Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 5: Housemate

When I moved into this apartment, Sharon was still here for 6 months and I thought once she left, I could either keep it on by myself or get a local housemate. When Sharon left I was rattling round in this place, and it was just so sad with just me in it. I was praying about whom to ask and at the time there were two students that I was friendly with. One was a non-believing friend, and the other was Ljilja, who also went to church with me. I wasn’t sure what to do about it all, but in praying felt to ask Ljilja first and if she said “no” to ask the other student. 

If you ask Ljilja to tell you the story, she will tell you that I totally forced her into moving in, but I just remember answering all of her objections (which was her trying to politely say “no” without saying no, oh cross-cultural stuff, got to love it!) and telling her to make sure she was praying and seeking the Lord about moving in with me. 

After a few days of back and forth, her landlords at the place where she was staying told her that it was probably better for her to move in with me (even though she had been there 4 years) because they were not sure how much longer they would be around for. It turns out that they had done a swap for their house during the 1992-1995 war, and now the previous owners were wanting it back. 

This “swapping” is something that meant that instead of trying to sell your house and buy another, you find someone to swap houses with. It was unfortunately extremely common during the war when Serbs or Croats were trying to get out of Muslim areas and Muslims or Croats trying to get out of Serb areas, etc – so you just swapped houses and paid the difference in price. (Even my landlady had swapped her house in Croatia for the house we are in now). 

Even more unfortunately, this practice was often abused and so people who were desperate to get out of the place they were in accepted swaps which were not fair market value, etc. After the war there was a period where you could apply to overturn the swap, and that is what was happening with the landlords of Ljilja’s place. I am also so glad the landlords were honest with Ljilja, because 6 months later the “swap” was reversed, and they lost their place: Ljilja would have had to find another place to live anyway. 

Ljilja at one of our shoebox distributions

In the end, because of their honesty and because of my “not taking no for an answer” cultural blunder, Ljilja did end up moving into the apartment with me. We did well at first, but after a while we realised how many different things bothered us and we both learned a LOT about the other’s culture. Thankfully now, we are now very much like sisters and I know that God put her and her family into my life for a reason. Having someone with whom to share life and work has been a significant part of helping me be able to stay in Bosnia-Herzegovina for as long as I have.  Ljilja is such a blessing to me and to so many people and I am so glad that I misunderstood her cultural cues and “made her” move in with me. It also goes to show God’s faithfulness: He even uses cultural mistakes and misunderstandings to bring about what He desires! 

This is part 5 of a series of 20 short stories to celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it will be 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful over the past 20 years!

Ljilja with me and Mom on one of her visits to Banja Luka

If you want to join in the celebration on the 16th at 6pm Bosnian time, click here for more details and to sign up! 

Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 4: This apartment

When I moved to Banja Luka in 2003, I stayed for a few months with my colleagues, and was praying to find a place of my own to stay in that would have good heat, a place for my car, and possibly a balcony to sit on and a good place for storage in the kitchen. I was debating about getting a one- or two-bedroom place, but at the time there was American, Sharon, here who was going to be around for 6 more months, so we figured it was a good idea to get a two-bedroomed place together and then when she left I could keep it on by myself, or get another roommate (more on that later!).

Then, in September, I was about to travel to the UK for a month, so I wasn’t really even looking actively so I didn’t have to move in and pay rent for the month I was away. But then, a colleague from Macedonia was looking for a place for himself, and when he saw this place he thought it might suit me better.

When I got to the place, the people were lovely, it was an apartment within a house – so I would have one whole floor, but the landlady and one daughter lived upstairs, and her other daughter and son-in-law had the top floor. It had its own entrance and a covered place to park my car inside the fence. She did the heat for the whole house and we got it first, so I knew the heat would be good. The balcony on one side stretched the whole length of the apartment. The kitchen had a huge separate pantry. It literally had every one of the “requirements” that I had been thinking about. And it was within the budget!

