Mom's visit

Mom hasn't visited me since 2019, which is a long time - but I feel really blessed because many parents don't visit their overseas family at all! It was lovely having Mom in my part of the world again. She had already been to my brother in Canada and to my sister in Oxford twice. She has in the past only been here for up to 10 days, so it was wonderful to have her for 3 weeks! 

We had quite a "guesty" beginning to our autumn - Sina was staying with us for the last week of August and on the day she left, Ljilja's mom and sister came to stay. As Mom's flight was getting in quite late in the day we had to stay over at least one night anyway... and when I found a really good option for a few more nights, we decided to hang out in Zagreb for a couple of days... And our adventures were just to the shops: Enjoying the middle aisle in LIDL: 

And found some bargains in the IKEA: 

 And tricked some of our friends and family that we had made it to the seaside... 

But alas, those kinds of beaches are very far away from Croatia and we just took that photo in the lobby of the Decathlon sports shop. Here we are in the shop itself 😉

Once back in Banja Luka, it was mostly "bring your mom to work day" most times I would go somewhere and everyone loved getting to meet her. I don't have any good photos of those situations. She also got to join us when we went to visit a friend in their new home. I think getting to see the house (as an ex-estate agent) was more interesting than any of the conversation we had! 

As she is half Polish (my grandad was from Poland), when I heard from my friends Nada about a meeting of the Polish society while she was here, we had to go! It was learning how to make pierogies - and it was great fun! 

Besides the pierogies, there were lots of other lovely Polish treats! 

And even a bit of Polish vodka to enjoy with some old and new friends! 

One of the fun things we did do was go to the Cyrillic park and check out all the letters: 

Above is NOT actually a B it is a V!! ("false friends" are a real problem!) 

This is an L for Lav (Lion) 

A D for "Dvorac" or castle: 

Ž for Žirafa (you can guess what that means!)

Besides making a cover for one of my chairs, she also managed to make muffins or crunchies almost every day while she was here... It was such a lovely visit that it was really hard to say goodbye when it was time for her to go again 😭 But I am looking forward to seeing her in January in South Africa!

God is faithful even when it is H.A.R.D | Saying Goodbye

Another hard part of being a cross-cultural worker is always having to say goodbye. Someone once asked me how many short-term teams I have hosted or been involved in. And it would be impossible to count, but it has been a LOT. Some coming for a couple of days, others for a few weeks, and then we have had interns coming for months or a year. With short-termers comes the inevitable goodbyes. And you start protecting yourself by not getting involved with them and not putting your heart out too much... A few of the many teams that we have had: 

I mean the truth is, saying goodbye stinks. Especially if you don't know when or if you will see people again on this side. It is nice to know with believers that one day we will see them in heaven at least! Sergej (a colleague I said goodbye to in 2009), used to say "meet you at the East Gate" to people when saying goodbye. I like that. It gives hope...

After many years of getting it wrong, I realised that it is vital to say goodbye well. Bringing good closure. Making sure people know that I appreciated them and will miss them. 

There are of course advantages to being the one who outstays everyone else: I console myself by picking up some of their stuff where I can, so for instance I now have a HUGE library of books.  I shared in my last of the 20 stories about one of my latest goodbyes – last year – which resulted in receiving the lovely rocking chair for my Sacred Corner. 

I remember I bought my living room couches (very cheaply) from some workers who were leaving after being in Banja Luka a year. The one had a pull-out bed and when I asked them how to use it they were like “we don’t know, we never used it”. I guess we have a lot more guests – in fact, so many people have slept on that pull-out bed, that it has needed fixing more than once 😊 But again, having guests means the inevitable goodbyes when they leave 😔

The guest I find it hardest to say goodbye to...

I am really blessed with many local friends, and that helps a LOT. But sometimes I need to speak with people who get all of what I am going through. And so finding friendship with people "living between two worlds" is essential, and rarer, and thus it hits harder when the inevitable goodbye happens...

And I haven't even mentioned the goodbyes that happen when I leave one of my "homes" and go to the other... those are also stinky! Whichever way I go, I have to say goodbye to someone 😢

And yet, I pick myself up off the floor, and realise that my hope is not in my relationships with others here on this earth. My home is not here. I am just here for a short while and then I will be home forever with the Faithful One who turns my mourning into dancing... weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning!! 

So, I continue to put my heart out there, and say goodbye well, knowing that it is all a part of the process of living here in this fallen world. And I know that one day, not too far off in the light of eternity, I will be in a place where I won't ever have to say goodbye to anyone ever again!

This is the sixth 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!

