Baklava Day

Today is the last day of the Muslim holiday, Ramazan (or Ramadan). Traditionally, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, the month in which Muhammad received his revelation of the Qur'an, is dedicated to fasting from sunrise to sunset for the purpose of prayer, good deeds and self purification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan). As explained to us by some friends in Turkey, Muslims will wake in the early hours of the morning to eat before sunrise. During these early morning hours, a person will roam the neighborhoods banging a drum to wake everybody up as a reminder to eat. He usually collects a small payment in return for his services.

Now that we are living in a "Muslim" village, I completely expected early morning wake up calls and hungry neighbors during the month of September. However, as I have found out, for the Muslims in my neighborhood, their "faith" is actually rooted in family heritage. I'm discovering that Islam here is not much unlike Christianity in the States, miles wide, but only inches thick. Yes, we do have a drummer boy. But he doesn't come until well until the late hours of morning. He doesn't wake anybody up, but just tries to collect their money. Although they all claim Islam, nobody I've asked has fasted, and most of my neighbors have never even been in a mosque. The children have today off from school, but the only other sign of celebration I've seen is the making of Baklava. Lots and lots of Baklava.

Birdie on a....Suicide Mission?

A couple of nights ago, all of the neighbors started screaming my name, “OOOH KRISTAL! OOOH KRISTAL!!” This is a fairly frequent occurrence, as the neighbors usually shout for me over silly little things, “OOOOH KRISTAL!! TURN ON YOUR PORCH LIGHT!” or (7am) “OOOH KRISTAL, THE GARBAGE MAN’S COMING!” or 8am today, "OOOH KRISTAL, CAN WE HANG OUR BLANKETS ON YOUR BALCONY!?" This time, however, there was an unusual urgency in their voices.

I looked out the window and saw that everybody was pointing up and shouting. Not having my Albanian brain on, I didn’t listen to what they were yelling and assumed they were calling me to come out to see a rainbow, as it had just finished raining. Much to my surprise, when I went outside, I saw what all the commotion was about! Silly me, Albanians don’t shout about rainbows! They were shouting about the suicidal pigeon hanging by it’s neck from our roof! Somehow, the pigeon got its neck wrapped in a plastic bag, which was caught on our roof, which left for a large lifeless bird gracing our house! Why they alerted me to this travesty, and not Steve, is beyond me.

I called for Steve, who quickly ran up the stairs with a pair of scissors to free the poor bird. Much to all of our surprise, as Steve reached up to save our little friend, the pigeon managed to escape, only to land into the hands of the neighborhood kids, eager to terrorize the poor stunned bird. Is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes. Please don’t litter, recycle when possible and remember to cut you plastic coke rings! As Animal Planet would say, “it’s their planet too!”

The Oddities

Being visitors in a foreign land, we are somewhat of an oddity. Full of curiosity and with little shame, the Albanians ask us questions all the time. I’ve decided to share with you some of my favorites!

1) Where are you from?
2) What are you doing in Albania? Okay…I know these top two aren’t interesting, but keep reading, they’ll get better, I promise!
3) How is your family? This is always followed by more family questions…Family is SOOO important in this culture! I LOVE this and really enjoy telling about each member of my family!
4) Which place is better, Albania or America? This is a TOUGH one to answer, because the truth is America is my home and first in my heart. But the Albanians seems to love hearing great things about their little land, so usually I answer by saying that I love the hospitality and kindness of the Albanian people, as well saying how beautiful the country is.
5) Why don’t you have a car? Answer: we can’t afford one. They usually don’t believe us, (because aren’t ALL Americans rich) and proceed to ask…
6) Why don’t you ask your parents to buy you a car?
7) Can you find me an American husband? I was even offered a dog in exchange for a man!
8) Next time you go to the States, can you bring me _________? Fill in the blank with any of the following…peanut butter, medicine, digital cameras, diaper rash cream, underwear and my favorite...a Hummer! In this case, it was a salesman whom we met when we were furniture shopping. He was really pushy and made both of us feel incredibly uncomfortable. Every time we passed his shop, he asked us to go for coffee. It got to the point that we’d even start walking different roads to avoid him! Well, on a whim, one day we accepted his invite for coffee, and found out why he’d been so insistent…he wanted us to arrange buying and shipping a Hummer from the States!
9) How much money do you make? I hate this question! Usually I avoid it by saying something generic like, “it’s different every month.” But I’ve just recently started responding, “It’s personal.”
10) Did you fall in love or was your marriage arranged? Answer: LOVE!!

