Holiday of a lifetime!

For the past 12 years, Ljilja, Sina (our friend from Finland) and I have been going on holiday together. We even managed to find ways to go on holiday during 2020 and covid rules changing every day. We have had a lot of fun adventures, but also just able to relax and enjoy movies and games and looooong discussions about our lives. We also usually celebrate all 3 of our birthdays on Ljilja's birthday in July as I am in June, and Sina in August... 

This year, with both Sina and I were turning 50, we wanted to go somewhere extra special. Sina has also travelled to over 90 countries, and originally she wanted to go somewhere new, but that is quite hard for her! She wanted to go to do an island holiday - and her first suggestion was Fiji! We looked at ticket prices and it was a hard NO from us. After that she thought about Seychelles, but again it looked expensive. She had already been to the Maldives for work, but as that actually looked like the best option price-wise, she was happy with the island holiday there as she had not done the "vacation" side of things there - just visiting projects for work. 

So, in the end we managed to get her "down" to go to the Maldives. We found some reasonable airline tickets ourselves via Doha (with a stopover on the way back) and Ljilja did a phenomenal job of contacting local travel agencies to see if we could get a deal on accommodation. We had decided on a resort near the capital called Kurumba. 

We would just get breakfast included and then go out for dinner, making it cheaper (and healthier!) than a full board/all inclusive option. We got a good deal through an agency in Bosnia, and were about to pay the deposit when Ljilja received another offer for the same exact booking from an agency in Serbia which was even cheaper!! Love it! (we found it it was cheaper in July as it is the "rainy season", but other than a 1 or 2 times of rain during the day, it really didn't bother us at all as it mostly fell at night). 

We stayed in two adjoining rooms upstairs in a condo with four rooms. We didn't have anyone downstairs for most of the time which was nice. It included a fun "outdoor/indoor" bathroom - so you could shower outside... or in the rain - which was a fun experience! 

Being on the top floor meant we had a lovely view from the windows/balcony:

And most of the creepy crawlies kept out of our rooms (which was helpful to those with a fear of creepy crawlies of which there were a few!) We did get to see lots of bats in the evenings and our friendly heron, which we nicknamed Harry the Heron, was always around: 

We had loungers (with our room numbers on!) on the beach which were sort of secluded as they were surrounded by trees, so we felt like we had our own private island getaway. Such a blessing! This is the view from the balcony towards "our" beach and our loungers are in between the trees! 

And this is the view along the beach! 

We mostly spent time at the beach, but did do a couple of snorkelling trips, which were amazing!! It was also lovely just to snorkle around our beach too! And we could also take out the kayaks for some good exercise: 

One of the reasons we chose this resort was that they had different themed restaurants, and one of them was THAI! Which happens to be the favourite food of all of us. We have usually managed to find a Thai restaurant in the places we go to on holiday - there is no real Thai food in Bosnia and it is expensive in Finland! We did go there 4 times during our stay and got to the know the staff, including the chef (from Thailand) and so when it was time to go, they even gave us a special send-off and insisted on taking pictures with us - so sweet! 

The whole time we were there we were all saying everyday, "Thank-you Lord that we get to experience this beautiful place!" There was one moment when I was in the sea at sunset and just looking at the bats flying around and seeing the sunset from the water and I was just praising the Lord for being able to experience this beauty. I am so glad that Sina wanted to go somewhere like that for her 50th, because it really was the crowning experience of my 50th jubilee celebrations! 

Tunisian Vacation

This is the 12th year that Sina, Ljilja and I have gone on our summer vacation together. After not being able to go far during Covid for 2 years, Ljilja and Sina really wanted to go to a "new" country. And as we were so busy with teams in the spring, we didn't really have the time to figure out all the details, so when we discovered a fantastic all-inclusive deal for Tunisia out of Sarajevo, we jumped at it. Tunisia is Sina's 86th new country (and Ljilja and my 46th!). We know we are still not out of the Covid woods yet, but other than wearing masks on the plane, it felt like we were.

We flew to Monastir and got taken to our hotel in Sousse. We mostly spent time there, but we did take a couple of tours - one to Sidi Bou Said, Carthage and Tunis and the other to Sousse. 

This is Sidi Bou Said - so beautiful: 

And Ljilja and Sina enjoying the view: 

They are known for their blue doors: 

It was very hot, so we mostly tried to find shade and something to drink! 

