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Well No. 16

Nuevo Horizonte Methodist Church

 Sponsors - The Memorial United Methodist Church

Fernandina Beach, FL

The settlement of Nuevo Horizonte is a newly opened homestead community near the Quinta Linea Methodist Church.  There are 84 families that have received about 20 acres each, which they must improve with a house and some crops within a year in order to keep the land.  These are amazingly hard working, industrious people, and we were truly honored to have a chance to work among them.  For some photos of the people and their houses, click here.  Several of the families who have moved to Nuevo Horizonte came from communities served by our Methodist churches. Two young men, who own land adjacent each other, donated a building site of almost a acre for a Methodist Church.  Since this is a newly developed area, there is no electricity, no running water, only a rough dirt road.  This was probably one of our most appreciated wells.

Drilling this well was a real challenge, in more ways than one.  We camped at the site, Linda did all the cooking for the drilling team (5 people) and we had to import water, food, ice, etc.  The black tarp on poles in the above right photo served as our latrine and shower (Ed built a floor to keep us out of the mud).  Many of the curious locals came to visit, and the one thing they all commented on was that our tent HAD A FLOOR!  All of their houses have dirt floors.  Even when we feel that we are roughing it, we are humbled by the lives of the people here.

We had some technical problems at this well - we actually had to drill it 3 times!  At the first site we encountered a zone of high permeability at 60 feet that insisted on "drinking" all of our drilling fluid.  Linda, our able mud engineer, thickened up the mud to the point of hardly being able to pump it, to no avail.  We then tried "spotting a pill" - sending a bentonite/cement mix down the drill stem to block off the lost circulation zone, which did not work either.  We then moved over 10 feet and tried again, but with the same results.  So we then moved 100 feet away to the other side of the church site, and finally were successful - Praise the Lord.

We were honored to be able to show the film "The Life of Jesus", which we have in their native language of Guarani.  We used our generator and projected the image on a sheet hung on the side of the drilling truck.  It was a big hit!  Unfortunately, the generator died half way through the movie, so it had to be continued a week later after repairs were made.  There were over 70 people who came to see the film and hear the sermon.  The pastor at the Quinta Linea Methodist Church now has services at a neighbors house every Sunday night - our first planted church resulting from a well.  To God be the Glory!  A small church building is now in the works.

 Technical Details

Sponsor:    The Memorial United Methodist Church, Fernandina Beach, Florida

Drilling date: Oct 23 to Nov 13, 2006

Location:   Latitude -   S24° 25.831’       Longitude - W 056° 09.035' 

Elevation:   219 meters above mean sea level

Total cost:    $1,970

Drill depth: 65.3 meters

Soil types encountered:    clayey sand and sandstone

Static groundwater level: 33 meters below ground surface

Dynamic groundwater level:  unknown (hand pump)

Installed well depth:  65.0 meters

Length of screened section:  18 meters

Length of gravel packed section:  45 meters

Length and type of sealed section:  1 meter of bentonite pellets

Pump description:    2 inch cylinder hand pump

Depth to base of pump:   51 meters

Flow rate:    N/A

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