nConnect 2024

Every year in the autumn we are part of an nConnect somewhere in the Balkans. This is for the volunteer teams who help make sure that the  Operation Christmas Child "shoebox" packages are given out in the correct way. This year it was our opportunity to host the Croatia and Montenegro teams here in Bosnia Herzegovina. Last year it was held in Serbia with 7 countries, and I was at the conference, but got sick after one day, so I missed out on much of it 😞 

So, I was so happy to have the opportunity to be a part of this conference and get to know the teams from the other countries, and to hang out with the Bosnian team. Here we all are: 

Here is our Bosnian team around the "map" of Bosnia: 

And all standing on one of the bridges in the Ethno Village where we were staying: (Our team adopted Mila who came from Croatia with her mom as she was super cute!) 

And here are some more pics from around the place where we stayed...

It really is very quaint - and you feel like you have gone back in time: 

And it also has some fun quirky details - like these loving lamp posts! 

Besides being able to connect with others, and learn some of the new ways of reporting and helping in worship, I was also priviledged to share the devotion on the first day (we were in a bigger room as the smaller was being used on the first morning by another group). Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it was a good way to kick off the conference! 

The best part about it being in Bosnia is that we only had to drive 2 1/2 hours - the last two were in Montenegro (11 hours drive) and Serbia (9 hours drive), so this was very nice 😁 Now we are ready to start the next season of giving out shoebox packages!! 

Christmas Plays and Shoebox distribution

This year, after a two year break, we were able once again to have our Christmas plays. In June already, I was thinking about what play we should do. In a conversation with one of our longstanding church members I complained that I had to not only figure what to do for the play this year but I also had to figure out which kids to use as all of our kids that usually took part are now all grown up.

She replied, "Why don't you just use one of the first plays you used back in the day - the kids that watched that are all grown up and you can kind of start again with a new set of kids and go through the plays in order". GENIUS!!! So a plan was formed: We started back with the first one I did which was You are Special in 2014. It is based on Max Lucado's book "You are Special" about the Wemmicks who give each other stars and dots. If you don't know that story - you can watch it here.

Two of the kids from the original group of actors, Bojan and Snjeza, took the previous "adult" parts and we found some wonderful kid actors from amongst our sponsorship children. We formed a little drama club with them, meeting each week. Haley my teammate, and also Bojan and Snjeza helped a lot! We played drama games and taught them all some acting skills while we were practicing for the play. It was so fun! 

Here are the "Wemmicks" wandering around their village putting on stars or dots on each other, with Snjeza narrating: 

Brother and sister, Lazar and Marina, playing Punchinello and Lucia: 

Bojan playing the part of Eli - with Punchinello: 

And then, finally the day came when it was time to put on the shows... It worked out that the only time we could do them was on my Christmas Eve and Christmas (as I work in a part of the world where they celebrate Christmas in January!). It was a fun way to spend Christmas! 

Our first couple of performances were in Celinac - a town about 20 minutes drive from Banja Luka. I think the kids did a phenomenal job!! Especially in front of such huge crowds! Below you can see that sang some songs afterwards as well... (My brother's comment on this photo is the best: "Belinda the rock star! ⭐ Playing to sold out theaters across Europe!" )😁

So, after that experience with so many people - our performances back in Banja Luka the next day were super easy! And we were back on familiar ground - where we had been practicing for months! Here we are with the kids and their packages after one of the performances: 

Besides Christmassy songs, we also sang our Camp Theme song from Camp 2013 - which was written by our Finnish colleague, Rami. It is called "Very Precious". You can watch us singing it here. It talks about how we need to treat everyone with respect as we are all different, but precious in our own way. And it fit in so well with the theme of the play, that we had to sing it as well! 

Now we just have one more performance to go - at the Children's Home in January - and then we will be done with the play and packages for this year. We now have a great group of actors, and next year I may have inspiration and write a new play or I can just recycle one from before! 

November happenings in Banja Luka

During November, after all my travels in September and October, I was firmly in place in Banja Luka, but we had some lovely visitors come to stay which was great fun. We also managed to get up to a lot of different things during the month! 

Eric and Sophie (above) came from YWAM Ireland, and Jesse and Charity from InterVarsity - all in time for the events we held with Professor Emyr MacDonald, who is a Professor with Cardiff University who also is a believer. His work in nanoscience has caused him to believe even more in a creator God as he sees all the intricate details at the nano-level which couldn't have just happened by chance. He spoke at an event at Ihtus (below) and he also lectured at the Natural Science faculty. 

Sophie and Eric also helped with our weekly reading club at the Children's Home. We have really enjoyed going in each week with a different story and then doing a craft - and my favourite was definitely this one of Pinocchio: It might have taken me going to 4 different stores to find the split pins to use for it, but it was worth it! They were super cute - and yes the pencil nose can grow when he is lying! 

And we also held a "Fall party" while Sophie and Eric were still around. Based on Thanksgiving it was a great evening of fall foods and also remembering all that we are thankful for: 

The last week of November, we held the training for Operation Christmas Child ministry partners for this part of the country:

Here I am in action, doing my part of the training: 

We have to ensure that the partners will do the distribution of the 10 000 packages in the way that they are supposed to. It is so fun to be able to be part of the team that helps make sure things are done well.

