Friday, July 11, 2008

Dirty Fingernails

In the village we have 24 hour high pressure water (this is big
considering that many parts of Yerevan only have water a couple of
hours per day). The other thing is that we have electricity most of
the time, it usually only goes out for a hour each day. Gas was
brought to the village this winter via above ground pipes along the
main roads (standard for Armenia), the responsibility of running the
smaller pipes to each house is left to individual homeowners and their
own finances. We are just now learning about the process and are soon
to pay for the line to be run to our house and from there our
neighbors will pay to run it to their houses. For the last month we
have been using a 20 kg (44 lb.) butane tank (about three times the
size of US BBQ tanks), for cooking, washing dishes, showering, and
heating the house. Needless to say we empty the tank about once a
week, and I take it to get refilled in either Gyumri or Spitak both
about 20 minutes away. All but one refilling station causes a black
soot to form on the bottom of our pans. This black soot is the
transfered to other dishes in the sink while washing, and then to our
towels when drying. Jonelle's rubber gloves are back from the soot
and after one month of living like this her fingernails seem to have a
permanent reverse French manicure with black tips instead of white.
Believe it or not this one thing drives home the magnitude of what we
have done, in bringing an American city girl to an Armenian Village.
As far as these two lives are worlds apart, my wife has embraced her
role, and serves our family with out grumbling or complaining. With
dirty fingernails, she loves our family, she loves and serves our
neighbors, she teaches our children and our children's friends. It is
a pleasure to live and serve here with Jonelle and I thank God for her.

3 comments:

Kendra Fletcher said...

I love this post. You have a gem of a wife.

And Jonelle-- my fingernails are often dirty and I have no excuse :)

Mick Fuller said...

do I detect a new style returning with you to the states? The Armenian Butane manicure! I plan to get Chris the necessary tools right away.

Shela said...

K- I can't tell you how much God's heart loves that you speak of your Jonelle this way. I would say that a truer love is rare indeed.

J- You've got you one of what I have. A hubby who adores you. God has truly blessed us both. And I miss your sweet voice. I love you. Shela