Drama Club: "Uncle John"

 From October to December, we held a weekly Drama Club for some of the children from our Sponsorship Project. We were preparing the Christmas play for our shoebox package distributions. Last year we only had 3 speaking parts, but this year everyone got a chance to speak. We learned a bit about how to perform on stage, and practiced the play many times each week.

We also practiced our singing!

Bojan reprised his role as "Čika Jovan" ("Uncle John"), which he first did in 2016. I wrote the play for a different group of kids back then, so just adapted it for this group. And I was so happy to be able to include Alisa (in yellow below) who has a speech impediment - even giving her a speaking part!! She was so happy!

We practised on the stage, but also in other places in the church, as we would be performing it not just at the church, but also in different places around Banja Luka and Celinac. By the end they could do it in their sleep!! 

Volunteer Christmas Party

 We have a wonderful group of faithful volunteers who help us at the Children's Home and also with a sponsorship project workshops and Christmas package distributions. We usually give them a lovely Christmas party each year to say thank-you and this year was no exception! 

We had Tacos this year - which was very well received as you can see! 

Then it was time to recognise those with the most hourse. Vlad (next to me) got the most hours and then it was Nada and Masha (next to him) and then the twins and Jovana were next in line. 

And everyone got a lovely crocheted heart as a thank-you!! 

And then they surprised me and Ljilja with a special present for each of us. We totally did not expect it!! It was so lovely - we are so grateful for what they do for us, and here they were showing us how grateful they are for what we do - giving them a place to volunteer and grow! 

Here we all are with the presents they got us! 

It really was a lovely evening - I don't have pictures of the Christmas Quiz run by Kate or the reminder that Haley gave us why we celebrate Christmas. We love our volunteers and look forward to continuing to work with them in the New Year! 🧡

Children's Home "Trip around the world"

 

Instead of our usual "Reading Club" at the Children's Home, this semester we decided to go on a trip around the world. The first week we made our passports and then each week we travelled to a different country on each of the continents. We explained the first week that next week we would travel to Brazil, and the next week one of the teachers told us that one of the little girls thought we were actually going to go to Brazil. Luckily she wasn't disappointed when we explained we would just be pretending. Kids can be so cute!  Each week we got another page in our passport to colour, with the flag and continent map and what we had learned about on it... can you guess which country is "JUŽNO AFRIČKA REPUBLIKA"?

With about 30 kids attending each time, these were some of the best workshops we have run in the home. For instance, we "travelled" to Brazil and learned about toucans. In Australia we learned about kangaroos. When we travelled to India we learned about the festival of Diwali - the "Festival of lights": LOTS of cutting and pasting! Our favourite activity!

And for the US we learnt about Thanksgiving (on Thanksgiving day!). But I think my favourite photo of the whole time is the one at the top of the blog... it just shows how much fun and "fun" it is working with these children who just need to know they are loved by someone. We do try to do something educational, and sometimes we do actually learn something, but the most important thing they learn from us is that they matter! 💗

Mother's Monthly meetings

Every month throughout the year, we try to have a meeting with the mothers in our sponsorship project. We usually average about 20 mothers, and older sisters and it is usually a great time together. I shared on a couple of them - one on dealing with stress and the other on self-awareness/personality tests. Other times we have shared from the Bible, or just on a life skill topic. 

At the end of the year, we had a special Christmas party for them, and they were so excited to celebrate Christmas together in this way with us: 

We had a lovely dinner, followed by a talk about Christmas: and how we need to know the one whose birthday we are celebrating! 

After the talk we made special Christmas decorations with photos of their families inside. It was such a special way to celebrate family and Christmas! 

 

Volunteer meeting

 We kicked off the school year with a meeting with all of our wonderful volunteers, and a few new ones. We gave out the previous year's hours for volunteer work (which goes in their volunteer book) and then went over what we have done in the previous year!! At the end we were reminded of some of the more important parts of our Child Protection policy. It was a lovely evening together and we are so glad we have such lovely volunteers helping us with what we do! We couldn't do it without them! 

For those that like statistics - in 2022/2023 our 3 best volunteers got over 40 hours. The average was around 18. And the total hours for all 26 volunteers were 470! 

