“Daddy, the hot water is gone!” Avery exclaimed to me while I was in the middle of an important phone call this afternoon. I heard her, but I wasn’t listening. It’s one of those classic dad moments where I heard the words but I didn’t take them to heart and continued my phone call. A friend tried calling my phone, but I declined it because the call I was already on. I also heard Bethany’s phone ring and still ignored it (lets just pause here and thank the Lord that nothing dangerous was going on because no amount of warning would’ve alerted me unless I was actually on fire or something). Fifteen or twenty minutes later I hung up from my call and Avery said again, “Daddy, the hot water is gone!” Confused still, I said, “Where’s mommy?!” She pointed to the bathroom and that’s when I heard Bethany’s voice, “I’m in here!…There’s no hot water!” As she was showering the hot water went off and now she had been stranded in the shower for at least twenty minutes with soap in her hair. That explains what Avery meant!
Why was the hot water off? Well, that’s a story in a story. Last week while the plague swept our house we got a notice regarding the gas meter being replaced. Mostly we understood it but were a little confused about the times and day they would come. I guess the gas company people did show up but our doorbell is broken so we didn’t hear them. Yesterday we got a phone call that was completely in Czech and I was so confused and did my best to understand. Could this be the gas company trying to call? I thought I understood the man on the phone asking me when we would be home, but my Czech just isn’t good enough to respond and I was already unsure what was going on or who I was even talking to. Finally, after a few minutes of frustration, the caller said “goodbye” to me in Czech. This morning Bethany got a phone call in Czech. Was it the gas company? Just like me she was confused and the caller hung up when they couldn’t communicate either.
Fast forward back to the cold shower. I ended up boiling hot water for Bethany so she could rinse off and no longer be stranded. I checked the hot water boiler we have and I could see the pilot wasn’t lit. It’s not a hot water heater, and doesn’t store hot water in a tank like most places in the States; it kind of heats water when you need it. That’s when I called back our friend who tried calling me while I was on the phone. Basically, she told me the gas company talked to our landlord and replaced the meter this morning thus turning off our gas while Bethany was showering, and she added they weren’t happy about all the miscommunication. She also told me that the water heater would be off and need to be relit which of course we already knew at that point. I was thankful for the clarity. I did finally get the boiler pilot light lit again. A little Googling and a lighter got us back in business.
We continued working on language stuff with Jenny and Landen this afternoon and they brought us a special Czech treat that we had never had before. It’s called “Kolonada” (shown above) and they said it’s a pretty traditional treat that Czechs give as gifts when visiting your home. It’s like a thin wafer with sugar and hazelnuts inside and it was delicious! Here’s another picture of it.
As for language, it’s coming along albeit very slow. We are putting together sentences and doing a ton of listening but it’s not fast and it’s not easy. Every day I’m amazed at our progress and continually am asking the Lord for His grace as we learn Czech!
