The Explosion in my Apartment

“Ugh. Another answering machine,” I thought. I’m not sure there were any more coal dealers in the phone book. I had called several and every one that I called was away for Christmas. After a year and a half in Berlin, I no longer lived with the woman I thought I would marry. (This was before I became a Christian.) I no longer had central heat. I had a coal furnace…but no coal.

“I can get coal at the building supply store,” I thought. It was a forty five minute trip to get there. Carrying as much coal as I could, I still could only bring enough home for a day or two at a time. Until the building supply store didn’t get their shipment.

The furnace looked like a big ceramic box: nothing complicated. There was an iron door about 10 inches square at the bottom on one end. The whole thing was five or six feet tall by 2 feet deep and 3 feet across and had a chimney at the top of the side farthest from the little door. When I say, “ceramic”, I don’t mean the whole thing was ceramic, rather it was covered in ceramic tiles. So when I had wet laundry, it worked well to hang my laundry on. A string fit nicely in the grooves between the tiles and then held the laundry against the furnace. I didn’t have a washing machine, or a dryer and paying for a dryer was expensive. So why bother? I had this great, big, hot box in my bedroom that dried my clothing just fine…or so I thought…until I ran out of coal.

“I’ll just get wood for today. It’s just a big box anyway, right? There won’t be any harm.” So, I bought wood instead of coal. Wood, unfortunately, doesn’t burn like coal. With coal, the fire is actually in the coal. When wood burns, it gives off gasses when heated and then the gasses burn…unless there isn’t enough oxygen for the flammable gasses to burn. Remember the big, simple, box that was my furnace? It wasn’t as simple as I thought. Coal just burns more slowly if there isn’t enough oxygen to burn quickly. Then the smoke gets routed in a sort of zig zag pattern through the inside of the furnace so that as much heat as possible is sucked out of the smoke and is used to heat the room. When you burn wood in it, though, that zig-zag slowly fills up with those un-burned flammable gasses until the air inside the furnace goes critical and then, “poof,” or “bang,” depending on your luck.

Remember the laundry? Those ceramic tiles are just held on with clay. Get it wet and the tiles come right off. That’s how those furnaces are repaired. Did I know that, as a foreigner? No. Did anyone tell me? No. Am I thankful no one told me not to hang my wet laundry on my coal furnace? Yes. When those furnaces get old, sometimes they go, “bang” and the top comes off, flying across the room. If you are lucky, you won’t be under the hundred pounds of clay, iron and ceramic tile when it lands. If I hadn’t hung my clothing on my furnace to dry before putting wood in it, it might have gone “bang” instead of “poof”. I might not have seen the little black puffs of smoke come out from between those tiles except for my laundry getting them wet.

Or, someone might have told me not to put wood in my coal furnace…even if I’m out of coal and I’m cold. Then, I might not have blown up my furnace (even gently) and had to go two weeks without heat.

Deu 10:19 So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Do you know any foreigners? If so, ask them about differences between where they are now and where they are from. Maybe give tips on how to live here. Perhaps you can prevent them from suddenly hearing “bang” or “poof”. You might save that foreigner’s life. They might appreciate it. Seriously, though, it might be rare for you to be able to find something that will keep anyone from accidentally causing an explosion. However, if you ask them about themselves, you can show them that you care. Maybe the above experience of mine has opened your eyes to something that you didn't even know existed just a short time ago, but is common in another country. Knowing about such things can make it easier to know what to talk about with foreigners, which can make it easier for you to "show love to foreigners."

Have you had any similarly bizarre experiences? Have you traveled? If so, you probably have lived through some shocking things. Why not let us know about those in the comments? Thanks! I look forward to hearing from you about it.