Does This Country Make Me Look Fat?!

Probably like most of the American population, I could afford to drop a few pounds (I call them my “Donna’s mocha pounds),” but I wouldn’t consider myself fat. Well, these skinny Albanians make me feel like I am a big fat cow. Today I came into church, wearing a pair of pants I love and thought were slimming, and immediately one of the youth said loudly, “Wow! You’re fat.” Again, later today, another Albanian said, “your not fat here (pointing to my waist), but you’re really fat here (pointing to my hips).” Unfortunately, this is an everyday occurrence for me! People frequently ask me why I’m “fat”, and sometimes I just shrug me shoulders, but if I’m in a good mood I just tell them I love chocolate too much!!

Mellow Yellow

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing the dishes (at my strangely off-centered sink) and thinking, “It’s so neat that our water comes directly from the earth.” I let the water run freely and without constraint. Our water came from a newly dug well, which was about 6 meters deep- two times deeper than any of our neighbor’s wells. Naively I believed our owner when he told us that our source of water was a never ending supply. (I should mention that our water is NOT drinkable…we go to a neighbor’s house to fill up all of our drinking water!)

A few days later, I turned on the sink to some unwelcome sputtering. Thinking it was a problem with our electric pump (another luxury in our neighborhood) Steve called the owner. He came over, checked the well, jiggled a tube, and announced to us that we needed to be careful because our well was running dry. So much for my “endless supply of earth water.”

We proceeded with caution, but much to our dismay, two weeks ago, the faucet dripped its last drop. Immediately, the owner arranged (and paid) to have a crew open up a new well. However, after a day of hard work, they were struck with a bit of bad luck and hit rock. Well number 2 was a no go!

The owner brought four large barrels to our house, filled them with water, connected it to the electric pump and called it good. Each day he says that he’s going to open a new well in a couple of days….two weeks later and we’re still filling barrels for our water. We’re grateful for our generous neighbors who are supplying us with their water through a garden hose! We have a sneaking suspicion that our owner, who has now paid for two non-functioning wells is trying to hold out for some rain in the off chance that well number 1 might fill back up! In the mean time, we’re trying to use as little water as possible, and yes, we’re letting the yellow mellow!

Culture Shock...Round 2

About a month ago I read a devotion book geared for missionaries and the topic of the day was culture shock. Among one of the questions was this, “Describe your first experience of culture shock.” I really struggled to come up with some ideas, but finally wrote down some generic answers just to fill in the page.

Well now we’ve moved to the village, and even though we’re only a few miles away from Korce, I feel like I’m going through culture shock all over again. If I were to go through that devotion again today, I would have pages and pages to write about my village culture shock.

This was triggered yesterday, when at a time that was COMPLETELY inconvenient for me and Steve, our landlord insisted that we open our home to have some more work done (he put in a wooden banister on our marble staircase). Rather annoyed at the inconvenience of the project, and exhausted from a tiring day and week, I was NOT in the mood to have a bunch of drinking men doing construction in my home at night, the time when I was counting on getting some rest. But being a good missionary, I welcomed them all with a good attitude and graciously kept conversation with the men that weren’t working and just drinking beer. I even talked to a perfect stranger on the phone when a man shoved the phone in my face and said in Albanian, “here, this is my son, make him speak to you in English.” I offered candies to everyone that came in, and even entertained the owners’ wife, three children and niece well past sunset. Meanwhile, all this time, when I would have really relied on Steve’s help, he was called into an “emergency pastors’ meeting”. Sigh.

But the truth is, what REALLY got me was when I looked over at the workers and saw that one man was using MY bread knife to cut the wood!!! Without permission, he went through my drawers and took my bread knife! This got my blood boiling, but seeing as I was entertaining the neighborhood, I kept my anger to myself, and reminded myself that value of the knife was probably less than a dollar. BUT STILL!!

After everyone left, I had plenty to complain to Steve about. The workmanship of these guys was terrible! For example…everything is done by eyeball…nothing is measured and all of the wooden posts are spaced unevenly (Monk would go NUTS in our house!). When drilling holes in our kitchen cabinets, the men didn’t bother removing dishes and other things, so everything is covered in saw dust. Outside, they set their saw blade up right over our shoes, leaving our shoes covered in saw dust. And just to top it off, when I went out to clean up the men’s mess, my neighbors, whose new goal in life is to watch absolutely everything I do, told me I was sweeping wrong!! Argh.

