The (Lack of) Air Conditioning Experiment

I'm going to tell you straight up--this is not a 'stroke our ego' post.  This is a post about obedience, and the lessons we learned in the process.  It's going to sound like I'm stroking our egos.  But I'm not.

Two months ago our upstairs HVAC unit died.  Yes, right as the summer temperatures began to soar, we lost the ability to cool down our house.  In order to not overtax the downstairs unit, we chose to not use it, and just do our best to ride out the heat until we could replace the unit.

Yes, we could've afforded a new unit two months ago when we needed it. Yes, I know how very fortunate we are to be able to say that.  Please, that is something we do not take for granted.  But the truth is, we needed to spend our money elsewhere.  We had to make some choices between what our family needed, and what God was calling our family to do for other families who need more.

Did we complain at times??  Oh yes.  We certainly did complain about the heat, the humidity, the sweat and everything else.  I did my best not to in front of the boys in order to set an example for them (so my best friend received a lot of quiet texts out of earshot of my children....).  When they complained, I stressed that Shawn works very hard and we needed to save up.  We talked about obedience to God and putting our own needs aside for those of others.  We are blessed beyond measure, and if air conditioning was the one thing we lacked for all of two months, well, we're still pretty damned blessed.

God has grown us and stretched us.  We made do as best we could, keeping baby wipes in the fridge, running fans, having family slumber parties in the basement and escaping to the library (and Walmart) when we needed to really cool down.  I bought several sprinklers and ran those for an hour or two at a time for the kids to play in, left ice out for Lilly and the kitties, and so on.  The long and short of it is, we may have been hot and uncomfortable, but we were not hurting or suffering.  I'm not necessarily sure this experience brought us closer together as a family, but we tried!

Here's where the learning, growing and stretching comes in.  At the end of this month, we will be taking a missions trip as a family.  We're staying domestic, but the people we will be serving still have less than we do.  If their air conditioning unit breaks--if they even have central AC--there is not a secondary unit downstairs to use during the night.  They most likely do not have a multi-storied house with cooler levels to escape to.  They may not have transportation to the local library, or to another air-conditioned building.  If they do have transportation, it may not be air conditioned and comfortable, as is ours.  We had air conditioning to the air conditioning when we needed to escape.  Air conditioning is not the only thing many of them do without.  I don't even know if they have fresh, clean water to drink or play in.  Many of them do not have jobs, proper healthcare, and the other many things we take for granted.

All of that said, we did celebrate when the repairmen arrived with our shiny new HVAC unit on Friday.  We cheered as they pulled into our driveway, I fed them ice cream, we thanked them profusely, and prayed in gratitude for our much cooler air.  Yes, it was an experiment, and an experience, for our family.  Yes, we know that our little experience doesn't even come close to the daily lives of those we will be serving, but I do hope it gives us all a bit more insight into, and more compassion for them.

Ezra offering his assistance to our favorite technician