Global Leaders' Gathering Thailand

I travelled to Chiang Mai, Thailand to join in the Global Leadership Gathering for YWAM leaders from around the world. But on the way, I went to visit my friends, Rebecca and Eve in their new location in a village in the middle of Loei province in the mountains of Thailand that border with Laos. Here they are in their kitchen cooking up my favourite meal (ok, it was mostly Eve!)

Eve even calls me "Pad Thai" because I ate it so much last time I was in Thailand in 2018 for our Y Together gathering! So, she decided she had to make it for me: 

It was really great being able to see where they are and what they are up to in this season. I even got to help out with their kids program to the local kids - here I am reading "The Hungry Caterpillar" to them. 

 

And then it was time for the Global Leaders' Gathering... We drove together to the conference in Chiang Mai. We were 900 people from every corner of the globe. And it was fantastic to be able to see so many old friends and catch up with people I hadn't seen in years! 

One afternoon a few of us from Central Europe managed to have a lovely foot massage together... good way to relax and also catch up! 

I really was amazing to be a part of the gathering and I am also so glad that I managed to go and see where my friends are working in the middle of nowhere in Thailand. 

Summer fun!

 

We spent some fun time at the Children's Home where we played games and enjoy crafts and face paint tattoos. Such fun! The kids were so happy to see us!

We also had a fun day camp with some of the Sponsorship Children who come regularly to workshops as a reward - we took them to our friend's adventure camp spot in the forest and they had a blast doing their 50m slip and slide!

And no... I did not go down the slide :) We also had a wonderful day in Celinac with our sponsorship children there, doing a FUN oral hygiene workshop. After we taught them about oral hygiene, we used games to emphasis their learning. From a "run from the cavity" tag game to using the parachute to make the ball go round and round just like how you need to brush your teeth. And on the right we are doing a "floss your teeth" fun relay! Learning doesn't have to be boring!

Then it was time to enjoy making friendship bracelets! And get our toothbrushes and floss to use at home...

Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 22: Stalni Boravak

At the beginning of July, I celebrated 20 years of living in Banja Luka. And at the end of July I celebrated another milestone - finally getting my permanent residence (in America this is called a Green Card) to stay in Bosnia Herzegovina. 

So, for story 22, and after 22 years of living here, I am going to share some of the ways God has shown His faithfulness to me in the area of visas and now, finally, I am able to stay without having to apply for a visa each year! 

In order to get a permanent residence permit, one has to be here for 5 years with no breaks in your visa. After my first two years in Zenica, when I moved to Banja Luka, I inadvertantly had a break. I was then in Banja Luka on a volunteer visa for 4 years and 9 months (so 3 months shy) when they changed the law so that anyone on a volunteer visa couldn't get permanent residency. (I did hear of someone else who had it worse than me - he had collected all the paperwork necessary and came to hand it all in on the day AFTER the law changed... ONE day! So 3 months shy seemed better than that, but still it was a blow...) 

I would pray each year, asking the Lord if I should keep going on the volunteer visa or change the visa I was on, and each year felt peace to keep going on it. After a while of doing it, the volunteer visa became fairly easy to get each year. In fact I made it a game: I started on Monday morning and then had to get it in by Friday afternoon! And the people in the visa office got used to me coming in each year like clockwork with everything in order. 

Then in 2016, they changed the law again and made it that volunteer visas could only be renewed one time. So, I now needed to change the visa I was on. I had a few options - I could get a work permit and work for our NGO or buy a property and live in it. I didn't have enough funds to be able to buy the property, so the work permit was the best option left. 

Now, the work permit is not that easy to get as they want to make sure that no Bosnian can do your job. In fact, in 2005, when I had previously applied, I had actually been rejected as my undergrad degree was deemed equivalent to one that 10 000 unemployed people also had, and so one of them could do my job. This was also another reason I just kept going on the volunteer visa. In 2017, amazingly enough, I finished my Masters in Community Development. And now I could apply for the work permit with that degree!! God's faithful timing! 

I applied for the work permit and was approved, and then had to renew it for 5 years before I could then apply for my permanant residency. Somewhere in the third year I found out to my horror that I was only allowed to be out of the country for a total of 10 months in those 5 years. I do travel a lot for work and also go to South Africa a bit, so I was worried that I would be over this limit. In the end I found out that it is according to the scans they do of your passport (not the stamps) and they luckily don't always scan, so I thought I would be ok. 

