Party Line!

One aspect of village living that I particularly love is our radio. 😀 Even though our houses are only about 100 feet from each other, going over to our partner’s houses if we need somethings is not always the best option.

You see..we just like each other too much! One “little” question can become a twenty minute visiting session before we realize what happened and as busy as we are, this can be a problem when we are trying to minimize daily distractions! 😀 So, enter the solution to our problem: Our village phone system = a radio!

To be clear, the Bealls have always had a radio in their house. This radio is what they used for many years, and still do use to communicate with other missionaries in our region of the country and to take part in daily roll call: called “Sched”. This is when one of the missions centers checks in on every missionary team in our region to make sure all the missionaries are doing ok. In the last year or so, with the availability of email, this purpose has become a little less pressing but never the less they still use it very often.

When we joined this team I found an old marine radio in our shed and asked Ned Beall if we could hook it up and have all our houses connected via radio. The answer was yes and now, thanks to some smart people hooking it all up, all our houses are connected! It is incredibly handy and has saved me especially a lot of time hauling kids around when I just have a quick question for either of our partners.

The following are my best attempt at recalling actually conversations that have taken place between us thanks to our handy dandy radio’s.

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Me: Hey Linn, you there?

Linn: Yeah, I’m here

Me: Darina is here asking for some cream for her hand infection and I told her I didn’t have any but that I thought you did. Can I send her over to get some from you?

Linn: Sure, I do have some. I’ll go out and see her.

Me: Great! Thanks!

Linn: No problem.

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Ned: Tom, you around?

Tom: Yeah, whats up?

Ned: Well, the rain has stopped now so I’m gonna head back down to the boat and keep workin.

Tom: Ok, I’ll be right there. Thanks.

Ned: Yup, see ya at the beach.

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Me: Hey Aimee, not sure if you can hear it but it sounds like there is a fight going on over by the path.

Aimee: Yeah, I hear it, I’m on my way.

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Aimee: Ned, are you busy?

Ned: Go ahead Aimee

Aimee: I’m really sorry about this but my shower faucet is leaking again. Do you think you would have to time to look at is some time?

Ned: Oh man, is it as bad as it was before?

Aimee: Well it wasn’t at first but now it seems to be just about as bad.

Ned: Ok, I’m coming over.

Aimee: Thanks Ned!

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So as you can see. Our “party line” is a life saver! Roger that! Over and out!