No, I wasn’t in America listening to young people vent about the church.  I was sipping coffee in Croatia with three Bosnian friends, students at a seminary.  As they went back and forth, sharing their visions and dreams, hopes and frustrations, I had the sense to remain quiet as a mouse, soaking in the moment.  Was I listening to future history being written?  A thrill passed through me as I realized that these young men would likely be some of the  second generation leaders of a still-young Bosnian Evangelical church—a church forged largely through the horrors of war and its aftermath.

“What is a pastor, anyway? How does someone decide if you are a pastor or not? What does the church in Bosnia need?”

All of a sudden, one of my friends stopped talking and looked at me, humor hovering around the corners of his mouth.  “We better be careful about what we say….this might end up in a book someday.”  I laughed and urged them to keep talking.  “How can you see it changing?  How would you contribute?” I asked.

Another friend looked at me and smiled.  “I don’t know,” he said.  The other said, “I guess it is up to God.”

I thought about some of the first generation Bosnian Christians I had interviewed. Their stories—often fraught with pain and tragedy—told of radical conversion during the war, sometimes being thrown into leadership when they were barely taking their first steps as Christians.   “Be careful, ” I said, treading gingerly on words I was not sure I was entitled to speak.  “Remember they have laid the foundation for you, and it sounds like it has been a very difficult task.”

He smiled, “We know. We respect them and what they have done. Maybe it was so hard  they have just dug the holes for the foundation.”

Two hours passed quickly and soon we were piling on our jackets and tromping out the door.  “I think you would fit better in Bosnia,” one said to me.  “You have a similar spirit to ours.”

True?  I don’t know…but I certainly felt honored at the compliment and invigorated by the conversation—and I don’t think that it was just a caffeine buzz!

This story will be told in a series comprised of 3 or 4 parts.

Two years after Hitler rose to power in Germany,  a baby boy was born in 1935 in Ivanci, small village in southeastern Croatia.  Although his mother eked out a fragile life in the poverty-drenched village,  every year the international political sky darkened forebodingly,  casting a deeper shadow over the Balkans.

The years between the two World Wars had been difficult in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later called Yugoslavia). A puttering democracy, subject to bitter internal rivalry, finally dissolved when  King Aleksandar of Serbia declared himself dictator in 1929.  At the same time, the U.S. Wall Street Crash in 1929  had a devastating effect in the Balkan countries—reducing the standard of living to a subsistence level.  While France, Britain, and the U.S were preoccupied with their own crises, Hitler began to woo the Balkans, believing it to be one of the keys to his plan of European domination.

But King Aleksandar could not maintain the fragile peace between Serbs and Croats— in fact, secret and military police waged brutal campaigns against alleged enemies. Eventually, extremists assassinated King Aleksandar in 1934.  In a show of support, Germany sent Hermann Goring and Alfred Rosenberg to attend the funeral.

Soon after Tomislav’s birth, his mother brought him to church in order to be dedicated.   The pastor held up the boy for all to see amidst the congregation’s smiles, and all joined in prayer for the baby.  Suddenly, one member claimed to receive a distinct word and impression in his prayer. “I saw the throne of God in heaven, and God said,  ‘while you were in the womb of your mother, I sanctified and chose you for my ministry, to preach my word.’  From the throne, a spring of water was flowing into Tomislav’s  mouth and then out again.”

Tomislav’s mother held that prophecy close to her heart during his early years, especially because of his incorrigibility.  When he was nine years old, his mother called him inside the house for a conversation.  She told him about the prophecy during his dedication and looked at him silently for a few minutes.  “Because of this, be careful what you are doing in your life,”  she finally said.

Even at nine years old, Tomislav was deeply stirred. The prophecy captured his imagination—from that point he lived in the awareness that his life  belonged to God.  This prophecy would give him strength in the many difficult and seemingly insurmountable challenges that were to arise in his life.