Bikinis and Baptisms

The highlight of June was a few weeks ago (while the American team was here) when the church celebrated the baptisms of seven Albanians and two Americans. The church body, along with some local youth, filled up a bus and we all went together to Lake Ohrid. We gathered in a grassy area, and those being baptized shared their testimonies. Most of the Albanian testimonies began,
“I come from a Muslim family…”

We prayed for the “baptizees”, and headed off for the water. I, Kristal, got a good laugh watching Steve and Plator wade through the murky water looking for a clean place to do the baptizing. The four women being baptized were extremely nervous, and as women here don’t usually know how to swim and don’t have bathtubs, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the first time they’d ever been completely submerged under water.

The three pastors went out into the lake together and all took a part in baptizing the nine. Steve was absolutely honored to be a part of this and worked hard to make sure he could properly baptize in Albanian.

As the church witnessed the baptisms, so did everybody else on the beach. Many people asked what we were doing. Even children playing in the water gathered around to watch. I thought all the women in bikinis (the only type of swimsuit worn by women here) made for an…interesting….setting for such a spiritual occasion. Celebrating the baptisms in public really was a true declaration of faith for these committed believers.

The adventure met its high point while on the bus ride home, the back window shattered and we all ate dust for about an hour as we poked along the dirt and gravel roads. By the end of the trip, I think we were all ready to be baptized, just to wash the layer dirt off! The day was a joy for everyone, and as one of the Americans said, “It was epic.”

A "Simple" Project...

We have officially survived our first week of the “summer project”! True to Albanian form, NOTHING turned out as planned! The original goal….

Along with a group from San Diego, the youth of the Libonik church was going to break into teams and either work at the church building a patio and play area, or, would go to a neighboring village and do evangelistic children’s programs, followed by open air evangelism in the afternoons.

Well….scratch the evangelism and the children’s programs! The patio/play area project demanded MUCH more time and people power than anybody was expecting. Had we been in America, this could have easily been done in two days, but Albanian culture presented many unexpected problems. A week later, and we’re still trying to get the “simple” project finished. Here are some of the building hardships…

- the land that was supposed to be leveled by a tractor, wound up being leveled by hand

- the second shipment of “dirt” turned out to be hard clay mixed with old trash (and the driver DEMANDED payment)

- bags of cement were left out in the rain

- The brand new, hand made, wood cover for the well was vandalized! Sigh….

Through this, we’re learning more about the Albanian culture. Most of the laborers we’ve dealt with (those outside of the church) take very little pride in their work. The first time they do a job, they do it well in order to get hired again, but the work quality quickly goes downhill from here.

Anyways, the project wasn’t really a loss. The youth spent time serving; the team built relationships, and there are the beginnings of an incredibly beautiful patio and play area behind the church! In the end, we all agreed that everything worked out for the best. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that sometimes we make the plans, but the Lord directs the steps. A big thanks to Shadow Mountain Church for providing the means to create this place of fellowship for our church! We’ll post before/after pictures soon!

The Best and Worst of It!

Still no luck on the jet lack front. I woke up promptly this morning at 3:00 am wide eyed and bushy tailed. Because we have a visitor staying in our living room, I was confined to my bedroom…which meant no sneaking into the kitchen for post midnight snacks and internet use…shucks. I read for 5 hours, which means I REALLY wasn’t tired because usually reading puts me fast to sleep.

Anyways, jet lag isn’t what I wanted this blog to be about! Rather I want to share with you the best and worst parts about greeting our Albanian friends after two and a half months away.

Albanians are very gracious in their greetings in that they always ask, MULTIPLE times, how you are doing, how your health is and how the trip was. This is followed by asking about the family. They ask specifically about each family member and literally go through a list, (How’s you mom, dad, brothers, sisters, grandparents, Steve’s mom, dad, brothers, sisters, etc….and if they know us real well, they even ask about the pets!) This is followed by asking specifically about everyone’s health as well! The entire ordeal takes quite a few minutes, and makes a simple errand take forever! (Please understand, this is not a complaint!)

But my FAVORITE part of reconnecting with our old friends (and sometimes acquaintances) is telling them that my sister is now engaged. This is inevitably followed by many congratulations and well wishes for her and her fiancé.