Then of course Corona happened in 2020 and all travelled stopped anyway. But then, in 2021, I had the frozen shoulder and ended up going to South Africa for the operation and was there for over 4 months. I kind of hoped that they hadn't scanned my passport for that time and I would get away with it... 

In 2023, when it came time to get all my paperwork together, I went for a couple of weeks to South Africa to get two of the documents (my birth certificate and a police clearance certificate, both of which you need to apply for in person). I then collected all the other documents (of which there were quite a few as always!) and in April of this year was wanting to hand in everything. 

In the meantime, I had managed to get one of the more relaxed and helpful inspectors in the visa office to agree to help me with my case. It was a good thing that I did, because of course they had scanned me in and out for those 4 months, and it meant I had 10 months and 23 days officially, 23 days over the limit... 

And this is where having him involved in the case was amazing - he had already come up with a reason to give me an exemption and a way to get the extra 3 weeks overlooked. And praise the Lord, it worked with the commission who looks at the applications!! God's faithfulness again in action? 

So what does this mean? It means that I don't have to ever apply for a yearly visa ever again! I am waiting to be given an ID Number, and then I will be able to get an ID card (which does say "for foreigners" on it, but still...) I won't be a Bosnian, but I will be as close to one as you can be! 

I am not sure what life is going to bring... am I going to stay in Bosnia forever? I don't know. I do believe that He told me to come here, and I am committed to staying until/if He tells me to leave. One thing I do know that God has been faithful all the years I have been here, showing me what steps to take when, and I believe that He will continue to show me where He wants me in the future as well. 

Dutch Team

A wonderful team of 11 came from the Netherlands to build a house in a week that we will use for seminars and camps. They had sent the prefab house from the Netherlands beforehand, and the team came to put it up. Here is a time-lapse of the first day of building! 

It is amazing how quickly it goes up!! 

Unfortunately, on the second day, one of the team, Chris, fell over and broke his hip. It wasn't the easiest situation as he didn't really speak much English. In the end, because of some other health issues, it was decided that it was best for him to go back to the Netherlands to have the operation to fix his hip there. They sent an ambulance from there and he travelled back to Holland and the operation there was a success!

We did have a bit of a hiccup with work inspection and the police because of the accident, but in the end it was smoothed over and the rest of the team managed to finish the house before heading back to the Netherlands! 

Celebrating God’s faithfulness | Story 21: Arrival to Banja Luka

At the beginning of 2021, I celebrated 20 years of living in Bosnia Herzegovina. Today marks 20 years since I arrived in Banja Luka. I couldn't let today go by without marking it in some way, so I thought I would return to the theme I had for the 20 years in BiH - celebrating God's faithfulness: 

I had arrived in the beginning of 2001 and spent two years in Zenica before heading back to South Africa for 3 months. I had packed up all my things in Zenica as I knew I didn't want to return to the place I was staying in at the time. So, I had to make a choice while in SA. Do I return to Bosnia at all? If I did, do I return to Zenica? Or somewhere else in Bosnia? 

Now, remember, I am still on a South African passport. I need to have a visa even to get INTO the country. I need to have a guarantee letter to get said visa. I had visited some YWAMers in Banja Luka and there met Siniša, the pastor of one of the churches. When I asked him if I were to come to Banja Luka would he help me with the visa, all he said was "Dođi" (Come).

When I was in South Africa, I spent time praying and asking the Lord where to go. I had a few options, and one of them was Banja Luka. Previously, I had prayed about maybe going Banja Luka, and the Lord had said, "No" to my going there, so I had ended up in Zenica. So, you can imagine my surprise that while I was praying with friends, we all felt that it was now a "Yes" for Banja Luka. I felt peace and I started making plans to return to Bosnia Herzegovina, but now to Banja Luka. 

I got a guarantee letter from Siniša and the plan was to go to the Bosnian Embassy in Zagreb to get my visa, just like I had done in 2001. I didn't think to check if things had changed since then, when you could get it the same day. Now, it would take at least one month to approve. One month I didn't have!  

