Not just another Sunday...

After having one group of actors doing Saturday's Christmas plays and Shoebox packages, it was the turn of our other group on Sunday (we decided this year to have two groups, so if someone got sick we would have a back-up: last year our main actor had a temperature of 39,5 and still performed!). It has been interesting with so many children, especially finding times we could practice. I also worked out that I have heard the play at least 25 times with two groups practicing each time at least twice... I think I can almost repeat it word for word!

Ljilja started off the program: 

And then it was time for our play: They did a really good job, and I am so proud of all of them! Especially Tanja, our narrator behind the scenes...

A song (with Christmassy hats!).

We again had a film about where the packages came from, and then it was Sinisa's turn to talk about how the greatest gift at Christmas is the little baby in the manger:

Then again Dragana invited the kids to come along on "The Greatest Journey" - a 12 week look at the Bible which is really fun for kids... we plan to do it in the new year.

We also had a guest, Aleksander from Samaritan's Purse, to see how we did the distribution - here I am (in my snazzy Operation Christmas Child shirt!) translating for him:

Then it was time for the main attraction!! Group one with all their presents... This is children of our friends, children of volunteers, sponsored children - a real mix:

And then it was time to do it all over again... Unfortunately , we didn't get a picture of all of the kids with their presents in group 2 (from the single parents group) as they didn't realise we wanted them to stay for a picture and just left with their presents, but you can see them below with our wonderful actors!

It was a really fun day - and we had lots of reports about how cool the presents are once they got home! This week we will do a couple more performances and then that is it for our Christmas play for this year...

Christmas play for last Book Club of the year

For the past 4 weeks we have been practicing our Christmas play, and this time with two groups of children (yes, I am mad!). We are having more distributions this year, so we decided that it was better to have two groups as it would be too much for one group. It also means that if someone is sick we have a back-up! The children in the play are either one of our sponsorship children or children of our friends, and we have fun! My friend Dijana was once again helping with the text and narrating (she helped last year as well). Tanja helped a LOT with the costumes other logistics. Also, many of the costumes were made by my Finnish colleagues for the Nativity play two years ago and we just adapted them all... I love the legacy - they have been gone 18 months, but we still have many things we use that they left behind, this is just one of them!

On Thursday we had our preview performance (with one group) at the Children's Home as part of our last Book Club of the year. We had all of our Book Club members as well as some extra kids :) 

The story this year is set in Kingdom far away where there is a king and a princess and a court jester. The court jester, however, is no longer funny, so they send him to another kingdom to learn new jokes... 

While he is away the people in the kingdom complain about how boring it is, and how they can hardly wait until he gets back... (as this is the children's home, I can't show their faces online - so that is why the audience is a little blocked out...but at least you get the idea)

When the jester returns, he has new jokes, but they are about a strange thing called "Christmas". In this Kingdom they had never heard about Christmas... So, "he" (it is actually a she as the part is played by Ana) explains to them all about celebrating Christmas. Here he is showing them a Christmas card and telling them all about how baby in the picture is actually a King who is the best present we can ever receive...

It was really fun doing the drama with this group - and they did a really good job! Here we all are, including Dijana. (and I am not sure why I am not smiling, I was happy it went well!).

The kids at the Home really enjoyed it, and I love the fact that I can mix two parts of my ministry here in this way!! 

First Estonian team in Bosnia!

It was so great to host a team of 11 Estonians - the first team ever to Bosnia from Estonia! It was so funny for me as they really reminded me of Finnish people in their discipline and politeness (and it didn't help that their language sounds so similar!). If you don't know where Estonia is, it is one of the Baltic nations, and across the gulf of Finland from Finland, so pretty far north! 

Here they are, (with Tanja and two other volunteers, Nina and Andjela - with Estonian flags on their cheeks!), in all their glory - the two leaders were my friend, Helina, in blue in the front and (my new friend) Liis with her mouth open in front... that says it all really! So much fun!

We started off with an Estonian evening - here is an arty shot through the flag (thanks to Liis and Helina for the photos!)

There was lots of food including black bread and fish: not my favourite... but luckily there were lots of other goodies...