(For those of you reading this and just discovering this terrific news, Amber recently became engaged to Dave Dyson…a great man who was quite possibly, the perfect fit for her and our family! The two very considerately became engaged during our trip to the States so that we could personally share in their joy!)

Excited to hear good news, Albanians are always eager for more, and without missing a beat, inevitably ask if I have any good news myself (asking if I’m pregnant). I politely respond that I’m not. Disappointed, they wish me to have a boy. Somewhere in the conversation, they will have to mention that I’ve gained weight and that it was a mistake to cut my hair. So that’s the worst of it…not too bad.

But now comes the best part…meeting up with the kids! Yesterday we went to visit the girls at the Safe House. They weren’t home so wound up waiting for them for about fifteen minutes in the rain. But, the wet wait was well worth it when the two youngest girls saw us from a distance and ran with all of their might to give us our hugs, kisses and the roses they picked for us in the park. I barley recognized Delvina because her hair had grown much longer and Maria was just as playful and loving as ever. The older girls were equally excited about our arrival (and the gifts we brought back for them!) It really was a sweet reminder of why we’re here…to a make a loving difference in the lives of worthy kids like these!

Today, we made our way to the daily center, where Dani was they first see us. He was so thrilled to see Steve that his eyes literally welled with tears as they were hugging. Now, for those of you that have heard our “Dani stories,” you probably know that Dani can pull out tears on moments notice; but these were genuine, “I’ve missed you, my friend” tears.

Dani announced to the other kids that we were back and immediately the onslaught of hugs and kisses began. I was so touched by all the hugs that I forgot to worry about my head touching theirs and getting lice!! Toli (the youngest of the “Jungle Boys”) hung to me like a leach and wouldn’t’ let go for a good half hour. Steve was bombarded with all the rest as they fought for his attention. Ilka (the oldest) tried to play it cool when he saw us. However, he wolfed down his lunch much faster than any other kid so that he could (nonchalantly) get some special time with Steve while all the others finished their meal (smart kid!).

So that’s the best and worst of it! As hard as it was to say “goodbye” in America, saying “hello” in Albanian was so worth it!

Back to Albania

One tall Caramel Frappuccino, two bites of a stale bagel, six airplane meals, three packs of trail mix, 2 fun-size butterfingers, 1 bag of pizza bagel bites, 4 bottles of water, and we’re finally back in Albania! Our travels got off to a rough start, as they usually do. Although I think we are rather experienced world travels, we ARE NOT experienced world packers. Every trip we seem to make the same mistake…waiting till the last minute to pack (and by last minute, I mean staying up ALL NIGHT the night before to pack.) You would think that we’d have this down by now, but no matter what side of the world we are on, we cannot seem to get this right! At the beginning of each flight, I always seem to curse materialism and try to figure out how I do better the next time.

Anyways, with the little sleep and major post-packing stress, I was in no condition to express my true love and emotions to those who were waiting so lovingly to send us off. Cheerfully, and running completely off of adrenaline and caffeine, I casually hugged the fam., and hopped in the car. Steve, however, had the opposite problem, and broke down the minute he said goodbye to his beloved dog. In my defense (as to not look coldhearted) I had my break down about a week earlier before going to visit my grandpa. Regardless, saying goodbye to friends and family is easily one of the hardest parts for us of missionary life.

So, we get to the airport and we’re told to wait in the United line. Half an hour later, we’re at the check-in desk being told to wait in the Lufthansa line. We get to the Lufthansa check in desk, where they are experiencing problems with our check in. Without any explanation for what is going wrong, we wait, and wait, and wait. The girl helping us calls someone else to help her, who calls someone else to help him (big sigh). By this point, Steve and I are nervously checking our watches. Finally figuring out the problem, we get our tickets, but are informed that our seats are in the back of the plane. “Fine,” I thought, “who cares where our seats are as long as we’re on the plane!”

Little did I know, but seats on the back of the plane means that our seats have shorter leg space, don’t recline AT ALL and are next to the bathrooms (gross). Oh well. It didn’t seem to matter much anyways because both Steve and I slept almost the entirety of flight.