I remember going out onto the balcony and just praying “Lord, is this the one?”. It really didn’t make sense to take it if I am going to leave in two days for a month. But I just felt this assurance that we should take it. I am still living in the same apartment 17 years later. The landlady has never raised the rent in all that time. We have started contributing to some of the things included in the rent – like heat and water - just to be fair as the costs of that have gone up.

Over the years we reckon at least 200 different people have slept in this apartment, and our landlady has never complained. One time we had a team of people, and I also had two other guests staying, and so there were 9 of us for the night… When she saw us in the morning she started counting and I thought “oh boy”, but she got angry for another reason – “why didn’t you have some of them stay with me??” is all she said!

Celebrating 5 years in the apartment! Me with my housemate, Ljilja, and our landlady

We have become part of the family that lives in this house, so much so that when little Filip (the landlady’s grandson, who was born 2 years after we moved in) went to school, they asked him who lives in your house and he said “Mom, Dad, Marko (his brother), Granny and Ljijla and Belinda”…

I love the faithfulness of God to provide this place – not just a few things on the list, but every single one of them, and then some of them that weren’t on it…

This is part 4 of a series of 20 short stories to celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it will be 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful over the past 20 years!

Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 3: Move to Banja Luka

It was quite funny that when I was praying and seeking the Lord in coming to Bosnia and Herzegovina, I clearly felt that I should not go to join the Youth with a Mission (YWAM) team in Banja Luka. And that is how I ended up in Zenica with the team there. After my two-year internship with them was up, I was seeking whether I should stay there, or move to another city with YWAM or even another organisation altogether. I headed back to South Africa for a “home assignment” and while I was there felt that I needed to move to Banja Luka and join the team there. So that was a surprise indeed!

Orthodox Cathedral in Banja Luka

One of the stumbling blocks was again the need for a visa, and the Lord had already provided a way for me to get my visa if I needed it. When I was visiting the team in Banja Luka, I met with the pastor, Siniša, and talked to him about if I were to move to Banja Luka, I would need a visa. I remember him simply saying “dođi!” (come!) and we will sort it out from there. I would be able to get my visa through their humanitarian aid organisation “Most” (Bridge) and he would help me with all the paperwork (I don’t think he realised all it would entail!). But I remembered this promise and it helped me when I moved to Banja Luka to be able to get the visa to enter and then to stay!

On my return from South Africa, I decided to come back to Zagreb and get my Bosnian entry visa the way I had done 2 years before. What I didn’t know was that the law had changed, and you needed to apply in your home country! I was already in Zagreb when I found this out. What to do? Praise the Lord that Vesna, a lady who knew everyone who is anyone in Zenica called and called and called anyone who could help and eventually they said that I could get an “emergency” visa at the border. I duly went to a border town to stay with some American friends of friends there. Unfortunately, the visa wasn’t ready on the Friday when I went, and I ended up spending the weekend with them! On Monday morning, we had found out there was a bus at 5.45AM from the other side of the border directly to Zenica (where my stuff was), so my hosts and went down on Monday at 4.45 to get my visa and then try and get on that bus.

And of course, the border guards took so long on the visa, that I missed the bus. And that was the only direct bus to Zenica… now what to do? This is where amazing Bosnian people stepped in. The people at the bus station were fantastic. They put me on a bus to Derventa and said hopefully I would be able to catch a bus from there to Zenica. When the bus driver heard this he said, “hey let me call the bus driver on the bus to Zenica to wait for you – as the next bus is only in the evening”. So, I managed to get on that Zenica bus, and guess what – it was a more direct bus, stopping at fewer stops, so I actually got into Zenica even before the original bus would have! God is really brilliant at making good out of bad situations.

I spent a couple of days in Zenica saying goodbye to the wonderful people there before collecting my stuff from storage and driving up to Banja Luka. I don’t know fully why the Lord took me via Zenica to Banja Luka, but after a while I have realised how incredible it is that I was able to learn the local language in Zenica at the dedicated language school and then move up to Banja Luka. A lot here is done in the Serb Cyrillic variant of the local language, and it is so much easier to learn Cyrillic when you can understand what is written. And so even if only for that reason, I can see that God’s faithfulness in taking me on the journey that He did!

