A New Holiday Tradition

In our family, pumpkin pie is a must for the holiday season. Sometimes we have been able to get canned pumpkin from friends or family in the states, but this year we decided to try to make pumpkin pie from scratch. The first thing you need to do is find the right pumpkin. We bought a smaller pumpkin that was still green. We've read that you don't want to buy too big of a pumpkin because they're not as sweet. First, wash the pumpkin with water. Then you carve out the stem and about 2 inches around the stem and then cut the pumpkin in half. Clean out the seeds and all of the insides of the pumpkin, an ice-cream scoop works well for this. Place the two halves of the pumpkin face down on the baking tray (skin facing up). Bake for 2 hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Take the pumpkin halves out and with a fork test to see if the pumpkin is soft all the way through, if not you can put it in another 10 minutes or so. Take the pumpkin out of the oven and let the pumpkin cool for about 30 min. Scoop out the pumpkin from the skin and place it in a food processor and mix until pureed (We had to use a hand mixer which also worked fine, it just took longer). At this point you have your main ingredient and you can just follow your favorite pie recipe. Stacy also makes her own crust, but thats for another blog.

Society

One thing that I've hardly felt the presence of in the states is this idea of society. Social taboos do exist in the states, but not nearly to the degree that they exist and are felt here in Bosnia. Here in Bosnia your neighbors, community and society in general have a large role to play in the way you live. I would dare to say that this is not so in the states where the individual is left to live the way he or she choses. In fact, in my opinion, the role of the individual is a little out of hand in the states. I digress. Now you would think that this social pressure applies only to those born and raised in Bosnia. Not so. Stacy and I feel it where ever we go. The way we dress, the way we dress Noah, what we eat, and how we spend money are all examples of how we need to 'fit in'.
Now that it's winter you should, of course, dress warm. The very common dress is all black (see picture above). The reason for the all black dress has evaded me. I have definitely changed my own habits when it comes to dress. Before, in the fall or early winter it wouldn't be uncommon for me to wear shorts and then a sweatshirt for the extra warmth I needed. Now, I only wear shorts in the heat of summer. Before, I would go barefoot in the house; now slippers are a must. You'll even catch me wearing slippers in the summer. Tennis shoes are now only for sports. Sometimes I'll wear a pair of black canvas tennis shoes that don't look so much like sports shoes. Anyway, what inspired this blog was something that happened to me last week. When I went to buy milk at a local grocery store I was riding up the escalator, and coming down on the other side was a guy with a short sleeve shirt on. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped, "what is he thinking wearing short sleeves on a winter's day???" I thought to myself. This young man in his late 20s pulled out a cell phone and started speaking. He was an American!! It was then that I realized that I've become one of them. I've been assimilated into the borg. Not only have I changed my dressing habits I was no longer thinking for myself but according to the society that I live in, and applying those social rules to others. I guess in the end it's not so bad, perhaps it's the obedience to the social mind that will give me the platform to speak into people's lives.

How the Yellow Pages Ruined Community

One thing that I've never gotten use to here in Bosnia is the lack of a local Yellow Pages. I mean how do you find a plumber or a mechanic or a doctor? Ahhh, that's one of the many secrets to understanding the Bosnian culture. The thing is here, everything that you would need or want you can find from a friend or a friend of a friend. For us foreigners it takes one more step. We have to find a friend that has a friend who knows someone. So here's the story why I'm writing this blog.

Our landlord had promised to put in a floor in the dinning room when we moved in. Until now it's just been some old worn linoleum floor that looked horrible. So this month our landlord put in a nice new hard wood floor. So when the workers came to put in the floor we got to talking and I found out that they are good friends of the landlord and live in the same town where our landlord is from -WHICH IS 3 HOURS AWAY from Sarajevo where we live. So this floor was a 2 day job which meant that these guys drove 3 hours one day to work on this floor and then drove 3 hours home. The night before they came happened to be the same night as the first big snow in Bosnia which made the trip even worse. Then the second day they drove another 3 hours to finish the job. Of course at this point their car broke down and one of the workers spent the day at the mechanic's to get it fixed (I'm still wondering how he found a mechanic in a town that wasn't his). Just so that you remember we live in the capitol city which means that there are plenty of people qualified to put in a wood floor, but the point is the landlord has these friends.
Here in Bosnia friends are not just those you have coffee with, they are the network through which you get everything done.

Citaonica

On Monday the 19th of November we officially opened up our Citaonica, which literally translated means, "reading place". Basically, we have Christian books to give for free and some for a small donation. We have an attractive and comfy area where people can either read books or have discussion. For the grand opening we offered free coffee and homemade cakes and cookies as well as a drawing for a painting that a local pastor made. On the first day we were able to sell about a dozen books and gave out others. We had quite a few visitors, and in general were very encouraged by other believers who came to check out the new place. Another encouraging thing was the neighboring shop keepers who came and brought their friends to look and even buy some books. We also had sign-ups for English and Portuguese classes which we are hoping to start by December.