*Name has been changed

Next:  Part 2: The Burning of Ivanci

While enjoying a savory fish paprika soup on Christmas Eve, I experienced one of those wonderful flashes of bliss that occasionally come when I am simultaneously  living fully in the present moment and experiencing something new and different.   As the family chattered around me in Serbian, I relished the spicy flavor of the soup and looked thoughtfully at the plate of garlic, apple slices, walnuts, and the bowl of honey.  To symbolize good health of the body, heart, and brain for the coming year, I dipped a piece of each food item in the honey and took a bite, leaving the remnant on the plate.  Thinking the fish paprika was the main part of meal, I made the mistake of enjoying two servings, urged on by the mother.  In the midst of the stomach-bulging third course, I acknowledged my learning curve of Serbian holiday meals and vowed to live by the old adage:  It ain’t over until they bring out the kolače (cakes).  And believe me, hard economic times might prevent serving meat or cause scrimping on other parts of the meal, but there will always be kolače in the Balkans!

My friends’ house is quite small, and to me it felt like we were continually around one another.  As I slipped  into the groove of constant social interaction(while stealing away for some solo runs and walks), it became easy to appreciate the experience of a closer family community.  Because hospitality is such an important value, if someone invites you  into their home, they really take care of you.  My friends have little money, and I found my treatment as a guest a remarkable demonstration of  unconditional generosity. Meanwhile, it is considered  good taste to bring a gift. My gift, a little Christmas pitcher with matching cups, caused many exclamations of “yoi,” and hands being thrown up into the air.  I was both relieved and gratified that my gift brought such pleasure.

At midnight, we attended Christmas mass at the big Catholic church in the center of town, an experience that was new for me.  As I tried to think warm thoughts in the large, unheated cathedral, I found that I rather liked the experience of ushering in Christmas Day in christian community.   Afterwards, we walked through frozen streets toward home and our after-church-snack that was waiting for us, and—you guessed it—two kinds of  kolače.

“I read something and put the Bible down and forget it a few minutes later,” he says, trying to explain his dilemma.  This is a family whose lives have been changed by this miracle, and yet the lack of education makes the how of spiritual growth an interesting question.  How do you learn more about Jesus when you cannot read? I wondered about passing out the Bible on CD, but I was told by my friends  that this, also, has not been an effective tool without someone to help explain the Biblical stories.  Studying the Bible for myself, reading other books, and discussing my learning  with others  has been essential for my own spiritual formation—yet this means of spiritual formation cannot be duplicated in this context.  So what does it mean to be a growing disciple of Jesus in this Roma village?

My friend, Đ., an evangelist who is himself Roma, begins in Matthew with the story of Jesus’ birth, and every week, reads a few more verses, explaining the story over and over.  “It is so hard to understand, “ one man said as he described his attempts to read a few verses himself.

“This is not a book of philosophy,” Đ.says pointing at the Bible.  “God’s words are for everyone, the educated and the non-educated.”  Jesus himself told us that unless “you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”(Matthew 18:3,4, NRSV).

This is a sobering concept, and my time with these Roma families are reminding me how to approach God.  I have two masters degrees, and sometimes degrees can delude us into thinking that we are more important and have more to offer at God’s table.  However, since my communication skills are still at kindergarten level, I am freed from such misconceptions, forced to come to the table as a child. Oftentimes, I do not say anything at all in a given house, and other times, I feel compelled to say a simple sentence about the Bible story— a nerve-wracking, intimidating attempt to express spiritual concepts in my limited Croatian.  One thing is for sure, my forced simplicity does not permit any false pretensions. There is no allowance for a savior mentality,  for a sense of superiority because frankly, most of the time I am like a bump on a log.   “What am I actually doing here?” I think to myself.  I know I am trying to learn and understand the culture, but it is humbling to feel that you are not contributing much of perceived  significance.

Đ. encourages the families to pray together.  “You are just speaking to God honestly from your heart, “ he says.  “You don’t need to use big words or any formulas.”  Last night, I garnered enough courage to try my first prayer in Croatian.  We held hands, each person taking a turn to pray around the table.  I could feel my palms growing sweaty and  heart beating faster as my turn approached.  Did I myself believe what Đ  had said?  Or did I think I was better than this Roma family and my prayer had to be impressive?  “Thank you God,” I prayed, “for your love and joy. Amen.”

As the Roma struggle to learn what faith in Jesus means for their daily lives, I am sifting through what is really important to know and understand and what is not.   Entering into their world reminds me that it is not about me, that I must be authentic when I approach God and others.  Around the Lord’s table, there is no distinction of education or success, race or ethnicity, rich or poor; rather, Jesus has made us one.

