We felt extremely blessed when we had the opportunity to buy a household of furniture and household appliances from a family that was leaving Ecuador at the same time that we were planning on moving down here. Over the months of using our newly obtained items, we also began to realize how blessed the leaving family had been. They left just in time for their appliances to start giving out on them.
The first item to go was our clothes dryer. We had been in the country for a month, when our nanny told us that she had been unable to dry a load of clothes.
“It just spins around in circles, but never dries,” she told us.
Sure enough, it appeared that something had snapped in the heating system of the dryer. However, we didn’t have the money to fix it, so we just began to air dry our clothing. We’ve actually been doing this ever since.
The next item to go was our iron. A couple weeks after our dryer died, the maid said that she had to stop using the iron, because it started smoking while she was using it. I fussed and complained because I didn’t think we could afford a new one. However, Stephen insisted that it was an appliance that we couldn’t do without. So, we bought ourselves a new iron.
It wasn’t more than two weeks later that Stephen called me into the bedroom because the television was doing something weird. It was an old analog set that we had bought from the family. Suddenly the screen made a popping noise and smoke started coming out of the back. That was the end of the television. I would have been happy without one, but Stephen said that we should buy a new one. So, off we went.
We went a few months without any more failed appliances. The only other item to fall apart was a plastic laundry basket.
Then, in February of this year, our portable DVD player stopped working completely. We decided to go out and buy and new one with the idea that Jared should not be allowed to touch it. However, he got ahold of the new DVD player one day and broke off the door. Ouch. That hurt our pocketbook. But this new DVD player still works. It just can’t open automatically.
A couple months went by before the next big appliance fell apart. This time, it was a serious problem. Our refrigerator had created too thick of a layer of ice around the freezer section. When the maid went to defrost the fridge, it never was able to regulate itself back to the original cold temperature. Nothing in the freezer was freezing anymore and food in the refrigerator section was starting to go bad.
We found out that our refrigerator coolant had somehow leaked out and it would take some major repair to get it fixed. We reluctantly headed out of the house to buy a new refrigerator. However, God spared us of that expense in the most amazing way.
We were in a store ready to buy the refrigerator when the sales agent told us that he couldn’t deliver our new refrigerator for another four days unless we could get someone to come pick up the refrigerator from the store. In our attempts to find someone to help us move a refrigerator, we discovered that there was a spare refrigerator at school that we could use for a few months until we move into the apartment at school. We are now using that borrowed refrigerator and are very grateful that we didn’t have to spend an extra $700!
The most recent appliance to give out on us was our new television we both last fall. It went out the day after the refrigerator did. Fortunately, it died four days before the warranty expired and we were able to get the television fixed at no cost.
I just keep hoping and praying that the rest of our appliances will hold up for the rest of the school year. We are grateful that God has continued to provide for our needs in spite of the hassles we’ve had with our appliances.
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