took last week. I (and colleagues) spent the better part of two days using the wire and egg white powder along with massive amounts of glassware and other equipment from out lab to set this up.
Two views of the lab before the exam. You can see the blocked windows to prevent “peeking” ahead of time on the right picture. On the left you can see the wire attached to the meter stick which was one of many pieces of equipment and supplies in that pile of luggage.
Two hours after the students started, with a few crashes of dropped materials, the lab looked like this:
Well used materials following the lab exam waiting for clean-up.
It took us quite a bit longer to clean it all up.
But that was not the biggest crash of the week. That honor goes to the unfortunate person clearing land for a garden outside the RFIS wall. His miscalculations led to a MASSIVE CRASH and the result was this.
Tree cut down with a noisy chain saw but with a much louder crash as it obliterated a section of the RFIS wall
Our construction crew (working on the new covered court and sports facility) get to add wall repair to their workload. They are making some good progress on the project but lots of rain and the above additional project are likely to delay completion a bit longer.
More walls going up! I have been told that pouring the second floor will happen sometime fairly soon for this end of the building and then the big steel can go up.