This is part 3 of a series of 20 short stories to celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it will be 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful over the past 20 years!

Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 2: Language learning

When I first came to Bosnia-Herzegovina, I knew I needed to learn the language, so that I would not be an outsider looking in and thankfully, God enabled me to learn this language very quickly. It really helped that I was able to attend a language school in Zenica specifically for cross-cultural workers, and find good longsuffering local friends who were willing to help me learn the language.

There was even a time when I managed to correct the language teacher on a point of grammar – she was so convinced that I was wrong and she was right, that she pulled out the “who is the native speaker here?” card! The next day having checked with other people, she came and apologised as I was right… 

The reason I had managed to correct her was that I had bought this amazing language book in the year when I was waiting to get a visa to get to Bosnia. I had bought it through Amazon and paid a small fortune for it (delivery to South Africa is not cheap!), but it was a kind of stake in the ground – I am going to go back to Bosnia. Oftentimes, if I have to be honest, it wasn’t me being faithful to God and His calling for me to go to Bosnia, it was the thought that I had paid so much for that book, that I couldn’t give up now!

I originally thought that when I tried to learn the language, that I would be horrible at it. My worst marks/grades in High School were in languages, and the only time I failed an exam all through High School was in a language: Xhosa. So, I really thought, I will go to Bosnia, and commit to two years and then not be able to learn the language. And then, when I failed, I would have a good reason to go back to South Africa - but at least I would have tried… So, you can imagine how “horrified” I was when I turned out to have an aptitude for learning the local language and even enjoyed it!

After the first initial commitment of two years, I was "unfortunately" fairly fluent. And this fluency was then a major reason that I decided to come back to Bosnia (this time to another YWAM team in another city – Banja Luka). My logical brain said: “well I have the language ability now to be useful, it would be silly to waste it”.

It took about 3-4 years and then I realised that most of the time people didn’t think I was a foreigner. It is pretty cool to be able to pass as a local, but unfortunately, I needed a lesson on “how to not let pride grow in your heart”. And God provided it! 

One time I was with my housemate and colleague, Ljilja (more on her later on), and she had observed this phenomenon of someone only realising I was a foreigner a little bit into the conversation. She said to me “you really need to tell people you are a foreigner, because they look at you like you are ‘udarena' " (which means 'hit on the head'). Suddenly my pride in my ability to blend in was shattered – every encounter with a local was now going to be me thinking “are they going to think I am ‘hit on the head’?”. She meant it for good – because if you tell people you are a foreigner, then they will be amazed at your ability… but instead it just showed me that pride really does go before a fall!

Looking back now, I can see God’s faithfulness to me as He used my logical brain, an expensive (but very useful!) book and fast language learning, not only to get me here, but also led me to stay on “another two years”. 

This is part 2 of a series of 20 short stories to celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it will be 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful over the past 20 years!

Celebrating God's Faithfulness | Story 1: Getting to Bosnia Herzegovina

If you were to ask me how I chose to go to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the answer I usually give is "God". There is a much longer answer, but as these stories of God's faithfulness are supposed to be "short", this shorter version will have to do for now. Maybe one day I will write a book, and give the fuller answer!

I first travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999 on a 2-month trip to kind of check things out. I had been with Youth With a Mission (YWAM) as a full time volunteer in Cape Town for 2 years and was trying to see if I was supposed to stay there, or go somewhere completely different. I was always fascinated by Eastern Europe, and of course the 1992-1995 Bosnian war was something that everyone knew about. I had once told the Lord “I will serve you with my whole life, as long as I can stay in Cape Town”. Well obviously, He had other ideas.  

