Interruptions in the life of a Missionary!

Interruptions seem to be something of the norm here. You wish they were not normal, but then we pray that we handle them in the right way, as people are watching: little and big.

Flying to Joberg, South Africa I would say is a major interruption, especially to Steve. He had to teach the children school and still try to study language. He had to cook and keep after the laundry. Our worker Henry does all of the cleaning and does make the bread. I probably need to teach him more. My next trip south is more planned and so I am trying to do cooking on ahead.

On Monday, Sept 28th, our dog discovered a great place to dig in the mud. He was coated and so off he went to our outside laundry area to get washed off. Steve and I took showers too close together and the drain was over flowing. We knew it was clogged, but were ignoring it. Ignoring it really isn’t a problem here unless you are trying to teach your dog to stay out of the garden and not dig everything up!! Basically, all pipes come out of the ground outside the wall of the house and go into the house wall were ever you want them to. All the way around our house is a nice cement drainage ditch. So when the outside drain is clogged it just over flows into this ditch and drains into the garden under the grape arbor. This is where the wash machine drained until we started catching the water in a drum to water the fruit trees. So during a much needed language break, Steve and his language helper investigated. After digging around with a stick, he found a grate and pulled it up and the water went right down. All fixed and didn’t cost a thing.
In the afternoon the dryer quite while I was in the kitchen where I could hear it. It didn’t sound normal. I went to investigate. The voltage stabilizer was smoking. I quickly pulled plugs. Steve just hooked this new stabilizer on a week ago!!!!! Maddening!!!! Our washer will not spin on low voltage. I turn things off and come back an hour later and start it again and it works. Steve doing laundry doesn’t have that much patience. The thing should work. So he hooked it up to a voltage stabilizer. So Steve took a break from language study and unwired the washer and dryer from the stabilizer and wired them back straight into the electric. Some things around here you just cannot plug in, you have to wire them up. So back to square one and this wasn’t cheap. Steve just happened to find this large voltage stabilizer that someone had ordered and never picked up. Finding one this big is hard and we need them for the washer and dryer that are on our create or we might as well not even use them. This electric around here will mess them up.

Today, the washer did quit. The dryer has electric but the washer doesn’t seem to. Steve got out what few tools he has and started taking it apart. It turned out to be a fuse. Problem solved, but an hour has gone by that should have been spent studying.

God bless,
Rita for the Schwarz’ in Mbala, Africa