The next morning was interesting. I almost burned down his apartment! Yes, sometimes living in Russia can be complicated. Let me explain!In this apartment there is an old water heater (white box on the wall in this picture). 
Sergey showed me that you have to first turn this lever to turn on the water to the heater, then you turn on the water to the sink so water is flowing through the system, then you turn another lever to turn on the gas, then you light the gas heater with a match. Once the hot water is running, I can turn the hot water on in the shower. Of course, I need to turn off the hot water in the kitchen sink so I have enough water pressure to take a shower! Are you still with me on all of this? The one thing I didn’t quite understand was that I was supposed to NOT turn off the hot water in the shower when I was done.
Well, I did the typical thing I did when I finished showering. I turned off the water. A couple of minutes later I heard Sergey in the kitchen exclaiming, “What did you do!” I went out to the smoke filled kitchen and the water heater was overheating. There was no water running through the system, so there was nowhere for the heat to go except to the heater itself. It melted the plastic timer that was magnetically held to the metal outside of the heater cabinet. What used to be white was now brown from overheated metal. Once I understood how the system worked, I told Sergey to turn the hot water back on to help dissipate the heat from the unit. Steam and puffs of boiling hot water came out
where hot water once flowed. Despite all this, the heater cooled down and still worked later on. That was a relief, but we still had a brown heater that needed to be cleaned up.
Scrubbing didn’t have any effect. Sandpaper didn’t effectively take it off. So, Sergey and I took a walk to the store to buy some paint and something to remove the brown before we painted it. We found some rotary wire brushes that fit on the end of a drill he had. We bought those and walked the 20 minutes back to the apartment.
When we returned and unlocked the front door, the lock broke. Sergey took it apart and discovered one of the wires that had been used as a spring had broken. It couldn’t be fixed. We had to buy a
new lock! That meant that I had to stay and watch the apartment as Sergey walked the 20 minutes back to the store to buy a new lock. He kept saying… “This is a bad day, we don’t will have rest”!
I spent about 2 hours with the wire brush cleaning up the heater to remove the brown char from the heater. Sergey returned with the lock and worked on the front door. Later, he painted the heater and I banged around on the door jam with a hammer to help the lock fit and lock. Somewhere around 6pm we were finished. A day that started with a simple shower ended up being a work day of repair projects. It could have been a very bad day, but it really was a blessing to work together as father and son to accomplish a mission.
Sergey showed me that you have to first turn this lever to turn on the water to the heater, then you turn on the water to the sink so water is flowing through the system, then you turn another lever to turn on the gas, then you light the gas heater with a match. Once the hot water is running, I can turn the hot water on in the shower. Of course, I need to turn off the hot water in the kitchen sink so I have enough water pressure to take a shower! Are you still with me on all of this? The one thing I didn’t quite understand was that I was supposed to NOT turn off the hot water in the shower when I was done.Well, I did the typical thing I did when I finished showering. I turned off the water. A couple of minutes later I heard Sergey in the kitchen exclaiming, “What did you do!” I went out to the smoke filled kitchen and the water heater was overheating. There was no water running through the system, so there was nowhere for the heat to go except to the heater itself. It melted the plastic timer that was magnetically held to the metal outside of the heater cabinet. What used to be white was now brown from overheated metal. Once I understood how the system worked, I told Sergey to turn the hot water back on to help dissipate the heat from the unit. Steam and puffs of boiling hot water came out
where hot water once flowed. Despite all this, the heater cooled down and still worked later on. That was a relief, but we still had a brown heater that needed to be cleaned up.Scrubbing didn’t have any effect. Sandpaper didn’t effectively take it off. So, Sergey and I took a walk to the store to buy some paint and something to remove the brown before we painted it. We found some rotary wire brushes that fit on the end of a drill he had. We bought those and walked the 20 minutes back to the apartment.
When we returned and unlocked the front door, the lock broke. Sergey took it apart and discovered one of the wires that had been used as a spring had broken. It couldn’t be fixed. We had to buy a
new lock! That meant that I had to stay and watch the apartment as Sergey walked the 20 minutes back to the store to buy a new lock. He kept saying… “This is a bad day, we don’t will have rest”!I spent about 2 hours with the wire brush cleaning up the heater to remove the brown char from the heater. Sergey returned with the lock and worked on the front door. Later, he painted the heater and I banged around on the door jam with a hammer to help the lock fit and lock. Somewhere around 6pm we were finished. A day that started with a simple shower ended up being a work day of repair projects. It could have been a very bad day, but it really was a blessing to work together as father and son to accomplish a mission.
That day reminded me of the verses in Joshua 1:2-16. Joshua was given a mission by God (verse 2), a promise (verse 3), God only asked for obedience (verse 7) and God would be with them (verse 9). Certainly, our mission together that day was small, but the principles of obedience and that God would be with us was always present. Who can imagine what can be accomplished when God is with us and we are obedient!
1 comment:
Oh my goodness...I never knew hot water could be so complicated!!
Karen
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