Mom's visit 2019

I am really blessed in that my mother comes (almost) every year for a visit on her world travels to see her children. She spent time with my brother in Canada, and then went to my sister in the UK, before heading to visit me in Banja Luka. Ljilja and I took her to our favourite new restaurant: Bizarre bar.

 She especially liked the deserts - we planned to go back to try some and never got there... next time!

But don't worry, there was plenty of ice-cream, and the weather (although cold in the mornings) was mostly lovely and sunny:

We did a little bit of touristing and also some shopping at the market - Mom was in luck that all the summer stuff was on sale, and so she grabbed a few bargains :) And we enjoyed the fountains:

We also went to see the new Downton Abbey movie... Or as it is called here "Dauntonska Opatija"

And we were all on our lonesone in the funky theatre... Luckily it is English with subtitles, so Mom can understand it, but what she couldn't understand was when they turned on the lights as soon as the credits started rolling. She always stays to the bitter end... she even tried to stay despite the lights, but they actually started motioning to us to get out- that was a bit of a cultural experience for Mom!

We also has a lot of fun trying to take a picture with the selfie spot sign. Seriously... It is part of a tourism organisation's plan to make tourists have fun in different places in Banja Luka. And well, we did have a lot of fun... mostly because it was tricky to hold the sign and not have the "s" disappear behind my head, making it a "selfie pot"! It wasn't designed to be held, instead to be glued to the wall, but the glue was not glueing it anymore, so we took advantage!! I am sure people thought we were crazy as we took about 20 photos before we finally got it right...and both of us having the giggles didn't help! Good times! 

Besides having fun in Banja Luka, we drove to Ljubljana and Bled in Slovenia to meet up with some other YWAMers there. I do know how to show Mom a good time: Here we are in Bled: With the ONLY island in Slovenia in the background on the left with the church and the castle up on the right overlooking it all...

On the other side of the late with the YWAMers - two Norwegians and a Slovene. Andreja, the Slovene, is the only fulltime YWAMer in Slovenia at the moment, and the Norwegians, Andreas and Geir Edvin, are from a YWAM location which wants to support her, so I, as one of the YWAM leaders for this area went to meet up with them all and talk details... I also did my Leadership Training School with the two of them, and we were all involved in "It's time for Slovenia" in 2017, so it was a nice reunion!

And we had a good time... here we are all enjoying Bled cremshnita: sooooo yummy!

Some more classic pictures of the beauty of Bled:

There were so many other things that happened while she was here, including her making me a chair cover (gotta use those sewing skills! and Mom LOVED the fabric shop here!), her getting a haircut and a pedicure (cheapest place on her travels!), enjoying the indoor pools together and having friends over for dinner/coffee. And all in all, I think Mom enjoyed her 2019 visit to Banja Luka (and beyond!) 

Ljilja's mom and sister do Banja Luka!

It has been 15 years of Ljilja being my housemate, and in that time, her sister has come to visit numerous times, but her mom, Ankica, has never been... until now! It was time for her to see where we live and enjoy the sights of Banja Luka.

Here she is with Ljilja at the fortress "Kastel":

 And she didn't come alone... Sladja, Ljilja's younger sister came along for the ride as well:

We did try to show her a good time by pampering her as much as she would allow: 

But mostly she spoilt us by cooking ALL.THE.TIME - she made at least two meals a day while she was here, so we could also freeze a LOT so we could also eat home cooked food even once she was gone! Whenever Ljilja goes home, she always sends us piles of food - but I did show her that I could cook, by cooking a couple of times, and she was amazed by how equipped our kitchen is. I think she thought we never cooked at all! Now she knows better - but it is still great to have a stocked freezer, which will make our lives easier for many weeks!

It was great fun having Ankica and Sladja here with us... and look forward to their next visit!

June Visitors...

As I said in my last post, I got back from my epic trip around Europe and picked up Mom at Zagreb airport on the way back. As usual it was great to have her here... the weather mostly played along: Here we are downtown:

And at the city park:

We also made it to the market where both got new dresses: which you can't really see in the below pic, but they are lovely :)

Another hit was the indoor thermal swimming pool on the day it rained... and Mom (who was coming from drought-stricken, water-restricted Cape Town) could take a lovely long shower in the thermal water. I think that she enjoyed that almost as much as seeing me!

Mom's trip was short but very sweet and it worked out magnificently as when she left, we could drive her to Zagreb, as I was already having to drive our kombi/van to pick up a lovely team from the US: Here we are having dinner the first night altogether, once we were back in Banja Luka:

Even though they were around only 4 days, before heading to Sarajevo for a month, we managed to pack in a lot of things with them: Cultural night at EKC Ihtus:

 Where we had a lot of fun!