They had little "booths" like in an expo where they explained different aspects of Estonian culture, history, sport, music, etc... and in the end there was a quiz... followed by dancing! Everyone had a great time!

Here they are listening to the Estonian national anthem:

I didn't get a picture of the dancing at the end at the cultural evening, but you can see below where we are trying it out at the children's home. We went a couple of times with them - doing a bit of a run down on Estonian culture (including the dancing!)

And playing lots of fun games: including pop everyone else's balloon while saving yours :)

Once we were tired of the games, there was time for face (or body) painting...

Putting in hair accessories:

 And making bracelets...

And generally hanging out and enjoying new friends. It was so much fun!

As usual it was sad to see them go, but it was fun having them and being part of hosting this historic team!

VISITORS!!!

So one thing I like having is visitors... really. I do. I love it even more when they are FUN visitors... and in the last two weeks that is what I got. Yay!

First, Hannes and Doris (from Germany and Switzerland) came for a "member care" visit. They are YWAM Central Europe's member care people so part of their job is to come alongside those of us in far flung places and make sure we are doing alright. They left their two kids behind and came to visit Kip and Erica in Sarajevo and then on to me. I told them to bring their swimsuits as the forecast was or 40 on the day they were here - so we went to the pool and did member care in the pool! Great idea! They were many years in Albania, so they really come from a place of understanding some of the things that we as foreigners do go through living in a cross-cultural situation, so it was great to have a chance to just process and chat with people who understand!!

They did get a chance to come with me and the InterVarsity team to the children's home as that was scheduled on the day they arrived. I know they had a good time seeing a little bit more of what I do. I did take them around and show them the sights (in the early morning and late evening) and we had a wonderful time... do you think I got a photo of them while they were here? NO! So here is a random one I got off their facebook, ha ha! They are supersweet as you can see from the photo:

My next set of visitors who decided to pop by this summer were Andrew and Lydia (from Texas and Wales) who live in Serbia.  They are newlyweds and just good fun to have around. Again, 40deg weather me meant we went to the pool on the first day, which I don't think they were too unhappy about :) They were here for two days, so on the second day with a forecast for afternoon thundershowers (which came and cooled things down after a month of plus 35!) we decided to go on a drive to Krupa na Vrbasu. I have been with many people there over the years - including last year with Tanja (and her family) who had never been before. I took Andrew and Lydia as they have this great trout restaurant which gets the fish from the fish farm across the road... so you order and they go and get the fish out of the basin: what you eat was alive less than 1/2 hour before! So great!

Again, I didn't get a photo of the two of them: but here is a lovely photo of them from the Facebook:

We also had a great time playing some games and just catching up. However, it wasn't all play and no work - we are talking about running a Discipleship Training School in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia and so these two are visiting all of us in our locations to talk about this school and what we can each commit to it. It is only set for 2017, but we are already recruiting if anyone in YWAM is interested in being on staff! I also discovered a fellow voracious reader in Andrew, so he was in awe of my books (I have collected a few over the years - as people leave they leave them with me, or people have brought them for me and one time I brought 15kgs of just books from the UK!) and left with about 30 of them on loan... he was sooo happy!

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed having these visitors... anyone else want to pop over??

Kids camp 2015

Once again we held the Kids camp for the kids from our sponsorship project in Bardača, which is a bird reserve about an hour away from Banja Luka: It is such a lovely place!

This year, there were about 90 of us altogether and we had a lot of fun! We got to sing lots of fun songs: (some with actions!) Here are Rami and I leading... He and his family came back from Finland just to help with the camp!!

Every day we were treated to lovely talks by Sinisa: this time about Fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, humility and self-control.

Before each talk, the YWAM Davos team did a drama which was connected to the theme. Here they are doing "Jesus calming the storm" for "peace":

It was great having the team along for the ride... the kids loved having them get involved in "Bosnia vs North America" battles at our evening campfires: like shave your friend (using whipped cream)

Or who can make a pyramid the quickest... here the team is carrying their leader, Andrew :)

Besides the dramas, they were given the task of running one afternoon's games - and as it was hot, they were all including some sort of water:

Including a slip and slide...

So much fun, and so nice on a hot day!