Our friend, Jelena, was also coming to help with the training, so we convinced her to come early and stay on and so she helped us with our Reading Club and also ran an event for the Mothers in our sponsorship project (she is on the left): 

She talked about "Zimnica" (Preserves) which each woman here usually makes for winter - jams, relishes, pickled vegetables, you name it. But she related it to our spiritual/emotional lives - that we also need to preserve good thoughts and things we are grateful for. We each decorated a jar with little slips of paper inside with things we are grateful for. When times are hard we can take them out and remind ourselves of all the good things in our lives. It was such a good life lesson and the mother's loved it!

 Here are Emina and Vesna with their jars: 

All in all it was a busy and varied month, and a lot of things to be grateful for!! 

nConnect in Montenegro

The annual Samaritan's Purse nConnect for the past few years has been in Bosnia and Herzegovina and with only our Operation Christmas Child national and regional teams because of Covid. So, we were delighted to be able to get together with the Montenegrin team in Montenegro. Because one of their team needed a visa for Bosnia, our bigger team made the trek to Budva, but it was good to be altogether again. And we got to enjoy the seaside, even if the weather was horrible. 

Besides talking about our experiences and looking ahead to what needs to be done in the future, we worked on our plans for our upcoming shoebox distributions - making sure that we have everything in place to ensure it all gets done well. In Bosnia Herzegovina, our 20 plus ministry partners will distribute about 10000 packages this year. 

On the way back, I was travelling with another group as Ljilja was staying over in Trebinje, and we went the loooooong way around to drop off people, so it was already going to be about a 10-11 hour trip. And then, we reached the highway and just as we got on, the low fuel light came on... The driver thought we should be able to make it, but unfortunately he was wrong... 

At least the sunset was pretty while we were waiting... and luckily we were only 10kms away from a town where the driver's Kum (best man) lives and he was home and able to get fuel and bring it to us on the other side of the highway. Unlucky for him, he then had to carry on for another 30kms as there is nowhere else to turn around... 

I have written about the Kuma/Kum before, but I have never been so happy to take advantage of the closeness of this relationship. They say "Kum nije dugme" which translates literally to "Your best man is not a button", but basically means that the relationship is special, not to be taken lightly! 

We were on our way in less than an hour, but it still made for a very very long drive altogether! 

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!

nConnect 2020

The nConnect conference for Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child was, like so many things in 2020, very different than originally planned. We were supposed to be in Croatia with the teams from Croatia and Serbia, but in the end due to Covid, it was decided for us to meet each in our own countries in our own teams. We ended as only 8 of us in Bosnia Herzegovina, but we had a great time: 

We had a great time of planning for the next season of distribution of shoebox packages, during corona times and also encouraging each other. We did have some sessions on zoom with OCC regional staff located in Slovakia, Poland and North Carolina. A fun fact is that our new Regional Coordinator, Jason Hinton, used to be on a leadership team with me here in YWAM Central Europe! So that's fun! 

And besides working hard, we also enjoyed the thermal waters at Terme Ozren: 

The best part was that as hotel guests, we were able to use the pools in the evenings when it wasn't open to the public... (and after long days of meetings, it was fun to relax in the pools!) 

The sunset was so stunning, we ran out in the cold to jump into the warm sulphur pool... you can't see the steam rising, but it was :) 

And I even made it down the slide (just the once...). I was going so slowly as I braked most of the way down, Jelena got a great pic of me at the end... 

Whereas Eldina went quite a few times and super fast and so this is what every photo looked like: 

I also managed to fit in zoom meetings with YWAM leaders from all over Europe during the time we were there - why does everything have the be scheduled at the same time?? And going to two conferences at the same time is really not for the faint hearted... 

I think this week with good friends and colleagues both near and far was just what my heart needed as we head into another lockdown with Covid cases rising, our church shutting down, the Children's Home closing their doors... 

PC: Jelena Milicevic, Eldina Grabovac

Christmas Program 2018

After weeks of practising our play "Oli the Giraffe's First Christmas", it was time to put on our program and give out Operation Christmas Child packages:

We had two wonderful presenters, Marija and Lena. They started us off with a "floss" dance-competition, to see who can be quicker, them or the audience (and usually it was them!)

Bojana is our wonderful narrator:

Bojan was our Giraffe, and David and Anastasija, Mom and Dad who explain more about Christmas when Oli spots the Nativity Scene and asks about it:

Snjezana was the "littel girl" who found Oli on the street and brings him home to warm up, as he is so very cold, poor thing. And then the last character was Milica the trainer who comes to find Oli to take him back to the circus...

 After the play it was time for us to sing a couple of carols.

One of the songs is super cute and got everyone singing "Bozic je!" (It's Christmas!):

And then it is time for what everyone came for... the shoebox packages:

So many smiling faces... over 500 of them by the end of the weekend!

And Oli became famous: many the kids wanted to have their pictures taken with him!

None of this would have been possible without our wonderful children/teen volunteers. They did an amazing job, and I am so proud of all of them! This is the 5th year I have done this with them, and each year they get better and better!! 

Finally, here is a video of the actual play so you can see what it is all about. I borrowed a Giraffe suit and was given a Nativity Scene, I knew who the actors would be, so the script kind of wrote itself (with God's help!). I hope you enjoy it! I have put in English subtitles (click on CC to see them) and you might even learn some Serbian Orthodox Christmas Traditions and their origins!