Who is the Bathroom?

I wrote this last week and never posted it: 

Right now there are 3 men in my house YELLING. 

The man (we will refer to him as "The Hairy Man" because he has more hair on his arms than I do on my head) who installed our "heating system" for 4 days apparently didn't know what he was doing. 

AT ALL. 

We first realized this when the stove began to smoke. 

Then we heard an explosion. 

Cory was the first to realize the explosion came from Shiloh's room where she was sleeping. 

He opened the door and it was full of steam so that he couldn't even see the crib. 

Thank the Lord she was unharmed. 

A boiling tube of water exploded. 

The Hairy Man came to see what the problem was, said it wasn't his fault and left. 

That was yesterday. 

Today, another man (we will call him "The Smoker Man" because he probably smoked a whole pack from the time he got here until the time he left) who has installed systems like this before, came to see what had been done wrong. 

He started laughing, taking pictures and I kept hearing the word "bomb." 

Maybe that means something else in Albanian? 

Finally our friend Klodi translates..."This is like a bomb." 

"NO, not like, it's BOMB." The Smoker Man says. "This is all wrong you have to throw it out." 

"It's upside down. It is bomb. What was this man doing?" 

Beyond that he didn't put a safety valve on the stove so there was no way of controlling the heat from making the water too hot. At least that's what I understood. 

We call The Hairy Man to come over so The Smoker Man can explain to him what he did wrong. 

That was about an hour ago and they have been storming around my house yelling since then. 

I didn't realize I was stressed until I went into my room and ate a whole Snickers bar. 

Basically, the whole system has to be removed. It doesn't work in our home. 

The stove was the wrong size. 

The pipes were going the wrong direction. 

The boiler thing was way too small. 

Furthermore, the system wasn't built to code. So it was illegal in a sense. 

This means all 5 radiators and the stove need to be returned.

The Hairy Man refuses to be responsible...

That was last week. 

Since then we have come up with some conclusions. The system that was in our house will be used in our church building. We are going to have a different system installed tomorrow by The Smoker Man who is very good at what he does. 

O bobo. That is that they say in Albanian when things like this happen. It's kind of like "Good grief." O bobo. I'm probably butchering the spelling but thats what it sounds like. 

I have mentioned before that "life takes longer." This is what I mean. There were 4 days of men in our house drilling holes and covering our house in dust, only to find out they did it all wrong and we have to start all over. 

The electricity went out last week when we were gone for the night. It didn't come back on. When we got home, everything in our fridge was bad and everything in our freezer had melted. I had been stockpiling food for the winter in the freezer and had to throw a lot of it away. 

My doctor (It is true Baby Cramer 2 is on the way, we put a pic on Instagram to announce it :)) is 3 hours away. 

There is no garbage disposal or dishwasher. 

My dryer takes 2 hours. Or 4. Or 6 when the electricity goes out every 1/2 hour.

Sometimes there's a house in the middle of the road. 

Obviously things like this happen in America or anywhere, it is just more common here. It is a part of every day life, not an out of the ordinary hiccup. 

We were in Greece for a day this week to get some things that we can't in Albania. 

There is a Starbucks in Thessaloniki. There are trash cans along the side walks. There are places to buy clothes for Shiloh at a reasonable price. There are different kinds of restaurants that have more than sausages and bread. There is no dust. 

It was a little bit overwhelming at first. 

I don't want to dwell on the things that are hard about living in Albania. I love it here. I love the mountains and the lake. I love the people. I love the hunger for truth, the questions about Jesus and the opportunities to share with everyone. 

When I think, "Gosh this dust is horrible," I just push past it and remove it from my mind. 

When the smells of burning meat and trash on the street turn my pregnant stomach, I just think about something else. 

But going to a place where those things were absent, made me realize how much I actually do think about them. Especially how much my pregnant brain thinks about them. Because a Kristine pregnant brain and a Kristine unpregnant brain, are two very different brains. 

I really hate the dust and trash. 

I really don't like the smells of sewage and raw fish.  

I really want Chipotle. Like really bad. 

I really don't like when the butcher hands me bloody cow money. 

And Cory and I were talking about how crazy, amazing, scary and enveloping the plan of God is. 

He didn't pick us to come here because we love to rough it. I hate camping. I don't understand how its a vacation. Like its more work than real life. 

He didn't pick us to come here because we don't care about material things. I like shopping. I like things I don't need. I like putting my baby in cute clothes that will only fit her for a week. I like fall decorations and Trader Jo's seasonal snacks.  

He didn't pick us to come here because we love to eat bread 3x a day. Bread makes me fat. Bread makes me sick. I personally believe there will be a Chipotle, a Stonefire, and a Chick-Fil-A in Heaven. And everything in Trader Jo's. 

He didn't pick us to come here because we are super smart. I still cannot get it in my head that "Ku" is "Where" and "Kush" is "Who?" Therefore, I always want to say "Who is the bathroom?" 

In fact, I don't really know why he picked us to come to Albania. But I know he did. I know He laid it on our hearts and gave us a passion for this place and these people. And I know that we told him we would do anything. And I know that we told him we wanted to truly be used by Him even though we don't deserve to be. 

And I know that He wants to grow us and change us. And we've asked Him to do that. And maybe we are just extra stubborn, snobby people that have to be thrown way out of our comfort zone to be changed at all. 

And I know that He wants us to rely on Him. If this was easy or we thought we were "good at it" it would destroy our ministry. 

But as it is, we are very much out of our element. We are very much trusting in God that if this is what He wants from us, He will help us. 

And I wasn't planning on writing any of that, but it's just what came out. That's what I was thinking about yesterday. 

I'm thankful for the prayers and encouragement of many. We are so blessed to be here, amazed at the Lord's guidance in our life and so excited to see what He will do.