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!

My landlady is famous!

About a month ago, my landlady was surprised by a camera crew who came to interview her about her garden for the program "Najbolji Vrt" (Best Garden). Someone has recommended her garden as this year the flowers are looking particularly amazing! All I have to do is water the ones on my balcony and she pretty much does the rest... (and she usually has to remind me to water anyway!)

Every year she plants the new flowers, tends to the old ones, mows the lawn, keep everything watered and trimmed, and just does a fantastic job... so it was really great that she got some recognition for her hard work! 

I managed to get the below sneaky pic from my balcony while they were interviewing her. You can see some of the beautiful flowers, including the ones on my balcony! She really deserves to be on the program!