Because I am a single missionary living in a foreign city, I have gone through some interesting life experience. I can honestly say that, if I never moved out of my small hometown in Wisconsin, I would have never had these experiences to learn from. My dad or the landlord where always a phone call away to fix things for me. Everyone spoke the same language as me. People, in general, seemed "normal." Strange things never reminded me of home, because I was home. That is not the case here. I have been in situations or learned new things that never once crossed my mind while living in small-town Wisconsin. I have written out a list of lessons I have learned from a variety of scenarios I have been in since moving to Prague.
1. The plumbing in an old apartment building is also old. No matter how up-to-date the rest of the apartment is, our plumbing is not. We have had more plumbing problems than anyone else in our community. The fact that some of the main pipe structures are completely horizontal means they don’t drain well. Kitchen sink clogs have appeared… more than once. And when I say clogs, I mean large, can’t do anything about it without major help from a plumber clogs. I have learned a lot about plumbing, communicating with non-English speaking plumbers, and contacting landladies who live in another continent. I also became well practiced in the art of doing dishes in the bathtub. (Not while I was in the bathtub, I might add. I actually needed to clarify that to people here, so I will make that clear again.)
2. No matter how many languages someone tries to speak to me in, if it isn't English I won’t fully understand. One day, after getting out of the shower, there was a knock at our door. When I open it, I find a Czech women speaking very quickly. The words “voda” (water) and “dole” (down) where spoken, that was all I understood. She noticed my confusion and asked if I spoke German. “Nine,” I said. Well, that didn't stop her from switching back and forth from Czech and German while taking me downstairs to her apartment to see the leak coming from her ceiling. Yes, that is right, more plumbing problems. Anyway, even with all the hand gestures, my very broken Czech, and her switching from language to language, there was a lot of confusion in the air by the end of that conversation. Lesson learned: always have a Czech-speaking friend on speed-dial.
3. Always check the light bulbs before calling an electrician. A light switch in our bathroom has not worked since before I moved in. The other lights worked, so it was never high up on the to-do list to get it fixed. Good thing too. After a series of unfortunate events led to removing the light switch plate, and a random thought to put in a new light bulb, we discovered the lights work. That would have been one embarrassing encounter with the electrician. "Ladies, all you needed to do was change the light bulbs."
4. A kitchen light bulb can blow out the electricity in the whole apartment. I used to think that blowing a fuse at home was a big deal. Well, on this occasion, the problem was not fixed with our easy-to-access fuse box in the apartment… it had to do with the big box downstairs… connected to all the apartments. After careful consideration and study of the electric boxes, we found the breaker we hoped was linked to our flat. We flipped it, ran to check if our electricity was back on, and prayed we didn't mess up the electricity for someone else. Again, praise God!
5. Home Depot, or the idea of it, can bring comfort. While on the search for a new light switch (yes, the same one that had been removed in the light bulb incident), my roommate and I went to OBI (or as we like the call it, the Star Wars Store- inside joke). OBI reminded us of Home Depot the second we entered it. Even though I hated shopping there while I was in the States, I found comfort while at the Home Depot like store here. So many things in Czech culture are different, but this reminded me of home.
6. You never know when your Czech language lessons will come in handy. You would think the times I would need my Czech the most would be out and about in public, right? At the store, ordering coffee, riding the metro… Wrong. The time I have needed to speak the most Czech was while teaching children’s church at my English-speaking, international church. We had three Czech- speaking six-year-olds come, and my one English and Czech speaker was gone. My brain hurt by the end of that hour. I think they were able to take away that “Jesus loves all of us, and that is good news.” Either that or they walked away thinking, “What was that crazy lady saying about Jesus and the newspaper?”
7. Who better to dance with than a man in the saxophone suit? Shortly after moving here, I learned that anything can happen. You can see anything in a city the size of Prague. That includes a grown man wearing a saxophone suit, and only a block down from the man in a shark suit. After homeless ministry with the youth group I help with, I found some of our...(how do I put this)... energetic... girls dancing and rapping with this man in a saxophone suit. Strange, I know. Don't worry, I had the "stranger danger" talk with them afterward.
8. Lastly, anything can prepare you for the next stage of life. Whenever and wherever God takes me after Prague, I will be ready. He will equip me. Paying rent at the post office in a foreign country in a foreign language no longer intimidates me. Who knows how God can use that? Teaching middle school health to an extremely diverse group of kids has tested me, but grown me as a teacher and a person. Being the first aid person (aka, the school nurse) has given me a confidence in skills I never thought I would put into practice. Plumbing issues, electrical problems, broken stove tops and microwaves, language barriers, culture shock, and everyday life in general has grown me into what I am today. I am a little more experienced, knowledgeable, and confident in situations I would have never imagined. And to God be the glory for all of it and all that will come of it.
So, what can you learn from your interesting life experiences?
Enjoy the lovely Prague pictures:
Love this!!
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