More sleeping in the airport in Germany, more trouble checking in, Steve suffering a bad ear ache and we arrive in Greece, where, no big surprise…our luggage isn’t on the conveyor belt. Fortunately, the bags were transferred to a different terminal (which always seems to happen at this airport, and we’re on our way, again. We catch a taxi to the train station, where we lug over 200 lbs. of luggage across a busy street to the bus station for Albania. The men, Albanian speakers, seemed tickled to death that two Albanian speaking Americans were using their bus. I was tickled that I still remembered Albanian and that my head instantaneously shook no when answering yes. (Albanians shake their heads the opposite of Americans). In all we made it from Vacaville California to Korce Albania in about 28 hours…not bad!

So having made it safely back, we just have one more traveling hurdle to cross…jet lag! After futilely trying to sleep, getting back up and watching City Slickers at 2:00 am., I am writing this to all of you at 5:00am! Hope you enjoyed my early morning ramblings!

Village Life...

Hope you enjoy these pics. from Drithas, a village not too far from where we're moving!

A new born calf!

Forging an ax!

Sonilla and her babe!

I think this picture speaks for itself!

How would you get rid of lice?

Working with street children, seeing lice is not something that is uncommon to me. Having been nominated the children’s center barber, many times, I have attempted to attack this problem with my trusty blades…I mean scissors (and the end result is usually a totally butchered hair cut!) I have spent hours upon hours, laboring to rid friends’ hair strand by strand to terminate every single nit and louse. It’s a horrible, disgusting bug, and it’s not easy to get rid of! I’ve seen many “lice killing” solutions, from an electric shocking comb to simply soaking hair in oil or mayonnaise over night. But one solution I would have NEVER thought of was burning the lice out!!

Well, each spring, on the last day of February (for the Orthodox…the Muslims celebrate later in March) Albanians gather to celebrate the coming spring. Together, they build bon fires in the middle of the road, with scraps of wood they’ve been saving through the winter. As the fire builds bigger and brighter, children and adults attempt jumping through the “perilous” flames, believing that it will burn all of the icky things that have collected on them during the winter. (translation of “icky things”…fleas, lice etc.) Parents even swing their small children through the flames! In reality, seeing that most Albanians are very clean people and NOT covered in bugs, this tradition appeared to me as more of an act to seek good luck and fortune. At any rate, the end result for the kids at the center was singed lashes, burnt hair...and unfortunatey...lice.

The Vision!

In planning to come to Albania, we imagined two years of stretching service doing something worthy for our Lord. At the time, we thought we’d easily be able to come back home and re-start our lives in America two years down the line. Like usual (and we should have saw it coming!) our unchanging God had entirely different plans for us than we had planned for ourselves. Last week, after months of agonizing in prayer, we surrendered to His call and renewed our commitment to serve Him in Albania.

The last two years we have been working in a center for street children, as well as a Safe House for girls. This ministry has been a wonderful stepping stone into life here as it provided a way for us to learn language and culture. We were also able to spend our time fruitfully with children who so badly need love in their lives. Thankfully, it’s connected us with the best Albanian friends we could have asked for. We’re truly grateful for our time spent in this ministry because it is also been the springboard into our next adventure.

As we’ve built relationships with the children, we’ve seen the deep poverty in which they live and sadly, in many cases, severe abuse and neglect as well. It’s become our dream to do something about this real problem by opening a Safe House for boys. The story of two boys in particular has broken our hearts, and our hope is to get them out of their current conditions by this summer. The younger boy, age eight, lives with his alcoholic and abusive father and his paralyzed mother. She was paralyzed during his birth and the family blames and resents him for her condition. He is undernourished, neglected and although very bright, not attenting school. The other boy, age fourteen, has been juggled from different abusive living situations. His father died of alcoholism, and his mother, who had been extremely ill for a long time, died last year. Since her death, he has been living with his unstable older half brother, and is basically raising himself. Our vision is to create a safe, nurturing family atmosphere for these special children.

In addition, Steve has accepted a position as an assistant pastor at a young and struggling church in Libonik, a village about a half hour from where we currently live. The church’s role in the area is very important to the spreading of the Gospel, as Albania is still predominately a Muslim nation. Steve’s goal is to help bring balance, new perspective, accountability and to lighten the heavy work load of the church’s current pastor (Plator). The full vision is that as Steve pastors, Kristal will be operating the Safe House, and both ministries will overlap each other as we serve side by side.

We feel beyond blessed for what the Lord has done in us and through us these past two years. Thank you to all that have been an encouragement through prayer, support, letters, and friendship. We can only pray that the blessings in this next leg of journey will be so abundant!