That trip is a whole story in itself, but once I got back to South Africa, I realised that I had fallen in love with the people, and couldn’t wait to go back. However, as I only had a South African passport (more later on how I got my British one), I needed a visa even just to enter Bosnia. And for that I needed an invitation/guarantee letter, i.e. to find someone willing to guarantee for me. 

I tried various ways to find someone who was willing to do that for me, and had a couple of false starts with various different organisations and people. Eventually over a year later, I got in touch with the YWAM team in Zenica, and they told me that if I wanted to join the team, I needed to complete a YWAM course called the “School of Frontier Missions” at the YWAM training location in Heidebeek in the Netherlands, and then come afterwards on an internship for two years. 

I wrote to the “information” email at Heidebeek, asking for more details on the course. Knowing how good YWAM is at communication, I was absolutely amazed to hear back the very next day from the person running the course, and he told me, “I am going to be in South Africa tomorrow, let’s meet up next week.” 

We met up and he told me the 3-month course started in just over 6 weeks, but it took about that to get a visa for Holland. He told me to apply for the course, but that he would start the visa paperwork as if I was already accepted, otherwise I wouldn’t have time to get the visa! After waiting for over a year, things now moved incredibly quickly. It was only God who could have helped me get the visa just in time to get on the plane to spend the 3 months at Heidebeek, before travelling to Bosnia and Herzegovina for the two-year internship. 

Even on the way to Zenica, I saw God’s hand in the timing. I couldn’t go straight away to Zenica as they only wanted me after the New Year. I had to leave Holland before my visa ran out, and it was easy to get a visa for Bosnia in Zagreb, Croatia, so I asked some YWAM friends there if I could come stay with them for the time in between. 

And only God knew how important it would be that I went via Zagreb. They were starting a 6-month Discipleship Training School in January, but not long after I arrived, one of the two staff fell and broke her foot. She would not only be out of action but also wasn’t able to be left alone for long periods, so suddenly having me around was extremely helpful! I can see now that He was in the details of getting my visa for the Netherlands and getting me to the course and then onto Bosnia, but He was even in the details of the timing of me getting there, so that I could help out in Zagreb on the way! 

This is part 1 of a series of 20 short stories to celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it will be 20 years since I arrived in the country "for 2 years". The stories won't necessarily be in chronological order from now on, but I have started with the story of my arrival. I hope you will enjoy hearing some of the ways that God has shown me that He is faithful over the past 20 years!

Bringing Christmas cheer and being useful...

What do you do when you can't get into the Children's Home, but still want to try and bring some Christmas cheer??

Yes, due to Covid restrictions, we are still not able to run any workshops for the Children at the Children's Home. And, this year is the first year many of the children will still be here for Christmas. They normally go to Italy and spend time with families there through another organisation, but of course, this year it is not possible. I asked them what we could be doing for them to help them at this time. They asked if we would help them get Christmas trees and decorations for each of the family units... and so a plan formed: 

We made up some Christmas decoration crafts for them to do with the kids, so instead of buying decorations, they could have fun making them: 

We also decided to collect some money together, and give them a new BIG tree for the entrance hall! The last one had already lasted 10 years, and so hopefully this one will last even longer! They had great fun when they got together to put the decorations (some we gave, some they had) on the tree. Here are two of the photos they sent me: 

And then the next day they made the crafts altogether - 

So they have added them to the decorations on the main tree (below) and also on the smaller trees (we had some donations of trees which we passed along!) in each of the family units: 

They also asked us if we could help out in another way- for winter, they need hand cream and lip balm for the kids. As all of our local volunteers have been so disappointed that they couldn't get in to see the kids, we asked our volunteers to participate in this collection and they came through BIG time. 

The 7 kids in the nursery got special toys and gifts. And we managed to get one hand cream and lip balm for each the 69 older children. We wrapped them each as a present, and then organised them into a bag for each of the family units and then also some cookies for them to share. Here they are in my car before I dropped them off at the home: 

So, even if we can't get into the Home, we can still bring a bit of Christmas cheer, and also help to fill some of the needs that the Home has for the children at this time of the year!