Video: looking back at 2025

 

US InterVarsity Team

We had an incredible month hosting a team of 36 from the Rocky Mountain Region of InterVarsity! This was the fourth year in a row that they have been here in Banja Luka and the partnership keeps getting better! This time there were 4 returning students who act as student leaders, and 5 IV staff and then 27 new students who had never been before.

One of my main roles with the team is to help with their orientation:

We try to help them get a better understanding of the history and the culture of the area. Here I am going through their answers for the Scavenger Hunt that takes them around all the different landmarks in Banja Luka and they have a great time finding them all! 

After orientation, the American students spent time doing life with local and international students - sharing meals, having honest conversations, walking through doubts and faith, and forming deep friendships built on trust, compassion, and Christ-centered love. Learning about a different culture, while sharing about their own - a true cultural exchange. 

They hosted loads of fun events: from Quizzes to Dance parties!

And three afternoons a week we hosted anyone who wanted to come to our place at "Cafe Ihtus"

This was all a great way to hang out and grow in relationships in a neutral space. They also went on activities organised by the local and international students - like hiking up the hill with a lookout over Banja Luka: 

Our first event with the team was a Teen Sports Workshop which brought together teens, American students, and our wonderful local volunteers for a day full of fun, games, and shared joy.

The team also stepped into academic spaces across Banja Luka: We were honored to take part in the 30th-anniversary student conference at the Faculty of Philology, where we could interact with the students in between different presentations.

We were also warmly welcomed at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics—engaging with students from across the region and planting seeds of mutual respect, curiosity, and future collaboration.

We also hosted two sessions at the English Department led by two Christian psychologists from the U.S. on "The Nature of Trauma" and "Family of Origin", sparking important conversations around healing, identity, and hope from a Biblical perspective.

We also had two more serious events at the Church. One was by the two psychologists, based on "Emotional Awareness":

 The other was called "Art for the Soul". A highlight of that evening was the powerful monodrama “Writing Against the Silence,” written and performed by Jovana, one of our local volunteers. Her powerful performance shared the story of a soul seeking truth, freedom, and forgiveness through written words. Her honest, heartfelt story of finding voice, healing, and freedom deeply moved all who attended.

The month flashed by, and we had to say a sad farewell to these wonderful students. We had a little time of sharing at the end, and it was amazing to hear their stories of how the trip impacted them, and also all those students whom they met and encouraged. We look forward to their next team coming again in 2026!

Swedish/Finnish team

The first week of August, we hosted a team of 13 from Sweden/Finland. Our former Finnish colleagues, Miika and Mirjam, are now living in Sweden, so they came with some of the youth group of their church there. One of their four daughters, Jijska, who used to live in Banja Luka with them came from Finland. We got to meet Leevi, their 9-year-old son for the first time! 

The team was fantastic, and they helped us run Children's Camps for our sponsorship children and the kids had a great time with the team! 

I was able to play guitar with a lovely team of musicians and we even got them to learn the actions to the songs in the local language... as you can see in the video, it was very fun: 

Each day we divided the kids into younger and older groups and they took turns doing fun activities inside and outside...

They even got to play a new game called "Swedish Baseball" which was very fun! 

Facepainting and other ball games were a big hit! 

And most of the boys ended up getting "tattoos" 😁

Miika has visited (and brought a team for kids camp in 2013) a few times, but this was Mirjam's first visit since she left in 2010. It was so fun to see through her eyes the changes that have happened in the 12 years that she has been gone. We don't always see how much things have changed as it has happened over many years - so it was a great reminder to us of where we were and where we are now!

InterVarsity Utah Team

In early 2020, my colleague, Ljilja, was contacted by a team from InterVarsity Utah who were supposed to be going to China, but they couldn't go because of the virus that was happening there. Things still hadn't exploded everywhere else, so they were looking for somewhere else to go... and somehow heard about Bosnia as a possibility. Even though the team was huge - over 40 people - somehow Ljilja felt it was the right thing to do to host them! Of course, then Covid happened, and they couldn't come for 2 years - but finally this summer, they came!!! 

So, at the end of May, 29 students and 8 staff (and 2 teenager children of the main leaders), came for almost a month to Banja Luka. They had a time of orientation where we helped them understand more about the country and people, and also some teambuilding... including rafting on the Vrbas river: 

Then it was time to meet local students - we held events at different colleges and other places where they could share about the states where they were from (Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Idaho) and connect with the students. Here we are at the American Corner, and Amanda is sharing about Colorado. 

We also held different fun events - here they are teaching people 2-step: 

And in true cultural-exchange style, they then learnt the Serb "Kolo" circle dance:

They held quiz nights, a Karaoke night and they and all the game nights were well attended! 

We had very full church services while they were around, which was very fun. I also had the privilege of translating into English for them: 

And they helped out in leading worship too, and it was so fun to have a bigger team! 

We know some crazy people, and no one is crazier than our friends Damjan and Tanja, who decided it was a good idea to host the WHOLE team for lunch. They made wonderful bean soup and we somehow managed to all fit outside... The team loved experiencing Bosnian hospitality (including the part where they "had" to try the local alcohol 'rakija'): 

We were so grateful to Tanja and Damjan for having us all over - here you can see how many people they fed!! 

Despite the size of the team, everything was so well organised and they were so wonderful, so when they asked if they can come again in the future, we all immediately said "yes"!! The staff (below with our team) were amazing and each of them had a small group of 5-6 students and so communication (mostly) flowed really well and we were able to work well with the team through the staff. The students were also so engaging and full of energy and so fun to have around. 

The month flew by and we were really sad to see them go! 

Easter Workshop

Last weekend, we held a workshop for our sponsorship children to celebrate Orthodox Easter (on May 2nd). We were originally planning to have it at the park, but then the weather was very unpredictable, so we decided to have it indoors at Ihtus. At the LAST minute the weather was good enough for us to be completely covid-safe and have it outside. We had two workshops back-to-back so we didn't have more than the 30 people allowed to gather and everyone had a great time! 

We started by playing some games, and then painted eggs: 

We had two groups - one younger and one older, here are some of the older kids: 

And some of the younger ones with their eggs: 

The youngest particpant in the first group (his mom stayed with him and helped out as well!)

We talked a bit about the Easter Story and they started to colour these in - and took them home to finish off: here is one of the finished projects: 

And then it was time for the main event (in their minds!) the "Easter" (Christmas) Packages. Because of Covid they came too late to give out at Christmas, so we are doing them more now at Easter! 

 And the youngest participant in the second group (who came with her older sisters) - so excited! 

And Alexa, one of our wonderful volunteers, made a lovely video so you can see more of what went on... Enjoy! 

As you can see it was a lovely workshop and the kids enjoyed themselves!!! Thanks to our wonderful volunteers, and to the mothers that also stayed and helped. Despite so many changes in plan along the way, everything worked out so well in the end!

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!