Bosnian Bulletin #8

May 26, 1999

Greeting from Sarajevo!!

When I looked back to the last "Bulletin" I'd sent, I was amazed to see it was sent April 4 from Banja Luka! I realize now I have so much to write to you about our new life in Sarajevo! I will begin by saying that our recent change in assignment and location has been the best thing that has happened to us in the 10 months since we left home. After several months in Banja Luka, we began to feel that that was not the right place or the right assignment at the right time -or that perhaps we were just not the right people for it. Many of you heard the details of our struggles. The winter months were very, very long difficult months for us. Now, with this new assignment, in a new place, we are beginning to feel alive again. We don't, however, believe that our time in Banja Luka was all a mistake. We met some wonderful people and had the valuable opportunity of seeing "that side" of Bosnian before coming to live in the "other side". The Serb mentality is a complex one to understand and has proved valuable to us in opening our viewpoints and understanding the current situation in Kosovo/Yugoslavia.

Now, about our amazing city -Sarajevo! I won't try to explain its long, and complex history -only to say that it remains an interesting mix of East and West -evidence can be seen of both the Turkish influence from the Ottoman Empire and the Western influence of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Some of you remember it as the home of the 1984 Winter Olympics. More recently, it was the focus of many news reports during the Bosnian conflict. From April of 1992 until November of 1995, Serbian troops held the city under siege from the mountains surrounding the city. Much of the city was destroyed and many people killed by mortar attacks and by snipers. But, Sarajevo survived and is rebuilding. As capital of the country, it is located in the Muslim/Croat Federation entity of Bosnia. (As opposed to Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated half of Bosnia, where Banja Luka is located). While the majority of the population is Muslim, there are many other ethnic groups represented in Sarajevo -including Croat, Serb, Jewish, etc.

In my last "Bulletin" I gave a brief description of our new assignment working at Face to Face Interreligious Service, but many of you have written back asking what exactly we will be doing!! Unfortunately, that's difficult to clearly define. (What do peacemakers DO, anyway??) The director (and creator) of the Interreligious Service, is Fra Ivo Markovic, who, unfortunately, is unable to spend a lot of time at the center due to his busy schedule teaching at the Theological Seminary here, etc. Our MCC predecessor, Amy Gopp, did a great deal of work with establishing connections and initiating programs for the center. We were very fortunate to have had an unusually long "overlap" with her (6 weeks) in which she introduced us to many people and shared with us her wisdom, vision and dreams for our work at the Interreligious Service.

First and foremost, we manage the peace center (as we commonly refer to it) which includes all of the everyday office tasks -checking e-mail, faxes, answering phones, hosting visitors, making coffee (very important!!), etc. We are committed to helping people (and other peace initiatives) in whatever way possible. We often help people connect with other people or organizations or distribute requested information.

One project which was recently completed, is called the Protector project. It consisted of collecting positive stories from the Bosnian war in which people reached out to someone across ethnic lines. What is significant about these stories is that they are told by the people that received assistance -not by the people that gave it. They have now been published in a book entitled "Svjetlo u Tunelu" (A Light in the Tunnel) which we hope will be published in English as soon as we find funding for it.

Currently, we are starting a peace library. We have about 400 books (in English, German and local language) already, mostly from Fra Ivo's personal library. We hope to catalogue them, find shelving for them, and establish a "check out" system. There are already a number of people who borrow books from the center, but this would allow us to fill that need on a larger scale. Eventually, we hope to translate some of the most important works in peace, conflict resolution, theology, etc., into local language.

We are also assisting a local professor, Dr. Gajo Sekulic, and a group of students who are working on establishing a peace institute as part of the University of Sarajevo. They are using our facilities to hold meetings, discuss ideas, send and receive information from various contacts, etc.

The other main ongoing project of the peace center that we coordinate and participate in, is the interreligious choir, Pontanima (Latin for "spiritual bridge"). The choir is a microcosm of Bosnia itself -consisting of people from all different religious groups -Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Protestant , no religion, etc. These people, whose only "common denominator" is music, come together every Wednesday and Sunday night to drink coffee, talk, laugh, build friendships -and at the end of it all, make music together. We sing only religious music from all the religions represented. The group gives concerts all over Bosnia, and has toured in Croatia and Austria. It brings, with its beautiful music, the message of interreligious understanding and dialogue, diversity, and peace. We are currently recording a CD, which we hope will be completed by fall. This group -both the people and the project -are rapidly become very important to us.

We have found a small church group composed mostly of internationals who we worship with in an Anglican service held in a small room at St. Anthony's church. It is a very ecumenical group which is proving to be a good group of people -and an important support network.

We also feel very at home in our apartment -a great location, plenty of space for visitors and an amazingly big kitchen for this region! We are already enjoying hosting people here for meals, coffee, etc. Our landlady, Saba, and her family are very gracious and hospitable. We were invited to her daughter's 31st birthday party which consisted of family, food and lots of singing! Saba's husband, Halid, was shot and killed by a sniper on the street by our apartment during the war. Our apartment looks right up into the hills that were filled with snipers and the streets are still marked from the many mortars that fell during the war. Saba's family's story is one we hear far too often among our friends here in Sarajevo.

As the war continues in Yugoslavia, refugees from Kosovo and the nearby region of Sandzak (mostly Muslims who fear they are "next on Milosevic's list") stream into Sarajevo -a city still recovering from its own war. Recent counts are approaching 50,000 in the Sarajevo area. Refugee camps from the Bosnian war are being "recycled" for these refugees. I have visited some of these camps and talked with some of the people. It is very humbling to be served coffee by people who have just left their homes, all of their earthly possessions and many of their loved ones behind. Here they say "Boli me dusa" (BO-lee meh DOO-sha) which means, literally, "My soul hurts me". That is the only way I can describe it. John will be visiting some camps next week as he will be working with distributing some MCC material aid in June.

I'm attaching an article we received from MCC entitled "War and Pacifism On Trial in Kosovo". It is written by David Schrock-Shenk who articulates so clearly what we think and feel about the current situation and about our roles here in Sarajevo as peacemakers.

We want to again express our thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers throughout this past winter and now as we begin new roles in our new assignment. Thanks especially for your correspondence. We apologize for not always being able to answer -and for short and belated messages when we do answer!! Please make sure to update your e-mail lists as our account in Banja Luka may soon be disconnected. We also love snail mail and have access to a VCR (if the tape is recorded at NORMAL speed!) so we welcome any home videos! Hope to hear from you!

God's love and peace,

Karin & John

John & Karin Kaufman Wall
Interreligious Service
Splitska 39
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Office tel/fax: 387 71 442 468
Home tel: 387 71 207 860

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