Bosnian Bulletin #21
December 2, 2000
Greetings friends and family,
December is here and with it the first cold, but still pleasant,
weather we've had. November was surprisingly warm and we
were very thankful for that as winter can be very long and
cold. One morning this week we woke up to snow on the
mountains surrounding Sarajevo. It's beautiful to look at
but still not enough for skiing (not that I do! -Karin).
Still no snow down here in the city.
November gave us plenty of reasons to be thankful. First of
all, we got good news about my mom's health. Her surgery
was on October 23rd and she was home the next day. The
pathology report came back saying that there was no cancer in the
lymph nodes and that the tumor was extremely small, in stage one
and a totally different kind of cancer than she had the first
time. The best news is the treatment will be a change in
medication, but there will not be chemotherapy or radiation
treatments as there were the first time. She reports
feeling good and is "keeping busy". She and Dad
want to thank everyone that remembered them in thought and prayer
during this time. We, in turn, want to thank all of you for
your support for us and for Mom and Dad. We are deeply
grateful.
We had a great time with Olivia Bartel, our friend from Bethel
College days, who visited us from Nov. 2-21. We had fun
showing her Bosnia and even took a little trip to the
Croatian coast and into Montenegro (part of Yugoslavia). We
also spent a lot of time just being together -talking, renewing
our friendship and eating chocolate. In her most recent
e-mail she wrote, "The part of my trip that is high on my
list is having met all those wonderful friends of yours--Pepi,
Niki and Tidza, Dede, Sabina, Ivo, and Entoni. I'm
sure I've forgotten someone, but still, all of the conversations
with them and the shopkeepers that you translated for me, those
are precious memories for me. And so I send my greetings
and love to all of them, with the hope to someday see them
again."
Tomorrow we are expecting the arrival of Tim Pannabecker from MCC
Human Resources, Akron, who will be with us until Tuesday trying
to get a better feel for our assignment and life for MCCers in
Bosnia.
We're also excited about our anticipated Christmas visitors, Ryan
Loewer (another friend from Bethel College days) and Suzanne
Classen! They'll arrive on the 23rd and stay until the
30th. It's always great to have visitors for the holidays
to make it extra special.
It also looks like our fellow MCCers, Mike and Val Smith will be
coming to visit us for New Years! They are eager to have
some fellowship with other MCCers. John and I so vividly
remember all of the cultural adjustments they describe
making. We are so happy whenever we can help them in
that process. One example: Val wrote asking if they
had done something wrong in their attempt to be hospitable to
people. They continued to invite people to their home for
supper, but everyone seemed uncomfortable and made excuses.
Then they tried inviting people for "coffee", which
people seemed more willing to accept. They spent time
making homemade cookies and served them on a plate in the middle
of the table. But despite their encouragement, their guests
would not eat their cookies. John and I remembered that
experience SO WELL!! We simply explained that there is a
cultural pattern to welcoming. It is most common to meet
for coffee in a cafe bar when you are first getting to know
someone. Then, as you get to know someone, it is more
acceptable to welcome them into your home for coffee and as you
become better friends, eventually eat together. The
exception, of course, is being their guests. When we
are invited to someone's home, we MUST "eat their
cookies" (which usually turns out to be a several-course
meal!). Likewise, any guest of ours is welcome at
their table as their friends, too. Talking with Mike
and Val reminds us of how much we've adjusted to the culture and
are accepted here. It's a wonderful feeling to
have our guests "eat our cookies".
We've been very busy with work lately -mostly trying to prepare
for Pontanima's upcoming concerts. As we
had written in a previous bulletin, our major project with
Pontanima this winter is a four-part concert series -each concert
celebrating a major religious holiday of the four major religious
communities here in Bosnia. We have now raised enough money
to cover the project (from Norwegian Embassy, Catholic Relief
Services, Church World Service, the British Ambassador and his
wife, and MCC -about $5500 total). We have the posters
printed and the invitations ready to go out for the first
concert -the Catholic (& Protestant) Christmas concert
on Dec. 15. We still have plenty of preparations for
this and others performances in December. We're busy with
other work as well, but this has been our main focus lately.
I (Karin) had the great experience of being invited to sing with
the National Opera here in Sarajevo. (They wanted a bigger
choir so they invited 5 singers to join -I guess they didn't have
money to hire more local singers.) We performed Mozart's
Requiem on November 1 (All Saints Day) with the Sarajevo
Philharmonic. It was a great concert and I was honored to
participate.
The results of the elections here in Bosnia (Nov 11) were not as
positive as expected. Hopes were high that after
the major political changes in neighboring Croatia and
Yugoslavia, the same would happen in Bosnia.
Unfortunately, the nationalist parties -tied to the 3 major
ethnic groups and associated with "segregationist"
policies and corruption, won in many areas of
Bosnia. Overall, the number of Parliament members from
nationalist parties seems to be reduced, but not as much as
we'd hoped. Positive change toward tolerance and
a healthy, functioning government (with some economic
stability) is slow in coming.
No one has asked any questions lately, so we're going to skip the
"Frequently Asked Question" this time.
Please send us some basic (or not so basic) questions about
Sarajevo/Bosnia/the region/our lives here/etc that we should
answer.
Finally, we want to let you all know that we've accepted the
invitation for extension on a short-term basis. At this
point, we've extended for 3 months (until November 2001) with a
good possibility of extending an additional 3 months (until
January 2001). A six-month extension will not grant us a
home leave. There are many factors going into the decision,
but we feel good about the way things stand right now.
We're glad MCC is willing to be a little flexible with us as we
search for God's leading.
Please keep in touch during the upcoming holiday season. We
welcome photos of you and your family (hard copies that come
through the post, get put up on our refrigerator -our friends
here love to look at them). And as always, we welcome your
e-mails and letters (with questions!!).
In God's Love and Peace,
Karin & John
Face to Face Interreligious Service
Splitska 39
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia-Herzegovina
home tel: 387 33 207 860
office tel/fax: 387 33 442 468
home: jandk@bih.net.ba
office: ociuoci@bih.net.ba
http://www.progressive-bih.com/ociuoci
Back to Bosnian
Bulletins