I couldn't believe it. What was I going to do? How could I have been so dumb as to not check? Me, the organised one? And where was God? Why hadn't He given me a heads up somehow? I was so sure I was where I was supposed to be, and yet here was a huge roadblock in my way. 

Thankfully, God already had a plan. I called people in Zenica and our "fix-it" lady, Vesna, was sure she could figure something out. She told me to go to the border and wait there. I knew some people in Slavonski Brod, so I headed there to wait and see. It took 5 days (thankfully I had very gracious hosts!), but in the end, Vesna managed to organise me a "border visa" for entry. 

I went to the border at 4.30 in the morning as the only bus to Zenica (where I was going to go pick up my stuff and my car) was at 5.30. Unfortunately despite being ready for me, the border guards still took over an hour to get me through and I missed that bus... I got to the Bus Station in Bosanski Brod at 5.45, happy to be in the country, but now stressed by trying to figure out how to get to Zenica. After a weekend of will I or won't I, I really didn't need any more stress. And God knew. And He intervened. 

I asked at the Information about other alternatives and they told me there was nothing. Imagine the scene - a poor foreigner now in complete tears with a big suitcase and a guitar and nowhere to go. And then seemingly out of nowhere, a sympathetic bus driver (angel?) came to tell me he thought he could get me there and to jump on his bus...

He was heading for Derventer and he knew he arrived just after a bus left for Zenica. So he phoned ahead and told that bus driver to wait for me! We got to Derventer and I changed buses (to the stares of the passengers who had been made to wait for me, oh well) and off I went to Zenica. Tears all dried up and now looking forward to the adventures ahead. 

The best part of the story is that I actually arrived in Zenica a whole hour before I would have if I had gone on the original "direct" bus (which I guess stopped off a lot more on the way!). My faithful God figured out a way to get me into the country when there really seemed to be no way and then as a cherry on the top got me quicker to my destination!!!

I spent a day in Zenica, seeing friends (celebrating Jana Warner's birthday!) and collecting my stuff and my car before heading to Banja Luka on the 3rd of July 2003. I arrived the day before a team was coming in and so it was a rush to get me sorted with a new sim card for my phone and other details and right to work... Now it has been 20 years since that day, and I am still here in Banja Luka! 

So today, I will take a pause and remember that tumultuous time when I first came to Banja Luka and celebrate how faithful God has been over the past 20 years in small ways and big!

InterVarsity Team

After the success of the first team of 39 that came from the InterVarsity Rocky Mountain region, we had a "smaller" Global Project team of "only" 27 in May to spend a month in Banja Luka. Four students and two staff returned from last year's team and so that was so helpful for continuing on building on the foundation of last year's team!  We started with 3 days of orientation. I shared on the history of Bosnia Herzegovina and Banja Luka. I also got to translate once again for Sinisa's testimony - I will definitely need to record it at some stage so you all can get to hear it, as it is pretty amazing!

Then it was time to start reaching out to students!! The team held events at two of the faculties at the Banja Luka University to share about American Culture: They met students through these events on campus, and also reconnected with students from last year, or from previous teams. Another main way they met students was eating every day at the cafeteria on campus.

We ran many events while they were in Banja Luka to connect better with the local students: The events included things like Game Night:  And Karaoke:  There was also a more spiritually focused event with Andy Mayo (from the UK) and Slavko Hadžić (from Sarajevo/Mostar) The evening began with Andy singing some of his songs about peace, hope, and restoration. Then Slavko shared about having security in uncertain times. He spoke using poems from a famous Bosnian-Herzegovinian author, as well as Psalm 23 from King David, showing that throughout history, people have been looking for security, but real security can only be found in God. The night ended with a couple more of Andy’s songs, and an explanation of a mural brought by the InterVarsity team, showing that Jesus breathes life, purpose, and creativity into the lives of the people he met in the gospels - and into our lives as well. Another fun part of having the team here is that we then are able to have a full team for worship! We usually don't have a drummer or a basist, so it is nice when we can use those instruments. And it is an interesting experience for them to be able to play in another language!  Even though it is a lot of work having this big team around - it is so much fun as well! We look forward to next year when they will have over 40 coming along!