Change of Plans

This year we've had more than the usual amount of stress and struggles, so we took a few days away to celebrate our 25th anniversary and decompress a little. The plan was to come back refreshed and ready to tackle moving to the new apartment. We had a generous window of time before the old house had to be vacated so we were going to pace ourselves and not make it into something that was harder than it needed to be, even for Congo. 

Sometimes, plans change.

We arrived home at about 1:30 in the morning and before we even entered the house we could smell that something had burnt. Our guard said the electric cable had burned. No surprise. We generally pay for burned cable to be replaced about once a week. So we went on inside and were greeted first by stronger, migraine-inducing smell and our normally white floor was black with soot.

We walked a bit further and found the cause. When the electric cable burned, it caused a big spike in the voltage. One of our voltage regulators couldn't handle it and caught fire, burning completely up. The fire traveled up the wall and into the breaker box, doing quite a bit of damage there.

The walls are concrete, but if the fire had gone just a few inches higher, our wood ceiling would have caught fire and it would have spread throughout the house. If we had been home and it had been worse, Daniel could have been trapped in his room because in Congo, all the windows and doors have bars on them. 

So. Change of plan. With no power, and no relief from the smell or the heat, we decided to begin moving immediately. Right now we are borrowing the home of some friends who are away and moving as much as we can each day by making multiple trips in our car. We also have to clean the soot off every single item in the house, books, photos, furniture, you-name-it, before we can pack it. And David has work at the hangar - so it is slow going. 

This is very inconvenient. But we are thankful that we get to describe our experience with that adjective instead of words like devastating or tragic. God protected our family and our property, and we are humbled and grateful.