And unfortunately despite all our attempts to stay cool Sina managed to get sunstroke 😞 and so we missed the last stop of the tour (the Tunis old town/medina) keeping her cool, but it was still worth it for what we did get to see. (luckily she got over it pretty quickly, but it was definitely the lowlight of our holiday 😢 ) We got cleverer and went to the Sousse old town/medina in the latter part of the day so it was a bit cooler: 

We enjoyed that tour a little bit more: 

We were taken very good care of by the staff at the hotel. Here we are with "our" waiter, Monta. We couldn't get photos with all of the staff who treated us well, but you get the idea! 

But a good example was for Ljilja's birthday - they organised flowers and provided a cake! 

We got the chance to go to the "fancy" restaurant for a special dinner (we could go once during our stay so we chose her birthday) and they made our table even more special!! 

And all the waiters came in and sang to Ljilja with yet another cake! 

Here are Sina and I ready for watching one of their evening shows, and you can see the pool in the background: 

The shows were fun, dancing and also light and fire: 

And one night there was a "Fakir" show, and Sina was invited to take part... she was on stage the whole time with 5 other ladies and then each were used for different parts of the act as he showed his ability to withstand painful activities. Here is Sina standing on his head while he is facedown on broken glass! It  was pretty cool having her up there. He was pretty amazing... 

We didn't go to the shows every night, but also watched some movies and played games in our room, or headed to the nearest town of Port El Kantoui to get out of the resort for a bit. 

During the day we were either in the sea or the pool, and they had daily aquaerobics, here in the pool: 

But I actually prefered doing it in the sea: I spent a lot of time in the sea which was a great help to my shoulder, in fact it came along so much in the time in Tunisia, that I am so glad that we went there! 

One of the things that Sousse is known for is the beautiful sunrise which was at 5am in the morning... I hadn't woken up early enough the whole time we were there, and then the last morning, I woke up 1 minute before it was due!! Thank-you God! This is the view from our balcony:

And zooming in a bit later... so lovely! 

The whole holiday was a blessing from God, and we were so amazed to get such a good deal. We did book it early to get the early bird special, but even so... But it was only once we got there that we realised that these resorts haven't been working much the last two years and of course their usual customer base are the Russians. And they wouldn't be coming this year because of the war. So, it made sense that their prices would be very attractive (especially early on) to at least get some customers!

So, the whole time I was just amazed at all the blessings and then the last day's sunrise was like a little nod from God... blessing upon blessing! 

Montenegro vacation

This year, our 11th year of taking vacations together, Sina, Ljilja and I decided to enjoy our neighbouring country, Montenegro. We started up in the beautiful northeast of the country, in the Durmitor mountains. We took a lovely hike around the "Black lake", which was beautiful, despite being caught in the rain: 

We also went to see the Tara canyon, which was equally lovely: 

We then headed to the southwest, nearer to the coast: and stayed near to Skadar Lake. One day we took a drive along the scenic route to the sea, and it reminded me a lot of Cape Town: 

We took a little boat trip on the lake, which was very special: 

Then we headed to the coast, just in time to celebrate someone's birthday: 

Sina and I managed to organise a cake and candles and surprise her, yay! 

We were staying near the city of Bar, so one night we enjoyed "Stari Bar" or "Old town Bar": 

This is me with my arty pic through the Arch of the aquaduct! 

One of the down sides of this whole lovely vacation was the fact that I was nursing an extremely sore shoulder and my pain medicine would run out in the middle of the night, so I would wake up take some more and then have to wait until it kicked in... 

But that actually turned into an advantage as I managed to see the moon over the sea in various different ways every night. We had a wonderful view over the sea which really helped! Here she is waxing on a cloudless night: 

And here she is full on a cloudy night, so beautiful: 

So even despite the sore shoulder putting a pall on the vacation, I did manage to see the advantage of it! We had a wonderful time as always otherwise. I read 11 books, we watched 10 movies together and played over 8 different types of games... All in all a relaxing holiday :) 

God is faithful even when it is H.A.R.D | Iron sharpening Iron

I have been putting off this topic as it is a hard one to write. I have been thinking of how to end this series, and somehow I think it is fitting if this one will be the last one. It is a hard one to write because it doesn't just concern me, and so I have struggled with even writing anything at all. However, I have come to realise that if I don't write something on it, then I am not being entirely truthful and also not celebrating God's faithfulness completely. 

