If it’s yellow, let it mellow.
Last week sometime, the water was turned off to our apartment for a day. I’m not sure why, but we’ve heard some theories that perhaps a pipe burst, perhaps another apartment-dweller was fixing their plumbing and turned the water off without telling us, or perhaps it was a routine maintenance thing.
Either way, it happened that just as I got out of the shower, on a day when the kids needed baths desperately and the laundry had piled up to Biblical proportions, we found ourselves without water.
Would it last an hour? Would it last a week? We didn’t know.
First, I tried to find a neighbor who knew what was going on, but nobody was home.
So then we decided to wait it out, hoping for the best, but after a few hours of dishes piling up and toilets not being flushed (the old “if it’s yellow, etc.” ruling was instated), we realized we would be forced to buy bottled water. In between evangelism and a few meetings with new friends in the city, we ended up making two trips to the grocery store to load up on the cheapest bottled water they had. When it was all said and done, we had purchased 60 liters of water, enacted strict toilet flushing rules, and developed a highly efficient method of doing dishes that would make water conservationists in the States proud.
And then the water pipes in the bathroom mysteriously started hissing and sputtering. The water was back on, Jessie did a little jig in praise of Jesus, we did the dishes with liberal amounts of water, and life returned back to normal.
Romania is teaching us to be ready at any moment for the plan to change. Whether it’s a cockroach invasion, no running water for a day, canceled meetings, surprise visits, changing visa regulations, or just misunderstandings due to language barriers, you have to be ready to adjust everything on the fly at any moment. When you fight it, it’s annoying, but once you just surrender to it, life becomes really exciting watching God surprise you with something unexpected every day.
It Doesn't Matter Where 