Bosnian Bulletin #26
August 13, 2001
Greetings from Sarajevo!
John and I are in our last couple of days in Bosnia before taking off on our
home leave. We have a lot to do in the next 48 hours, but we wanted to
make sure to send a quick update to all of you since we won't be responding
regularly to e-mail while on home leave.
Here is an update on the past two months:
Summer in Sarajevo
After a very busy spring, life has slowed to the typical relaxed summer pace in
Bosnia. Many people are on vacation visiting relatives, spending some time
on the coast or just using vacation time to relax at home. As per European
standard, most Bosnians (that are employed) receive at least 3 or 4 weeks
of vacation. North Americans are perceived as workaholics!
Work in the office has been very quiet but we have been doing some preliminary
planning for what looks to be a very busy year ahead. In our free time,
we've simply been trying to stay cool during the summer heat!
In July we said goodbye to fra Ivo who went to Germany on his annual
"parish exchange" with a Catholic priest in Mannheim. The priest
goes on vacation and gives Ivo his home and his parish responsibilities.
For Ivo, to ONLY have responsibilities of visitation and leading mass, IS a
vacation!! Over the years he has become friends with the people there who,
in turn, support his work here.
In August, fra Ivo will be traveling to Jerusalem with a Rome-appointed
interreligious council, so we will not see him until we return from home leave
in October! We look forward to hearing his impressions of the situation
there.
Visitors
At the end of June and beginning of July we enjoyed our last visitors of the
season -Colin and Michelle Hofer. Luckily, they planned a long enough trip
that we could enjoy Sarajevo at a somewhat relaxed pace and even enjoy some
travels. We had a great time together.
If you're still considering a visit to Bosnia, get in line quickly because our
time will be short and will fill up quickly! We would still love to have
some visitors!
MCC Summer Retreat
We just recently returned from our annual MCC Summer Retreat for all MCC Europe
and Former Soviet Union workers. This year it was held just outside of
Barcelona, Spain.
It was great to see everyone and meet the new MCCers. Ron Mathies
(executive director of MCC) and his wife, Gudrun, were our resource people.
Our mornings were spent in worship followed by reporting/sharing about our
various assignments. Afternoons were free (and spent on the beach!) and
in the evening we had input from Ron. We also had a session on
"Questions, answers and suggestions for MCC" where we got to address
issues directly to Ron and Hansuli Gerber (MCC Europe director). That is
always really helpful. Plus the 4-part hymn singing was great!!
Sunday was spent visiting the Barcelona Mennonite church -attending and
participating in the morning worship service, eating a picnic lunch with them
and touring the home for the elderly which is their church's mission.
We also got a chance to see an ancient monastery tucked up in rugged mountains
and a bit of Barcelona -the amazing architecture, the lively walking
streets, the Picasso museum and more.
t's always difficult to say goodbye at the end of retreat -especially
to those MCCers whose terms are finishing. For us it was especially hard
to say goodbye to Katie & Gerhard Neufeld, our colleagues in Croatia.
They were some of the first MCCers we met and have become dear friends to us
throughout our time in Bosnia. We will miss visiting them and playing
endless games of Yahtzee with them!
MCC humanitarian aid projects
As I wrote in our last update, John has been working on some MCC humanitarian
aid projects that are not directly related to our MCC assignment at the
Interreligious Service.
Currently, John and our friend, Dzevad Avdagic (a local man who works for Church
World Service) are working with four villages. It has been a joy to visit
those villages and see the results which are much more concrete and measurable
than our work at the Interreligious Service.
Recently we visited one of the villages with our MCC colleagues (in Prijedor,
Bosnia) and their local partner to give them an idea of how to start
similar projects in northern Bosnia. We are welcomed in that village as
family and were so overwhelmed by the bountiful food that was prepared for us.
"They don't eat like this every day!", Dzevad reminded us, but it was
their way of saying thank-you. In Bosnian culture it is very important to
have more than enough to demonstrate generous hospitality. The war had
taken that capacity away from them and they were visibly happy to show that
kind of hospitality again. We spent all day with them, visiting over food
and coffee, hearing war stories and sharing in a special kind of communion.
Our home leave
As we've mentioned in previous updates, we have extended our MCC term from three
years to four years. We are therefore granted a home leave by MCC and will
be leaving on the 15th of August for South Dakota! Our time in the States
will include celebrating my (Karin's) parents' 40th anniversary (August 18) with
a Gene and Virginia Kaufman family camping trip! It will be short, but
we're really looking forward to it. We'll also stop in Kansas City for a
weekend (August 24-27) on our way to Newton, Kansas where we will visit family
and friends (August 27-September 3) and celebrate the marriage of Ryan Loewer
and Suzanne Classen (Sept. 1). The rest of our home leave (until October
2) will probably be spent in South Dakota. In addition to time with
friends and family, I am looking forward to some wheel-spinning and loom-weaving
lessons and John is looking forward to some time on the farm!
If you need to contact us between now and October 3, you can reach us at johnkarinkw@yahoo.com
or by phone at my parents' - 605-297-4515 (if we're not there they'll know
how to contact us). We hope to see many of you on our home leave,
though we know we won't have as much time with you as we would like. We'll
be back in touch from this e-mail address in October.
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
personal: https://www.angelfire.com/sd/jandk/
work: http://www.progressive-bih.com/ociuoci
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