One of the hardest parts of being a cross-cultural worker is working with other cross-cultural workers. Before I came to Bosnia, I thought I was a nice easy-going person, and I could get on with anyone. I learnt in my training before coming that one of the main reasons people leave cross-cultural work is because of conflicts with other cross-cultural workers. I thought, “Wow, that is amazing, well I won't have those kinds of problems, I will be fine.” [insert hysterical laughter here 😊] 

I remember when I was interviewing for a volunteer position with Samaritan's Purse. They asked me, "So tell us about your previous experience in working in teams..."  I quipped, "Well I have been on two teams and they both broke up and everyone else kind of left." They looked a bit shocked at this and leaned in and said, "Tell us more..." (Whoooooops!!!) Luckily, I was able to come back from that and have been on the Bosnian National Team for Operation Christmas Child for over 5 years now. 

Recently, I was teaching on a Leadership Development course on zoom, and I was talking about learning from your Leadership Journey. The premise is that we all need to look back on our lives and learn from what God was showing us along the way. In the teaching, I was sharing about transitions and specifically about the big transition I went through when I moved to Bosnia. I half-jokingly said, "I think in that transition time my greatest cultural stress was not with the Bosnians, but learning to work with Americans…” Yes, cross-cultural issues also go on in teams! 

All the YWAM workers in Bosnia circa 2002

Since I thought that I was wonderful and easy to work with, when I started having issues with other people, I just blamed them. I didn’t see how much I was part of the problem as well. Looking back, I see that God was using my teammates to change me and sharpen me (and me to sharpen them too!). It is true what it says in Proverbs: 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."

Another important thing to remember in any team context is that the devil is on the prowl, looking at ways to get you to clash. His ultimate aim is for you to crash out. I think the reason I have been able to work for so many years on a team with Siniša and Ljilja (with many others coming and going over the years!) is because we keep short accounts and don’t let the devil get a foothold. Or at least we try!

Whether it is God using the iron to sharpen iron, cultural issues or the devil trying to destroy community, team conflict over the years has changed me into who I am today. Even though it has not been easy, I wouldn’t want to change anything or anyone with whom I have worked over the years. I attempt to practice Romans 18:12: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” And I think I can safely say that I have a good relationship with all of my ex-teammates.

 

Community is essential to flourish, especially cross-culturally, and I can see how faithful God has been over the years and even now in providing that community through teammates. He has also been so faithful to use them to sharpen me and help me become more like Him in the process. 

I hope you have enjoyed this series about God’s faithfulness when things are H.A.R.D. I hope you have enjoyed looking back with me and seeing that He is faithful even in the hard times, through the hard things and truly works everything for the good... Look out soon for my next series 😊 

"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. " Deut 7:9

This is the seventh and final in a series of blogposts about God’s faithfulness when things are H.A.R.D. They follow the series of 20 short stories celebrate 20 years of God's faithfulness to me in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 16th of January 2021, it was 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 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 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!

E-Summit Samaritan's Purse

 At the end of June, the 3 regional teams and the national team of Operation Christmas Child in Bosnia Herzegovina took part in the worldwide E-summit that was held all over the world for all of the volunteers with this project. Most people were in their individual locations, but with our cases way down, we took the risk of getting together... we met at a place in the middle of the country called Cardaci and we had a great time. Here we are all around the map of Bosnia Herzegovina: 

This is a pic of what we did for 3 hours a day - zoom meetings with our region - the Balkans, Baltics and Central Europe: 

We also spent some time doing some workshops in our team - starting with the positive side of OCC: we broke into two groups to do this... my group is the one with the funny man (drawn by me ;) )

After that we spent time looking at the issues that we face and how we can solve them... it was a productive session. After that, as I showed off my drawing skills, I was asked to draw a picture of our National Coordinator, Jelena... and then we all wrote things we liked about her on post-its: we really love her and she was really touched: 

Our mascot was little Aron - and here he is with his best buddy, Ljilja: they are so cute together: 

Here I am with his grandmother, Elvira and mother, Eldina... 

Here we all are again - aren't we a lovely bunch? 

And one more photo for luck... 

It really is a privilege to work with these fantastic people on this project... making sure that we get shoebox packages to where they need to go!!