“The doctors kept pressuring me to abort him, and but thankfully there was one doctor who supported my decision to have him—that made going to the hospital for check-ups a little easier.”  V. told her story with no trace of self-pity; indeed, there was the familiar hint of humor I have begun to recognize as part of a Bosnian’s cloak of resilience—a gritty toughness needed to persevere through  daily difficulties.

A.’s birth was a difficult one, born with part of his brain exposed, a cleft palate, and other physical deformities.  The doctors encouraged V. not to see A. for forty days because they were convinced he would shortly die and she was very weak from the birth.  M., her husband, phoned in daily updates of A.’s condition. “He’s still alive!” he would report to her.

After twenty days, V. had recovered sufficiently to demand to see her son, keeping vigil in a plastic chair beside his bed.  A. did not die, and M. and V. finally took him home. Admitting they had no idea how to care for a severely disabled child, they determined their best course of action was to rely on V.’s maternal instincts.

When A. was six months old, water began collecting in his brain, so the doctors put in a shunt. This resulted in continuous seizures—sometimes 50-100 a day.  Now, A. takes a medication that helps control his seizures, and as it is the last option available for his condition, they hope it will remain effective.  A. has difficulty sleeping; often, in order to help calm his anxiousness,  either V. or M.  will sit up with him during the night.  As soon as he is held, he grows peaceful.  “At first I felt angry with God because of how hard everything was, but now I feel His strength everyday, ” V. said.

I kept looking at A.’s shriveled body as I listened to their story—his pupils were in a constant state of motion, his eyes rolling up to the sky. There was no shortage of love in the room—I could see it in the way V. cradled her son, softly caressing his face, or the way his father came home and kissed the top of his head.  I felt an overpowering wave of sadness and compassion surge up in me, and a momentary desire to flee the room possessed me so that I  could privately vent my sudden grief over the state of this little boy.

Nine years after A.’s birth, the only easier thing about their situation is the familiarity with the hardness. There are few services or resources for the disabled in Bosnia, and therefore this family, like many other families, are pretty much on their own. Because of this, sometimes one or occasionally even both parents will abandon a disabled child.  M., who pastors a small church, is attempting to creatively combat the constant financial struggle Bosnian pastors face by opening up his own coffee shop.  In light of his never-ending workload—caring for his family, his church, and opening a new business—I find his irrepressible humor and graciousness toward me hard to comprehend.

Later, I was left by myself in the room with A.  He started to get restless, so I went over and sat next to him, and began rubbing his back, feeling his bent spine under my fingers.  His little broken body testifies that things are not as they should be.  But his parents’ loving care of him, despite their lack of resources, speaks of hope—a hope that demonstrates God’s tenacious mercy for this broken world.  This same tenacious mercy grabbed Lot and his dithering family by the hands and pulled them out of a doomed Sodom, and is now exhibited in these faithful Christians in Bosnia.  Despite what their eyes see, their lives point toward their lived belief that someday God’s realized kingdom will banish the grief and sickness of our present world.  As an outsider entering into these difficult stories, I believe that this tenacious mercy will continue to daily sustain them, that it will not abandon them to despair or hopelessness, because God is the God who sees.

When a friend invited me to join her ladies hiking troop in the mountains surrounding Sarajevo, I jumped at the chance.   Sadly, it took years after the war before anybody felt safe enough to hike—the fear of mines a real danger.  Now however, we encountered many groups as we huffed our way up the steep incline.  Since most of the same groups hiked every week, I felt as if I had entered an extended community.  Greetings and conversations were shared as we passed by and stopped at various huts for refreshment.  Our group— five women hiking together without men— seemed to be a bit of an unusual event.

Crisp and clear high in the hills,   a winter haze  lightly rested on the city below.  Although fields and trees bore the yellowish breath of winter, bushes laden with bright red berries added surprising splashes of color to the landscape. I breathed in great gulps of clean air, feeling invigorated at  being back in the mountains’ quietness.

