Bosnian Bulletin #3
October 31, 1998
Greetings friends and family!
It's hard to believe a month has past since we last sent an
update to all of you! It's now over 3 months ago that we
departed from the States. While our adjustment continues to go
smoothly, we are very thankful for the e-mails and snail mail we
have received since we've been here. We are still hoping to
hear from some of you!
Language: What can we say? We're working on it!
This past month has been a little slow -mostly due to our change
in teachers. Sandra went back to Belgrade to study classic
languages and theology in mid-Oct. We will miss her both as
a teacher and as a friend. Our new teacher, Sanja, is very
different from Sandra, but we are getting to know her and
adjusting to her style. For those of you who are keeping
track, we've now learned 4 of the 7 cases, and are still on the
first verb tense!
Work: We are now in the "what is our role here?"
phase of our assignment that so many people who do overseas
service talk about! We're still trying to find where we fit
in IOCC's programming. Our lack of language skills limits
our ability to work directly with the refugees. We have,
however, continued to travel with co-workers out to the villages
and are building friendships despite the language barrier.
One family in particular has become our friends and has invited
us to come for roast lamb sometime. We definitely
will! Danka, the woman of the household, now calls us her
"Unuk" (oo-NOOK) and "Unuka" (oo-NOOK-ah)
meaning grandson and granddaughter. So, we call her
"Baba" (BAH-bah) meaning grandma. Danka and her
husband and son are Serbs who have returned to their home in what
is now part of the Muslim/Croat Federation of Bosnia. In
other words, it's the home they've lived in almost all of their
lives, but now they are minorities. Despite the rough
conditions (still no running water, no electricity, and almost
none of their old neighbors), they are extremely happy to be
back. They always bring smiles to our faces and someday we will be able to talk with them and hear their stories!
Political Situation: As some of you were aware, the
political situation has again been unstable in this region.
NATO bomb threats against Serbia still linger, although not as
strongly as in mid-October. On October 12, we were advised
by the US embassy to evacuate from Republika Srpska due to its
close political ties with Serbia and rumors of retaliation
against foreigners if NATO attacked. After, discussions
with IOCC, MCC and local friends, we felt there was no need to
leave and that the trust-levels in our relationships with
nationals would be in jeopardy if we left. We are very
happy we made that decision and our national friends have
expressed the same. Please continue to pray for a peaceful
solution to the
situation in Kosovo. Violence between Serbs and ethnic
Albanians must stop, but
NATO bombing is not the answer.
Church: A major concern for us has been our lack of church
community here in BL. We had visited the Orthodox church
(an interesting cultural experience) and a small Southern Baptist
church plant which unfortunately, was almost more internationals
than nationals! While were are maintaining some connection
with the Baptists, we have now connected with a small house
church that is entirely nationals. There are two young
couples that are starting the church: Nesa & Vesna and
Sinisa & Olja. We have found the church to be mostly
people our age, very informal, and very welcoming. Nesa and Vesna
(and their 1 yr. old son, Danijelo) in particular have become
good friends. Even though the church meetings are in the
local language and we really can't understand much, we are
enjoying it!
Visitors!: On October 21, we were privileged to host Ron
Mathies, MCC Executive Director, and Debby Martin-Koop, MCC
Europe Human Resources, for part of the day. It was so good
to see familiar faces and talk openly about our joys and
frustrations. Ron's visit was very short as he was visiting
all MCC workers in Europe, but we appreciated his understanding
and encouragement. We were also able to spend the weekend
with Debby and Katie & Gerhard Neufeld, MCC workers in
Croatia. The three of them stayed one night in our
apartment and we showed them around BL before going with them to
Ivanic grad, Croatia. It was a great weekend that included
hearing a choral concert in a Zagreb cathedral, a visit to
Duhovna Stvarnost (MCC's partner in Croatia), long talks and many
laughs.
Life: So, life continues and we find ourselves rather at
home in this place. We continue to be amazed at the many
paradoxes around us -the beautiful countryside and the ugly hate
that rips the country apart, the dislike aimed at the
"West", but the desire to acquire anything
"Western", etc. We still add new things -our
first earthquake (at 1:20 AM!!), convoys of tanks that drive by
our apartment at all hours of the day, etc, to our list of life
experiences.
So, what's happening in your lives? We really want to hear
from all of you. We hope this e-mail finds you happy and
healthy. As always, feel free to pass this e-mail along to
any of our friends and family that do not have e-mail access or
pass along our e-mail address to anyone who doesn't have it.
Take care!
Love, Karin & John
P.S. Attached are three photos. 1) In our office at
IOCC (checking
e-mail) 2) Karin & Danka in the Latinovic home in
Vrtoce, Bosnia, and 3)
John standing outside the IOCC building in BL. We hope you
can access
them!
John and Karin Kaufman Wall
c/o IOCC
Karadjordjeva 227
78000 Banja Luka
Republika Srpska
BOSNIA
jandk@inecco.net
"In Bosnia we say YES to food, and NO to war!" -Zoran,
our landlord
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