Skateboarders in Banja Luka...

The past two and half weeks a wonderful skateboarding DTS team has been here from YWAM Davos in Switzerland. I mentioned them in my "Crazy Busy" blog post, but they have been so wonderful, that I decided they deserved their own post!

They helped out A LOT with our construction project at the church, held English classes, had a wonderful time with our youth at youth camp. Unfortunately, they couldn't come to kids camp as there were already too many people, but the youth camp was smaller and needed helpers, and my colleagues, Rami and Katja-Maaria were really happy they came along! And so were the young people :)

We wanted to take them to children's home to show off their skateboarding skills there, but unfortunately one of the girls in the home just fell out of a tree and broke a LOT of bones, so suddenly having skateboarders come into the home wasn't that appealing. In the end they had so many other things going on that we didn't have time even to go play soccer or do something else with them.

They also had some money that they wanted to use to bless someone, so they decided to use it for one of the flood victims. We took them to meet the family and they went with them to buy what she needed. While we were in the flooded neighbourhood, we took them to another house where the lady and her son hadn't managed to take down the flooded part of the walls as they didn't have the tools. First they offered to go and buy the right tool for her (as well as what they were already giving this other family), but then after thinking about it, decided they had enough time to go back to the church (where we have the tools) and come back and do the job. What a great team!!

Over a month after the flooding and those walls were full of mould and just nasty. Unfortunately all of these houses were built "temporarily" over 40 years ago after the big Banja Luka earthquake in 1969...Pretty much everyone has already done this job, but she hasn't been able to as she didn't have the tools...

Here the three guys who helped with the son (who helped them clean up the mess afterwards)... 

We really enjoyed having them around - and I think they really liked Banja Luka as well - they tell me the streets and pavements are great for skateboarding on... and they noticed the large amount of pretty girls that we have here pretty early on :)

Here they all are in all their glory. The ones holding the kids are their parents, and they are from the US. The four guys are from Canada. They were all great! And who knows maybe some of them will be back someday!

Crazy Busy

Things have been crazy busy here lately... we are trying to help flood victims, while doing all of our normal ministries and getting things ready for our Kids Camp this weekend. In the midst of this a wonderful skateboarding team from the US and Canada came to help us. The YWAM school that sent them is in Davos, Switzerland, but none of them are actually from there :) I haven't got a pic of all of them together, but will remedy that soon.

There is a lot of aid coming in for the floods, but as far as we can see,  not a lot of it has actually got to those most in need :( So, we decided that the only way to do it was to go directly to the people and buy them the things that they need the most. Ljilja went last week to one really hard hit area. She did all the work on finding out what they needed, ordering it or taking the people to the shop to order it, and then on Monday most of it was delivered. We took two of the team - Brett and Andrew - to help with the putting together and carrying etc... There were cupboards, flooring, beds, kitchens, etc all being ordered and brought.

Here they are putting a bed together for Katica:

And here she is with Ljilja: she was so happy to have a bed to sleep on after being on a kind of sunbed for the beach since the flood hit over a month ago.

And here they are putting another bed together - it really was great having their help! People bought beds, flooring, cupboards and kitchens... it really was so wonderful being able to help them get the things they need the most.

Here is Sinisa with Darko - some of them are just helped by having someone to talk to... but it is nice that we could provide them a new kitchen (which they will put in once the wall is fixed).

The team has been so helpful in other ways - here is Brandon sharing a testimony at our Sunday meeting. We are meeting in Ihtus at the moment, because the place where we will have our meetings is still being renovated.

And the team has been really helpful with this as well. It turns out that they are all really good construction workers - so have been SO helpful with the work going on in here...

We had another team that came and helped put in the ceiling last month and my colleague Rami and church people have been working hard as well, so it really is coming together!!

They are also helping with English classes (which I forgot to take a picture of!) and we will also take them to the Children's Home and they are helping on our Teenager camp next week... so although things are crazy busy right now, it is really great to have them here with us!!

Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian Floods...

My heart is heavy... Watching the news, and seeing the reports of how many people have died, how many displaced...  meeting with people in Banja Luka and surrounds who have lost everything in their houses... and realising the scale of things when just in Banja Luka they say over 2000 homes have been flooded - and we weren't even that badly affected: the whole of the cities of Doboj, Samac, Bijelina, etc were all under water...and that is just in Bosnia - don't forget Serbia and Croatia were hit as well... and not just homes, but infrastructure, bridges, etc destroyed... my heart is just full of sadness for everything that is going on...

And then I think about the good side: the thousands of young and old people who have mobilised to help: sorting out humanitarian aid, helping people clear away debris and crap (literally, unfortunately, this is the reality of flooding in cities...) from their houses... helping to build up flood defenses so the rivers don't come into even more areas... and just getting out and helping others!!

A good example of people helping others: I was watching a report last night on TV when a reporter asked someone on the street in the city of Doboj what they needed most and the man humbly replied "well I really wish I could have those kind of boots like you have on (rubber boots) as all I have is plastic bags over my shoes (showing the shoes) and they don't work, my feet have been wet for 3 days..." and the reporter sits down on a bench, takes off his boots and gives them to the man and walks off...

Let us hope that this kind of kindness and giving attitude continues, as the hard part is just beginning!

There have been enough photos of the horror of the floods - you can just google and find all that you want. So, I wanted to share some fun ones with you instead - and this one is also a little good news: at least for the one cow who managed to find her way to safety by climbing up onto the second floor...hehe

And another, just for fun as well - if you are in trouble and you can't do much about it, you may-as-well play your accordion and have a good time while you wait for help to arrive...love it!

If you are a praying person, please keep these countries in your prayers.

If you want more information about what is going on - here are some links:
BBC
CNN

If you want to help in some way, you can contact me on the form down below right ->