Shortly after Sam and I were married and I moved into his flat, that became our flat, we realized that we were in dire need of more storage. Apartments on the other side of the ocean are very different than apartments in this country. They often come furnished (though, not always the nicest of furniture) but often you get an empty room with no cupboards, or cabinets (even in the kitchen) sometimes even light fixtures are no more than a bare bulb in the ceiling. We were fortunate that the flat we lived in had had a very nice “remont” or remodel. It was an old building, pre-Soviet for sure. It was lovely flat and I was so thankful for it. It’s peacefully painted green walls (no heavily patterned wall paper that is most often found). It was spacious enough and had nice high ceilings (to make it feel bigger than it really was) and it had a nice big safe feeling door. It had a nice clothes washer, and was blessed with a dryer that Sam bought me with wedding gift money we had received. We were also able to buy a beautiful red couch… the Lord took such great care of us and provided everything we needed. But there just wasn’t enough room in the one tiny skapis/???? or “wardrobe/storage cabinet” that we had. So, off to search for a skapis we went. Furniture over there is expensive and funds were pretty tight, so we decided we’d look at a few used furniture places. First we went to a few new furniture places, just so we knew what kinds of prices new furniture was. We went out to M?be?u nams (Furniture House, a place that had not as expensive furniture) and Jysk (the local “Ikea” type store for Latvia). Buying even bottom line new was going to hit the top of our budget. So, we went way out of town, across the river and to a part of town I had never been in to a used furniture store. Now, mind you, furniture for Sam and I is difficult enough to begin with. We come from very different sides of the style isle when it comes to what we like in a “look” for furniture! Anything I thought was antiquish or charming he thought was horrible “soviet”, anything sleek and modern that he liked I felt was cheap and chintzy! It was quite a challenge. Then there was cost. We had very little we could even spend on a skapis… so the challenge was considerable. After spending most of the day looking at furniture we finally found a piece in this second hand store that we BOTH could live with… the moment of truth… could we “afford it.” It was only 120Lvl!!!! WITHIN the budget, and considerably less than anything else we’d found out there to purchase! I was excited! It was a compromise, but one we could both live with! Finally a solution to having to cram things in every crevasse of our flat! It was a very functional piece, it was actually more like a series of pieces. It was more like several units that fit together to form one big piece, sort of more like we would consider a modular entertainment center actually. Some glass doors to display things in, some solid doors to hide things behind. We could actually split some of the pieces up and use it in the two rooms that was our apartment. I was excited, I was SOLD! Sam on the other hand, being who he is, felt the need to hit one last store before we “committed” to this piece. I was dead set against it. But, the piece had been there for quite a while. You could see that it had sat in the store for several weeks, as each week the price of the skapis was lowered a little bit. No one had wanted this skapis in the last two months… it should be fine… so off we went. The last store we visited was horrible. Pressboard items that were falling apart were over 200Lvl (think near $400) it was crazy… so back to the “sectional skapis” we went. We had been gone a grand total of two hours (it takes a long time to travel about over there). We headed to the very back of this wear house that was the “show room” and as we rounded the last isle of furniture I see the piece. I give a little smile and tell Sam to go ahead and look for someone on the floor to help us. That’s about the time that I saw it… the sign… p?rdod My heart sank! And I was a little bit more than disappointed in my husbands decision to continue “shopping around”. Poor Sam… I’m pretty certain I was not very kind to him on the way home, or the week that followed, when anything regarding a skapis or ???? was mentioned. Yep, I pretty much held it over his head. (SOLD). Shortly there after however we received an email through the “missionary network.” There was a couple down in Daugavpils (3 hour drive south) that was leaving Latvian and had furniture to sell, would anyone be interested! YES!! They had a wardrobe that was in the right price range, not knowing what it looked like at all, we said that yes, we believed we wanted it and would be down that weekend to purchase it. IT WAS PERFECT! It was exactly the style that Sam and I both liked enough to invest in, and the price was less than HALF what the “sectional skapis” would have cost us!!! Not only that, we saved so much on the wardrobe itself that we were also able to purchase the LOVELY BRAND NEW looking stove they had to replace the old busted “have to stick a wooden spoon in the door and hope the temperature is low enough to bake” crummy old soviet era model stove that our landlord had provided. I truly believe the Lord sent someone to buy that skapis out from under us that day. Specifically sent someone, to specifically buy it what felt like “out from under us” THAT day, in that two hours we had stepped away from it! He provided something so much better than I was hoping for or expecting (humm… sound familiar), not in MY timing, but in His. Yes, I apologized to Sam for being so mean to him, and for blaming him… and too this day when something doesn’t work out all he has to say is “Skapis” and I realize that I’m not the one who’s in control. Right now we’re waiting on another “skapis” story. Is it any easier to wait? No, not really… it should be, but it doesn’t always feel that easy. I don’t think anyone likes walking blindly, but that’s what we’re asked to do. We are blind in this world, but the Lord has our hands, and is gently saying “do you trust me?” I want to say yes, and through all my will I force myself to say yes… but it’s a lot of work to hold every thought captive. So, today I will chant “Skapis” humm I might even just go find how to say it in every language Google Translate has J He’s taken care of me/us thus far… what makes me think He’s gonna stop now.. hum… wonder who that could be International translations for Skapis: Skapis, ????????, kas, veshjet, ?????, armari, ??, ??, garderoba, šatník, garderobe, riidekapp, lalagyan ng damit, vaatekaappi, garde-robe, Kleiderschrank, ????????????, ?????, ?????, fataskápur, lemari pakaian, armadio, ??????, drabuži? spinta, ??, gwardarobba, dulap, ?????, šatník, ???????????, t? qu?n áo, cwpwrdd, ??????????…