Hydro Electric Turbine Nyangombe

The turbine at Nyangombe is the unseen ‘beating heart’ of Nyangombe which has been running now for over 30 years giving electricity for lighting, water pumps and all workshop machines used in training. You can imagine our shock when a night watchman told us at 02:05 that the turbine had shut down. We had a Ladies Bible School running and another Bible School following on and then a Scripture Union Youth Camp all scheduled during the next weeks. How would they be possible without water, lighting, freezers and cold room? The power failure drove us to pray for the Lord’s wisdom as we could not find the cause of the problem. A friend from ZESCO our national power company joined us in investigation possible reasons for failure. When drawing arrived from Germany they indicated a possible unit failure. After four days we were getting anxious about 500kgs of meat we had butchered for Sakeji Mission School. However, when we looked at the diodes on the alternator, they were immediately recognised. Over 25 years ago we had seen parts just like these and we carefully packed them away in a safe place. They were still where we had put them so we changed them, within seconds we had ‘lights on’ again. A cheer was heard around the Bible School and we all took time to thanks the Lord for His wisdom in us knowing what to do. We should never take the blessing of power for granted!!

Hydro Electric Turbine Nyangombe (made by Ossberger, Germany)

Mr Henry shutting down the flooded turbine!

The last time the river flooded!