They also just enjoyed hanging out with the kids, despite the language barrier... learning some fun sentences like "I am as sweet as candy" and some not so good ones from the naughty kids/volunteers :) Here is Nick with little Lejla:

Aleah and Courtney also redid the photobooth background (which we had used for the Children's Home) to make it ready for camp (we will use the photos for their sponsors, hence it being in English!):

We used it during one afternoon of group games (i.e. groups going around different stations) and the kids had a great time: here I am helping them picking their glasses and moustaches/lips:

The adults also got in on the fun: Here are Tanja and Emina:

Ljilja:

Dragana:

Rami... (It was so great to have them come from Finland and work with them all, but sad to have to say goodbye AGAIN!)

Possibly my favourite picture is Sinisa: be afraid, very afraid ha ha!

But sadly, some people didn't figure out how to use it right... :(

Just kidding!! the team is soooooo cute, and we really had a great time with them being at camp with us!

Once again I was in a dorm with the kids, mainly because I like to go to bed early (they go to sleep at 10), but also because the kids love me and fear me in about equal measure :) - so, I kind of end up putting all the dorms to bed (especially when the "youth" volunteers that are supposed to be putting them to bed are outside having fun with the other volunteers... but that is another story). One night I had successfully got my girls to bed downstairs when I heard a lot of loud singing coming from the upstairs two dorms. I went upstairs first to the guys dorm and got them quieted down, and then realised that the girls dorm opposite them were also singing, so I went and got them quieted down...I do it in a nice way (and on the last night they were able to stay up later and have a bit more fun in their dorms...), but no sleep=a not fun camp, so I can be quite strict, as it is for their own good! Now the best part of the story is that while I was upstairs, Dragana was cleaning the showers downstairs and she saw some of the boys from downstairs start going upstairs to join in with the fun... she asked them where they were going, and they told her they were going up to see what was going on... she said to them "don't go up there, Belinda has gone up to sort it out". And the classic reply was "oh boy, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes..."!!! Mission accomplished :)

There were only two not so great parts to camp... the first being the mosquitoes. I now know what a swarm of mosquitoes looks like. Last year they were bad, but if it is possible, they were even worse this year... but it also becomes quite fun as you can hit anyone at will and just say "mosquito" and get away with it! The other sad part of camp was that we ended up sending two boys home on the last night. They were naughty from the get-go and then were warned and still did some stupid things and in the end we decided for their own good (and for the other campers) it was best they went home so hopefully they can learn their lesson... but still it was sad and hard for us as merciful Christians to do, but I really think it was the right choice for both of them...if you pray, remember them with us in prayer.

Then all of a sudden, it was time for us to wrap up camp. Showing off some of what was done during the workshop time: dance - led by the two eldest Kaakinens, Ruut and Rebekka:

And art: Led by Tanja... they made these pictures using crayons and hairdryers - so clever !

Then it was time to get on the bus and head on home...

Or if you are me, drive the kombi full of stuff :) Until next year...

Fun last night of the book club!

So, tonight we finished up the Book Club for this school year and we had a great time!! A team from YWAM Davos arrived on Tuesday and I put them to work today making the back drop (and they wrote it in Cyrillic!!) and cutting up the glasses and moustaches and lips for our very own photobooth:

This photo is of 4 siblings: so cute!

How cool are we?

The team also drew on the eyes... it looks so cute!

One of our volunteers, Nada, with "D" and "A"

Here I am with "Z" who is looking cool with his 'stache!

David and Jelena with sisters "A" and "A"

Here is Tanja with "B" sporting a new look :)

At the end we tried to get everyone onto one photo - some of the kids didn't want to, but the majority were in on the game! (and you can see how much cutting out happened!! - well done guys!)

And after we finished with the photos, we gave out their prizes (which were actually made by the previous YWAM team before they left out of donations that we had been given - thanks for that guys!). Each gift included toothpaste, school supplies, some toys, sweets and bracelets amongst other things. I didn't get any pics of the prize giving as we had already taken soooo many photos!

As you can tell we had a really fun night with the kids! (and the cool thing about photobooth photos is that I don't have to blank out the eyes of the kids to make the kids unidentifiable to put them on the internet!!)