M. grew up hiking in these mountains. Although she was over 60, her tiny frame pranced up the mountain, an indomitable and unstoppable force, while the rest of us sweated our way up.  “What do you think?” she would ask me, frequently stopping to remind us of the view, proudly pointing and naming each surrounding mountain, as if she was introducing us to dear friends.  In the true spirit of a mountain guide, she continually checked in with us as well as providing constant amusement with her quick wit and hilarious observations.

Because this culture prioritizes social interaction and community, usually while drinking coffee, stopping at huts for refreshment is a vital part of the hiking experience—a practice to which I could easily grow accustomed.  At the second hut, M., who insisted on paying for everything, went inside to negotiate either a picnic table in the sun or a seat inside.  I plopped on the grass, taking in the view of the surrounding mountains.

“Melody, no, please, no.” M. saw me sitting on the grass and came running over with a cushion, insisting that I sit on it.  In this culture, there is a strong belief that women can freeze their ovaries by sitting on cold surfaces.  I had no objection to complying with her request—why sit on the hard ground when someone is offering you a cushion?

Finally, we chose to sit inside, and steaming bowls of rich, veal vegetable soup were placed in front of us.  I savored every bite, dipping  crusty bread and drinking my homemade cup of yogurt.  After asking his random questions,  our new friend at the next table pointed at my Capri exercise pants, very concerned that I might be cold.  I had a hard time understanding his Bosnian, but after he looked over at a basket displaying handmade woolen slippers, he switched abruptly to English:  “Trust me, I know what I am doing, ” he said and held up a pair.  “Only 100 Euros!” he shifted back to Bosnian, his half-toothless grin irrepressible.  The ladies around the table giggled.  “Where are you from?”  he asked me.

“Oregon.”

“Is Oregon like Bosnia?”  This sent the women off into another peal of laughter.  “Well, kind of.” I said.  “We have hills and mountains….”

After two hours in the hut, we realized we would be fighting the coming darkness, so we hurriedly put on our packs.  “See you in Oregon,” the man said, grinning, as we exited the hut.  With an overly full belly, I felt like rolling down the hill, but I enjoyed even this slightly uncomfortable descent.  A glorious day of cultural experiences and new friends. Who could ask for more?

“In some ways, things are harder here than right after the war,” and American woman, M.,  who has served and worked in the town for 14 years told me.  “After the war, people had hope that things would change and get better. Well, 14 years later, nothing much is different.”  Unemployment hovers around 70% in this small town, high even for Bosnia where the national average is about 43%.  Putting food on the table, paying the electric bill, and having enough wood to heat one room in the house for winter remains a constant stress. Terrible memories of the war still haunt many, illustrated by the fact that it constantly comes up in conversation.

My friends live in a house similar to many others—without central heating, the majority of daily life happens in the main room with the wood stove. These women serve in a small, young church in the town.  There is nothing easy about working with a church here.  Even though many people are merely nominal Muslims, the war further cemented the inextricable connection between their ethnic and religious identity, thus creating some significant psychological, social, and emotional barriers to the Good News.

“Many of my friends and family no longer talk to me and some are angry with me,” said L., a believer of 4 years.  M. had prayed for him for 10 years before he encountered Jesus, an encounter that so visibly changed him in the space of an evening that a visiting team of Americans serving the community could not help but notice.  “Did L. meet Jesus or something?” one asked after seeing his face the next morning.

Despite the challenges of friends and family, his  joblessness, and struggle for money, L. was anything but despondent when I interviewed him.  He told me story after story of God’s incredible provision through unlikely sources and means.

“God is amazing,” he said, his face wreathed in a smile.  “One day I was at a men’s conference in Croatia, and I only had enough money in my pocket for a hamburger from McDonald’s, which I had been really looking forward to.  When the offering plate came by, God told me to put all 7 kuna(about $1.50) in the plate.  There was a big internal battle, but I did it.  Later, when I met my friends at McDonald’s, one of them had already purchased a hamburger for me.  ‘This is for you, L.,’ he said, handing it to me.”

Amidst the economic, spiritual,  emotional, and social hardships, God’s daily provision is an equal reality.  I was amazed by my new friends’ endurance—a tenacity that I liken to pushing a heavy boulder up a steep, icy slope.  It is possible only one shuffling step at a time, and often one slips back several paces.  Such a feat would seem impossible, but God’s spirit blows powerfully from behind, enabling one to stand upright and keep moving forward. This is the difficult, pioneering work of softening  resistantly rocky soil, and my friends are persevering faithfully.