The idea for the reading room came out of a summer ministry that we had where we put Christian literature on a table in a central area in town. Because of the great conversations we had there on the street, we thought it would be a good idea to put a roof over the book-table. The Bosnian winters are fairly harsh, so we searched for a place to have an outlet to give these books out to the community during the cold months. We came across an empty hair salon, and promptly contacted the owner. Some weeks later we made a deal with him to rent the place. The experience so far with the landlord, the renovation, and the grand opening has been very encouraging and we're praising God for the resources that he's provided so far.

Reformation Day

Not widely celebrated in the States, but celebrated world wide, Reformation day in Sarajevo this year was the first of its kind. For the first time the evangelical alliance in Sarajevo, which has members from all of the protestant churches in Sarajevo, was able to put together a program and advertise it throughout the city. The celebration started with a book exhibition and then a choir sang a few traditional hymns. Then, three of the pastors from different denominations got up and spoke a little bit about the reformation and how their denomination fit into the protestant movement. The three pastors reminded the audience that each generation is in danger of losing its path. Whenever our traditions or Christian culture get in the way of the word of God then we have lost our way. Each church needs to continually reform itself from within.
After the speeches were finished, snacks were available and the guests were invited to another church for a concert. The concert could have been mistaken for a rock concert as two bands, fully equipped with drums and electric guitars, played under a light show of purple, red and green. It was overall a wonderful time and expressed, I believe, the spirit of Martin Luther’s message through our enjoyment of our freedom in Christ.
This reformation celebration served a second purpose. The Bosnian protestant church really needed such a celebration, if nothing else, to give the church a face in the city. There are less than 1000 protestant believers in the whole country, and the average Bosnian has no idea who we are or what the protestant church believes. I think the local believers who took part in this celebration were encouraged as well as they thought about the millions of evangelical Christians around the world who also celebrated this day.

Prayer, Coffee and Cops

Since our planning days in October, our team has decided to come together and pray every morning for our community and other needs. Instead of meeting at the office, we decided to go to different cafes in our area, so that we can meet more people in the community. On Wednesday we walked into a cafe where four police officers were enjoying a coffee before the start of their shift. We sat down next to them and ordered our coffees, but they didn't seem like they wanted to be bothered so we didn't talk to them.
Something you probably don't know about traffic cops in Bosnia is that they can pull you over for any or no reason. Their reasoning behind this is that they want to randomly check people's papers as there is no indication on the license plates that the registration is up-to-date. The lesson that we had learned soon after buying a car here in Bosnia, is that to avoid getting 'randomly checked' you shouldn't drive in the far right lane as that's where the traffic police stand to flag you down. Well I was coming home from an errand that I had to run in town, and I wasn't paying attention and was driving in the right lane. Sure enough, there was a police officer on the side of the road and he flagged me down. He asked for my license and registration, and then starred at me for a second. "Hey" he said, "we had coffee together this morning". I smiled, with some relief, and replied, "oh yeah, I remember". We went on to have a nice conversation and I found out that he has two children, 10 and 14. I told him that I'm planning on starting English classes for school aged children and he gave me his name and phone number, so that I could call him when the classes start up.
We're just excited that God is helping us meet people in the cafes even when we're not bold enough to initiate conversations.

Coffee and a Cigarette

The first snow of the year has fallen here in Sarajevo, which means winter is officially here. This also means the beginning of our indoor ministry, which includes lots of coffee when we go on visits. The coffee really isn't that bad, just a bit thick. The one thing that we always dread a bit though with indoor ministry is cigarette smoke. For most Bosnians, coffee just isn't coffee without a cigarette. Of course people also smoke in the summer, but it's much easier to find ways to meet people outside their homes when the weather is nice. During winter, Stacy will sometimes meet me at the door when I come home with a nice greeting like, "you smell!" For the most part, I'm pretty use to the smoke as long as they smoke the Bosnian cigarettes, but there is a clear difference when someone smokes an American cigarette. They seem to be a lot more potent. If you think about it, we'd appreciate your prayers in this area. We're trusting that the Lord will protect our lungs from the affects of 2nd hand smoke. Tips for getting the smell of cigarette smoke out of clothes would also be appreciated.

The Month of Fasting

Another month of "fasting" has ended here in Bosnia, and for that matter around the world. Most years I have noticed that there seems to be a large focus on food during Ramadan, and I've always wondered how much 'fasting' goes on during this holy month. I'm not really complaining though, some of the nicest breads and deserts come out during this time of year, and the restaurants have really nice deals on iftar meals. (Iftar is the evening meal for breaking the daily fast ). Even the McDonald’s in Turkey gets in on the fasting menu, by offering an iftar soup.



