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!

BISA Cultural Evening (Brazil, India and South Africa)

With my friends, the Bennetts, here from South Africa and Murilo here from Brazil and Avi from India, we decided to have a cultural night at EKC Ihtus featuring these countries: Here I am introducing the Bennetts:

Here is Murilo with his Brazilian Hotdogs:

And Avi made us some Indian Chai:

And from South Africa we had pumpkin fritters in the beginning and at the end of the evening we had milk tart (with Katherine Bennett sneaking a bite!) YUMMY!!

Little Rachel (here with mom, Sarah) loved the pumpkin fritters:

And everyone had a great time enjoying the food, drink and sweet stuff...

Before we were treated to a very interesting presentation on each of the countries... 

At the end Murilo shared a story from his childhood in Brazil and how he prayed to the Lord to get him out of his bad family situation, and the Lord answered his prayer... He used a wonderful illustration where he changed his broken home through the cross:

All in all it was a wonderful evening, full of fun and food and new experiences. Thanks to everyone who made it an experience to remember! 

Two English classes...something old and something new... :)

This week I started teaching English to two new groups. The first group is something I am familiar with: adults, doing conversational English - games, fun and activities all to get them to speak as much English as they can :) I have been doing it for 9 years now and I still love it... I love encouraging people to build up their confidence in a foreign language, as it builds up confidence in other areas as well. And I love making it fun for everyone, including myself :)

And the second group is something I haven't really ever done before... kids. Well, I actually did do two years of trying to do English with the kids at the Children's home... but it was more like organised chaos with a sprinkle of English if I am to be honest :) 

At the end of last year, we added 30 1st and 2nd graders to the child sponsorship project through the Finnish organisation, Fida, and so wanted to do some fun English with them, so it had to be less chaos and more English... learning while they don't realise they are learning!

Through song, colouring, games, fun activities, and LOTS of repetition we are managing to learn some English and have lots of fun all at the same time... (some of the kids can't write yet even in their own language, and most of those that can, can only do Cyrillic lettering, so there are a few challenges!)

We are using the older kids from the project as volunteers along with other local volunteers, which makes the classes easier for me to manage and really fun for the kids!

Sina from Finland (who is the regional child sponsorship coordinator for Fida) is here at the moment so she came to join our class to see what we are up to:

And thanks to Ljilja for all the lovely photos... here she is with all of us at the end of the class today...

I think we had fun, and hopefully something actually went in. I know Ljilja, Sina and I are all still singing the songs :) 

Dropbox flashbacks...and fun with teams...

So, my phone backs up to Dropbox automatically, and now Dropbox sends me an email with "memories" from years gone by on this date... it is definitely going to be a lot of random photos, as I tend to use my phone for more practical photos than memorializing ones... Here is an example from 19.06.2014...

As it was generally my job to do the shopping for the teams helping us with the building last year, the guys at the hardware shop got used to me coming in with random photos of things we needed. I would always start off by saying "this is going to be fun: firstly I am a woman, and secondly this is not my mother tongue, but I think we can figure it out..." and usually we did! And now my hardware vocabulary is probably better in the local language, than it is in English, ha ha! 

Last month, I took two of the YWAM Davos team to the hardware shop to buy supplies to paint 5 doors upstairs (and they did a great job!) and we managed to get everything we needed. When we got to the check out, they spotted a kid's toy gun (with arrow bullets that stick on the wall). I saw it was only like 1,70KM (just under a euro) and I figured why not just buy them one... so I put it on the checkout with the rest of the stuff. Then one of the guys says "is that for us?" and I say "yeah" and he looks at me with his big brown eyes and says "it would be better if there were two of them, one each"... so of course I give in and get them two. Oh boy, they were sooooo happy!! I took them back to the house and they stalked and shot up the other members of the team and had fun with those guns... I was the coolest team hoster ever :)

Now, that is when I realise that these teams are filled with big kids... and I am getting old! Two of them played guitar with me in our church band, and I realised that I have been playing guitar longer than any of the team have been alive... but I love the fact that I can also be the fun auntie (and sometimes the strict mom!) to these great teams that come through Banja Luka!