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365 Czech Republic

I’m Sorry, I Don’t Speak Headlight

Feels Like 20 (11/30/14)

We spent this morning at church in Titus and Avery’s class. We weren’t exactly sure why there wasn’t a class for Avery’s age today, but a lot of her class were combined with Titus’ class so we all ended up just staying together. They did a little activity (photo above) where they had to put gifts on their colored fabric. Tamara, today’s teacher, told us in English that they were supposed to give their gifts to another person in the class the same way God gave his gift to us, Jesus Christ. She followed that by saying, “But none of the kids want to do it.” I guess they’re all still learning how to give gifts.

Here’s a couple more photos from class today. The little gifts they chose from were wooden ornaments, plastic gold stars, and metal bells.

Feels Like 20 (11/30/14)

Feels Like 20 (11/30/14)

This afternoon I spent a good two hours trying to replace the driver’s side headlight on our car. Outside it was around 28 degrees, but my phone said “feels like 20” because there was a wind chill. I had purchased what I thought was the correct light bulb a few days ago and figured I would be able to quickly replace it. Our owner’s manual is all written in German, so it was no help, and I tried searching online and that didn’t help much either. After removing the entire headlight because I really couldn’t find another way to do it, I replaced the light, turned the lights on and…I had fixed the wrong one. Back to the store for another bulb and to try again.

Feels Like 20 (11/30/14)

Since I had already taken it apart once, getting to the light again was a cinch, but the lowbeam bulb was more challenging to replace. On our cars in the States, this process was always very simple and usually didn’t take a lot of time (and often I didn’t even need tools!). Today I had to remove about five different screws and the entire headlight. The cold was hurting my hands outside, so I brought everything inside where could let my fingers thaw out and try to see how to get the bulb replaced. It proved much more difficult than I thought and thankfully my dad head given me a metric star shaped screw driver which was a life saver today since I don’t have any of those kinds of tools. Finally, I got the lowbeam replaced and in, took it outside, and put it all back in place. Amazingly, it came right on and we have two working headlights again!

I really only share that story because it’s another example of what usually is simple is just harder here. Learning the stuff of life here is on the same level of difficulty as learning the language and apparently I don’t speak headlight. But with a little more work and some extra time I was able to get it fixed and get everything working again. Now maybe with a little more work and a little more time the lightbulb of the Czech language will turn on too!