I did about five minutes of research on the internet just to satisfy my curiosity about the statistics during Ramadan.

According to the UK yahoo news, Studies by health experts have shown that many Muslims gain weight during the month of fasting and that average consumption of food soars during the period.

According to Al-Ahram Weekly Online, "While their Ramadan diets diverge, all the countries of the Middle East have one trait in common: the month of fasting is also the month of excessive food consumption".

According to Jordan Times (http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=2216) AMMAN - Consumption of food during the holy month of Ramadan rises by 25-40 per cent due to people’s changed "consumption behaviour”, experts and officials said on Saturday. The demand on essential food items sometimes jump to over 40 per cent during Ramadan.

There you have it. Just be thankful that we don't have to eat a Christmas dinner every night for a whole month. Perhaps the real fasting begins next week they step on their bathroom scales.

Stacy gets Credit

Some of you may not know that Bosnia, for the most part, is still mainly a cash society. Very few people have ATM cards or credit cards. Knowing this Stacy and I always try to keep some cash on us. Last week, when Stacy went out to buy some stuff for the kitchen she found herself without any cash when she got to the cash register. She asked the clerk if she could pay with a bank card or credit card. The lady looked at her and said, "oh, you come in here often enough. I'll just write it down and you come pay later." The owner was also standing there and nodded approvingly. Stacy got store credit à la the General Store from Little House on the Prairie! The funny thing, Stacy said, is that she has only been to that store like 5 times in the last year. I guess you could say we're succeeding in being accepted in our community.

His Grace is Sufficient

I frequently ask myself, "is ministry in Bosnia really so difficult or am I simply not intended for this kind of work. Perhaps I lack some skill as a church planter". Sometimes I feel that I'm not stubborn enough to stay in BiH until revival comes, and I often conjecture that burn-out will come first.

I was given a sense of vindication when discussing ministry in Bosnia with two ladies from Romania who came to help us for a week in August. After one of our park clean-ups they were surprised at how the community fell numb to our act of kindness. These ladies were perplexed at the hardness and general lack of curiosity the Bosnians exhibited to what we were doing there. Rebecca, from Romania, explained that they had done a similar outreach involving a park clean-up in their home town and many people were eager to know what they were doing, and the believers had many chances to share. She described the Bosnians as hard and resistant to anything new.

I don't know what it was about Rebecca's comments about the Bosnian people that gave me hope. Perhaps it was merely an revelation that God has given me an extra portion of grace to work among these people, though I find my perseverance running short by the day. I don't know how long the Lord has us here in BiH, but I can only pray for a filling of His grace in my life on a daily basis.

The Pay Off

I hate to bug you all again with another park clean-up blog, but i got a decent "before" picture that i wanted to share just so you'd get a visual of the situation here. This week we were even more encouraged by the clean up time because one very grateful lady came to talk to us, and then realized that we were the group that had a book table in town. This was one of the outcomes that we were hoping for by doing theses park clean-up days, so praise be to God!

Coincidence?

We have been really encouraged by our park clean up days. Not only is this kind of work gratifying being able to see a clear difference after we're done, but it seems that we're not the only ones interested in improving the neighborhood. A few days after we had cleaned the first park, some men from the city came out and fixed the swings and the teeter-totters. We have been living in this neighborhood for almost 10 months now, and the parks were in a state of disarray from the first day we moved in. Who knows how long those swings were broken before we had arrived. Then last week after we had cleaned our third park, the city came out again. They fixed one basketball hoop on one side and added a backboard and hoop on the opposite side making the only outdoor full basketball court in our area, and one of the few in the whole city. So was it a coincidence that our cleaning and the cities timing for fixing up the parks happened only days from each other? Whatever the case, we're giving glory to God because as we cleaned these parks each of us realized that there was also a need to fix the playground equipment, so that the parks would not only be clean but functional. We were going to take it upon ourselves to raise the money to fix the many parks, but it seems that the Lord was way ahead of us.

Making our way into the Neighborhood

Our team has been in Dobrinja, a suburb of Sarajevo, for about 10 months now and we're still trying to figure out how to find favor with the community. We have been running a book table with Christian literature twice a week in the evenings (when everyone is out for a stroll), and that’s been going pretty well. Every evening there are some people coming up to us to check out the literature we have to offer.

