How was your first week of Class?

I am thankful for my friends who care enough ask “How was your first week of class?”  This semester I am not quite sure how to answer that question. As far as academics were concerned, the week was a typical first week- one of finding new class rooms, finalizing my schedule, etc. But the rest of my life became a bit hectic starting Thursday morning.  

It was 7:00, and from my bedroom I heard a strange noise, something dripping, curious, I walked out of my bedroom and through the kitchen to our hall which lead to the bathroom. I was slightly surprised to see my roommate Lisa distributing ice cream buckets under drips coming from around our bathroom and storage room doorways, I quickly rounded up a couple rags and started trying to mop what wasn’t hitting the bucket. We thought since the water was warm that something must be happening with the shower in the apartment above us.

However, it soon became apparent that we weren’t going be be able to keep ahead of the dripping by mopping. Water was running out of the bathroom now, and I flipped on the light in the bathroom, water was running in a steady stream from the light fixture. Being a fairly sensible sort of person, I quickly flipped the light back off a couple seconds later when I realized that water and electricity are usually not a good mix. Lisa and I decided that this was more than a leaky shower, and we should call the landlord. So she stepped into her room to make the call.

Very shortly thereafter, the sound in the bathroom became louder.  I flipped the light back on and stepped in, so that I could see what was happening in there. Now, the water was drizzling from the middle of the bathroom ceiling, rather than from the light fixture, within a couple minutes the middle of the ceiling cracked open and dumped multiple gallons of water all over the bathroom. As soon as this happened, a steady stream of water begin pouring from the ceiling.

Obviously, this was a broken pipe, not just a leaky shower. I grabbed the first bucket that I could get my hands on and began the process of catching the water and dumping in the bathtub. But every time I while I was dumping the bucket of water, I was loosing quite a bit on the floor, and although the worst of it was in one spot there were other places that were still dripping. Catching the stream out of the ceiling was basically a loosing battle, it didn’t take very long to fill my bucket, so after doing it for a few minutes, I made a dash and grabbed my cooler that was I was using in the storage room to catch the drips there.  Now at least I would be catching some of the water that escaped my bucket.

Every few minutes I would let the cooler catch the water, so that I could check the other buckets that were sitting else where still catching drips. Meanwhile, it started to drip in Lisa’s bedroom, so I continued to catch water and dump in the tub while she moved some of her bedding and books to the other end of the apartment (where my bedroom is).

At one point we opened our door and looked out into the hall where it was “raining” as well. There was a pretty large puddle out there in the hall too. We just shut the door again. By this time, there was had lots of water on the bathroom floor, a decent puddle in our storage room, and the carpet in our little hall way was soaking wet with a puddle on it by our door.

It took the landlord quite a while to get there since he had truck issues as well, (at 20+ degrees below zero, you can except to have car issues).  Eventually around 7:50 he got there, and shut the water off, but it was almost 8:00 before the water quit pouring out of our ceiling. 

The landlord had a couple people to come in with there shop-vac like machines to stuck the water up. (one of the guys was a general contractor /plumber).  They vacuumed a lot of water out of our room, hallway, and a little bit in the apartment above us.  The apartment below us on that end of the building got soaked too (in their kitchen and living area).  

Lisa headed off to school for her 9:00 class and I stayed behind to do homework and keep an eye on things while the guys were there working. They had been in our apartment and vacuumed up the water a couple times. About 10:00 I was on my way into Lisa’s bedroom to empty the bucket of water (there was still water dripping from her ceiling),  and I looked up and saw the the sheet-rock tape was slowly giving way, due to the pressure of the sheet-rock on it.  I quickly stepped out of the room thinking “It’s going to fall” and about 2 minutes later, after I had watched more tape peel, half of the bedroom ceiling came crashing down. A mess of soaking wet sheet-rock and and nasty gray insulation. It landed on Lisa’s bed and desk… I went and found the guys that where there and informed them “The ceiling in the bedroom just fell.” They came and looked; then they went and got some supplies, while I started moving Lisa’s stuff.  Our friend from the downstairs apartment, came up about then, and she helped me move clothes and shoes out of the room. while the guys started cleaning up the sheet rock and insulation. We picked though insulation on the desk to find what was important and needed to be saved and then moved her bed and desk out. About 20 minutes later, after we had everything  moved out, the other half the ceiling fell.

By the time I headed to school, they were fixing the pipe. (The rumor is that some door or window above us didn’t get closed properly- we don’t really know if it’s true or not, but somehow the pipe froze and broke wide open.)

It was a little challenging to make it through my classes that day, knowing that it wasn’t going to work to sleep in our apartment that night. So as soon as I was done for the day, I made a couple phone calls and thankfully the V----- family opened up their home to us that night. Lisa and I were very grateful for a hot shower that night (messing with insulation is no fun!). 

On Friday, we were told that we could have the other open apartment on the first floor of our building (it’s No. 2). But since neither Lisa nor I were really up for making decisions that day, and she had an offer of a place to stay for the weekend, we just packed up some of our stuff and left it for the weekend. With a plan to touch base on Sunday morning, I headed home for the weekend.

Sunday Morning: Lisa and I decide to move into apt. No. 2 while they fix ours (No. 6.) Dad and Mom where going to come up with me and help us clean and move.  But shortly before we where ready to leave, I got a message from Lisa saying that there was water in the ceiling in No. 2 as well and that we won’t be able to move in. So I just stayed home, and spend the afternoon doing some homework.  I  contacted the V-----‘s and asked if I could stay there for a couple days.

Monday: I woke up I when my alarm went off, and dreaded getting up and going to school because it was so cold and windy out there. I stumbled to my desk in search of my phone –just in case some nice person had decided that it was too cold to have school. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a voice message and text informing me that classes were canceled! I was glad and crawled back into my bed for a bit.  During the day I did some checking for apartments and was trying to figure out what our long term plan should be. They are going to fix No. 6 but we don’t know how long it will be before we can move back in, and it’s still up in the air whether they will be able to dry out No. 2 so that we can move in. I checked into a couple leads that I had for other apartments, but I didn’t come up with much. 

Monday night: I got another phone call saying that class is canceled for Tuesday as well since there were still extreme wind chills. 

Tuesday: After being in contact with our landlord it is hopeful that by tomorrow, No. 2 may be dried out and ready to move into- we will see. Plans have changed so many times the past few days that I am not banking on this one working either, but it sure would be nice if it would. No. 2 is just a small one bed room apt. and there isn’t room for 2 beds in the bedroom, But we could make it work temporarily while No. 6 is getting fixed.  

I am exciting to see what the Lord has planned for the next couple weeks. This last week has been a reminder that my plans aren’t always the Lord’s plans. And yet so far He has provided for me in so many ways during my college career, so I am confident that He has great plans for this situation as well.