Driving the Winter Road to Vanavara

Today I will be taking another advanced survey trip to Vanavara. Missionary James Pranger, Oganes, and I will be leaving out on the winter road. Some of you may remember Oganes from some of my earlier letters. He translated for me on my very first trip to Russia, and accompanied me to the northern villages of Tura and Turahansk. He also heads up the village ministry in Atamanova. Brother Pranger is a second generation missionary who practically grew up on the winter roads, and knows the dangers of them far better than I.  

A trucker who drives this road regularly said that the trip takes about 24 hours from Krasnoyarsk. This will be the first time we have driven the road. The purpose of this trip is fact finding. Specifically:

• What are the conditions of the road? We are told  that the road is rather rough, but how rough?
• To make contacts with truckers who could transport building supplies. Oganes has made contacts already with some drivers.   
• A better understanding of the cost involved in transporting the building materials. 

We will be driving up in Oganes' 4x4 pickup. The average pickup, right off the assembly line would not even come close to making it up one of these roads. For that reason he has had it into a mechanic to have it professionally prepared and insulated for travel on the winter road. 

Once we get up to Vanavara I have quite a list of things to find out regarding the future houses for myself and Missionary Matt Northcutt. I plan to meet with the local sawmills to get a estimate for the lumber needed for our houses. I also need to get an estimated cost for the electric hookup. One of the larger questions has to do with foundation. We really need to ship up the materials needed for putting in a foundation this winter so that we can do a foundation next summer. There are two options for the foundation: one is the more traditional concrete foundation. The difficulty with this is that all the concrete would need to be shipped up from the city and would need to be mixed either by hand or by a mortar mixer, which would also need to be purchased and sent up. Also, keep in mind that the frost line is well over 2 meters deep (6 1/2 feet). The foundation needs to get below the frost line. The short story "a lot of concrete and large expense." 

The other, and more practical, option is to build on  piling. The question then is what type of drilling rigs are available, what size of drilling head do they have, and what is the cost per hole? We do know the cost of the piling itself. The piling material comes to 68,000 Rubles which normally would be $2,266 dollars. However, right now, we are experiencing an unusually good exchange rate. In the past, the average was 30 rubles to the dollar, but at present we are getting around 50 rubles to the dollar. So with the current exchange rate we can get the same piling  material for  $1,360 dollars. I make mention of this for this reason, if there is any thing that you could contribute toward this project, now is a good time to do so, so that we can lock in this good exchange rate before it changes. If you would like to contribute to this project please send to our mission agency, PNBM, but please mark in the memo section of the check that it is for the "Deans House Project."

Why is such a building project so necessary? One reason is that rental properties are few and far between. Most likely what one could find to rent is more of a dormitory then an apartment. In addition to this, renting an apartment with no plans of building a permanent house would communicate to the village that we are just here temporary. People who are just passing through will rent a small dormitory but such people have no plans to stay, and once their business is complete they leave.  People need to know that we are coming there to live for the long haul. For ministry purposes, the people most likely will not take us seriously until they see that we are serious about living there. The third reason is a legal reason. In order to register our permanent residency, we have to show that we are residing in a place with a specific amount of living space for the size of our family. I doubt that I could find a place to rent in this village that would meet that criteria. The only solution that I can see is to build. It is a necessary project in order to further the Gospel.      

Please pray for this trip. Please pray:

• For our safety
• That we can make the contacts needed for building a house, that will later turn into an opportunity to share the Gospel 
• For the financial need for this project. A rough estimate of the whole project is around $75,000 dollars. This is a large expense, but a necessary one in order to reach the lost souls of this region.