In addition to that, we also want to show the people in our community that we care for them, and to show them that we’re not just interested in ‘harvesting souls’ or what have you. So we came up with the idea to clean up the parks in our community. This really is no small feat as Bosnians in general haven’t been educated in environmental conservation. In fact, Stacy and I once witnessed a man take a whole wheel-barrel of trash and dump it in a river that runs behind his home. You would think it’s bad enough that one would dump the trash in a place that wouldn’t affect him, but the fact that this man dumped his trash in a river that was only 20 yards from his own back door really confused us. Anyway I digress, the point is people don’t think twice about throwing trash on the ground. Oh, one more funny trash story. A couple of years ago we cleaned up a park with a summer team from Manteca, California. As we started working some of the children from the neighborhood helped us pick up trash. Afterwards, we thought it’d be a nice gesture to give these kids ice cream from the store. The children delighted about the ice cream tore off their wrappers and threw them on the ground. We just looked at them with utter shock.

Needless to say, the parks in Bosnia are strewn with trash. Our team has decided to clean one park a week while the weather is still nice, and in that way follow the Matthew 5:16 principle, "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

The top picture is of a park that was littered with broken glass. There was an obvious difference afterwards. Below is a picture of a group of young girls who decided to have a picnic on the newly cleaned park grass.

16 Months Old

Our little boy is now 16 months old and walking like a mad man. It's so much fun to take him to the local park and watch him run around. He's also initiating a lot of opportunities to meet people. We're starting to feel very comfortable in our neighborhood and Stacy regularly goes for coffee to the neighbor at the apartment above us. We also try to go walking in town around seven when the whole town is out and enjoying the warm summer evenings. The cafes are full and the ice cream shops have lines out the doors. It's a real fun time of year in Sarajevo, and we're enjoying the experience even more so having Noah around. That's it for us now,

blessings.

Making a Documentary

I was just given an opportunity to help write and produce a documentary about the Evangelical church in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH). Recently we have been doing some surveys in Dobrinja, the suburb of Sarajevo where we are trying to start a church. As we met various people in Dobrinja we have come across many who are confused about who Evangelical Christians are, and often confuse us with Jehovah Witnesses. This misunderstanding of who we are is quite prevalent among the general population of BiH. The idea about making a documentary about the Evangelical church in Bosnia came from a brother here in Sarajevo who owns a production studio, and creates children's TV shows and mine awareness videos. He has a desire to spend part of his time creating Christian videos to help the church in BiH. We both agreed that the church has a real need for a public relations video, and so we have embarked on this project. So far I have met some really knowledgeable people who have given me some great material to think about and add to our documentary. We are hoping to finish this project before the end of 2007, and we have many opportunities from different television networks in BiH to air this documentary.

The Ground is Missing

Even though it’s been over six years that we’ve lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina, we still find that certain cultural things catch us off guard. It was yet another really hot day in Sarajevo, and Stacy went down to the local electronics store to buy a fan for our apartment. She had already been to 4 or 5 shops earlier that day and everyone was sold out. In one store Stacy finally found a fan, however when she got in the very long line to purchase the fan, there was a lady at the front of the line who was causing quite a fuss concerning her own purchase. Noah was getting very impatient and Stacy couldn’t last any longer. Defeated, she put the fan back and went home.
Later that day, the idea came to go to a local shop where she thought she could find a fan. Victory! She went in and found exactly what she was looking for. She brought it to the cash register to pay for her treasure. When Stacy got up to the salesclerk, he started yelling at a co-worker to come to the the front of the store. Stacy was getting a little worried that she wasn’t going to be able to keep her fan, after all the bad luck she had had that day. The salesclerks were trying to explain to her that this fan comes from another country and that they were going to have to modify it a little. So they took the fan out of the box, grabbed the power cord, took the end, and with some pliers snipped off the grounding pin. Stacy with a blank stare and her jaw dropped asked if this fan was going to work (knowing that the return policy in Bosnia is horrible). They assured her that they’ve done this to many fans and no one has complained. Not sure what to do, Stacy gave them the money and brought her fan home. We assembled it and with some caution plugged it in. The fan seems to be working, but just in case we cleared the outlet of anything flammable.

Culture and Heat

We’ve had some pretty hot days here in Sarajevo, and almost every day I get a good laugh when I’m in traffic. Some of you may know that some europeans, particularly the older generation are deathly afraid of a draft (any current of air flowing through a room or other space). Well the Bosnian culture as a whole, young and old are also afraid of drafts. So what this means is that winter or summer windows should not be opened, or if you have to you open one window, but definitely not a second for fear of a draft. You can imagine what it’s like on a full tram or bus, especially when some people have the habit of only taking a bath once a week.
Obviously in the summers you have to find some respite from the oppressive heat while driving... the solution: open your car door! Of course why didn’t I think of that? My mom always told me not to roll down the window in the car, but why not open the door? So at every stop light in Sarajevo during the summer you’ll see many people open their car doors to let some air into their cars before they start off again. But wait! The highlight for me at least once a day is seeing that one guy who’s driving with his car door open to get a breeze in his car. LOL!