Around the World with the Woltjers

Tuesday was an exciting day for the project team! It was the official start of work for the hospital expansion project. Aspiring workers were lined up outside of the office for applications and interviews, and current employees were already getting started clearing ground.

While this project has been expected for a couple years now, all of the hurdles have been overcome and the project has officially begun.

The scope of this project is huge. We’ll be taking down all of the “old hospital” buildings that are deteriorated after about 50 years of use. There are a total of 14 components to the project. Of these, there are five new buildings, two remodels, five building expansions, a new medical waste incinerator, and a materials yard. These all are intended to accommodate the current needs of the hospital, as well as to provide for future growth.

Even now, there are times when the ER is totally full and there are patients sitting on the ground waiting to be seen.

To effectively keep this project on track and in budget, Earl Hartwig, Jordan Thompson, and Kingston Kaman will all be working as project managers, each supervising their own crews and components of the project.

I’ve been involved in extending and testing the computer network to ensure a fast and reliable connection for the project team to use as they communicate, share files, and check budgets in our new ERP system (enterprise resource planning). It has been exciting for me to learn as I go while implementing the enterprise-grade network.

Justin has been working very hard to get the project’s new ERP system configured correctly. This system integrates accounting functions with inventory management, time tracking, and payroll. The accounting requirements for the project are very rigorous. To meet these requirements, the ERP system has to correctly attribute costs to the various parts of the project.

We’re all excited to begin this project. At Kudjip, projects have been an unexpected way to do outreach and evangelism. Many workers are hired from surrounding communities, and many are not Christians. Starting the day with devotions and Scripture reading has opened the door to share the Gospel and lead people to faith in Christ. We pray that this would be true again for this project.