We also took them to the children's home where they hung out with the kids... Most of them are in Italy, staying with families during the summer, but we gave those that were there a fun afternoon, playing games or doing loom bangs on the side, or football with the guys:

Or doing gymnastics together:

When they left to go to Sarajevo, we were sad to see them go :(

Then we had some wonderful Finnish visitors, Sanna and Miika and their three kids who used to be here, but you will have to take my word for it as I don't have a pic...

Then it was time for my last June visitors, this time Matt and Kalene from my home church in Cape Town, South Africa. They were the lucky winners of a voucher at my Bosnian evening for free accommodation and they always wanted to come to this part of Europe, so they decided to come to me on the way from Budapest to Croatia... and we showed them a good time: Here we are at Krupa falls:

It was a busy but fun couple of weeks with all of our June visitors!!

Toledo, Sarajevo, Budapest and Tallinn

As I am part of the Bosnian National Team for Samaritan's Purse's "Operation Christmas Child", this year I went to the IConnect conference held in Toledo, Spain with 3 of my fellow team members. Here we are below with our colleagues from Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia. Yes, we went all the way to Spain and hung out with our local colleagues :)

This year was also Elvira's first time and she asked me to also dress up in National Costume so she wouldn't be alone. this was meant to be for the first night along with everyone else, but our flight was delayed and then our luggage lost, so we didn't get to do it then... but we were determined to do it anyway and it was really fun: 

Here are all of us from Bosnia and Herzegovina together with the OCC mascot! 

The conference was huge - over 500 people from 60 nations. We had corporate sessions in the morning and evenings and then workshops in small groups the rest of the day. It was long days, but we had a great time! 

One evening we were able to go to Toledo - and we took the little train up to the hill overlooking the city and got some great views of this Unesco World Heritage City, before exploring the city further and then having a little adventure getting lost trying to make our way back to where we could catch the taxi home! But we made it back safe and sound in the end...

After the conference, we all flew back to Sarajevo, and as it was my birthday the next day, everyone arranged to stay on and celebrate with me... Yay!! We were joined by Carolyn (and Elvira opted out) for the trip up the mountain on the newly redone Cable Car:

Here I am in one of the old cars - the original Cable Car was made for the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and then unfortunately it was destroyed in the 1990s war, so it is nice to have it up and running again. 

Then, instead of travelling from Sarajevo to Banja Luka (5 hours by train) and then onto Budapest (12 hours on bus and train), I just flew on a Wizzair cheap flight to Budapest... and stayed with my friend Marie (and got to hang out with some other people as well which was great - but I don't have pics of that).

The reason for going to Budapest, was actually to take advantage of cheap flights to my next destination, Tallinn, Estonia, another Unesco World Heritage City!! (I should call this post from Toledo to Tallinn, seeing World Heritage cities across Europe!)

But you can see why it is a world heritage site... above is the Russian Orthodox church and below is one of the city gates that is still there - they have more that 80% of them, which is amazing for a medieval city!

 A view from the walls out... so pretty:

 This was part of the walk from where we were staying in the middle of old town to the place we were meeting... 2 years ago when I was here, I could barely make it up the hill... now 15kgs lighter and little bit fitter, I was able to make it up, sometimes twice a day, with no problem... so I was happy about that :)

The reason I was in Tallinn, was to spend time with these great people: The European Leadership Learning Community. I was part of the staff team for this event which was so fun. I love this group!

We had two very different, but amazing teachers. One was Ben Fitzgerald from Awakening Europe: He was more inspirational...

The other Oivind Augland from xpand Norway: He was inspirational, but also so very practical. Loved it!

We did have time for a little RnR... playing games in the park. There were some interesting ones like the one below... It was so much fun! And if you want interesting games, get a Dutchie to organise it!

During the week, I also got to hang out with my Estonian/Bosnian friend, Jael. She lived in Bosnia for 17 years and left last year in October to return to Tallinn. She took me to the medieval restaurant "Old Hanza" which was amazing...

The sausages were bear, moose and wild boar!! All the food are things that they would have eaten in medieval times... such a fun experience!

After 3 weeks, 1 5 hour hour train trip, 9 flights ranging from 1 to 4 hours, 1 5 hour bus trip, and many other forms of transport including the Cable Car, I met up in Zagreb with Ljilja and Sina and we hung out for a bit before Sina left... and then Ljilja and I picked up my MOM for her to come to stay with us in Banja Luka... but more on that in another post :)