Please go to Prayer Points/Bosnia to see how to pray for this town.  Stay tuned to hear more about how God is working in this town—evidenced by His ardent and irrepressible pursuit in Q.’s story.

It was only one week after the wedding when J.’s wife began having issues with her pregnancy, landing her in the hospital so that she could be monitored.   It was 2001, and until this point, J. had lived a fairly enjoyable  life as a musician.  When his girlfriend became pregnant in 2000, they decided to get married. The sudden hospitalization was not the easiest start to a marriage, but as J. tried to fix up their newly purchased home, he eagerly anticipated the coming birth.

After three months in the hospital, his wife gave birth to healthy twin boys, and J.’s euphoria knew no bounds—new wife, new house, and two new baby boys. Three days after their birth, one of the twins caught an infection, tragically dying two days later.  For J., nothing would ever be the same.  Grieving and restless, he began to question the meaning of life—what had been the purpose of his tiny son’s brief life and death? He asked his friends, priests, and family, but nobody could satisfy his yearning questions.

One day a friend invited him to some English classes at a local Protestant church, and although he was leery, he desired greater proficiency in English. Much to his surprise, he discovered the church to be small and innocuous; moreover, he was amazed to observe his American teacher’s knowledge of the Bible. A nominal Catholic, he heard verses he previously never knew existed.

So began three and a half years of a conversion process in which he developed a friendship with the pastor, began attending various church activities and even went to church camp in the summer.  After his first camp experience, he went to a bookstore to purchase his own Bible.  When his surviving son turned two, his personality as they knew it began to disappear—eventually he was diagnosed with autism.  This did not deter J. from continuing his journey toward Christ, however, and in 2006, he was baptized.  Soon after, his wife gave birth to their third child—a healthy  boy.   J.’s family story, rife with hardship and tragedy, now moves in a new direction, one of hope and new promise.

J. and I share a traditional fried anchovy snack after a morning at the market

As I listened to J.’s story, I reflected upon my own. My parents, converted in their late teenage years, effected a  u-turn in my family story—permanently altering a family tree  so that it could burst into new growth while stretching towards Him.  And because of Him, the Great Interrupter of family trees,  here were J. and I, two people of the same age from opposite sides of the world, remembering the past and moving in parallel paths toward the future.

Center of Varaždin today

The Yugoslav Partisans, or Communist Party, actively opposed Fascism and Axis powers during WWII, but they were met with mixed reactions because of the complicated allegiances and geographical history (within the present day area encompassing Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro).  Directly following the war, some Partisan units lashed out against suspected Axis sympathizers, resulting in many needless mass murders. Word of these atrocities spread, and because J.’s grandfather had been involved in Varaždin’s local government, he worried about being considered a “sympathizer.”  So along with hundreds of others, he fled, leaving his wife and seven children.  They received no word of his whereabouts for fifteen years. The Partisans moved in and confiscated the family’s property rights in the name of collective ownership, necessitating J.’s grandmother’s need to pay rent on the very property her husband had purchased years before. Furthermore, her husband’s name was erased from the city’s records, thus obliterating her rights to collect any kind of subsidy or help from the city.

J.’s father, thirteen at the time of his father’s disappearance, is now in his late seventies, but still rarely mentions the hardships in his early life.  J. knows only the skeletal outline of the story, describing his grandmother’s non-stop toil in an effort to put food on the table for seven hungry children.  Fifteen years after her husband’s disappearance, she met a woman who said that she had seen him rounded up and killed in Slovenia years before.

Back of family property

When Croatia declared its independence in the early 1990′s, the newly formed nation-state promised to return all confiscated private property.  But this promised justice began to fray around the edges in the years following—only last month, twenty years later, did the family officially receive their property back, its cracked and shabby appearance narrating its obvious neglect by the state. For over sixty-five years, the family had been paying rent to live in their own residence, but now they will be able to collect rent from all the small businesses in their building.

One side of J.'s family property

Two family histories from different parts of the globe began in similar ways but progressed worlds apart.  But the tale of these two stories does not end there.  At one point in time, each family’s story intersected  God’s story, thus once again bringing them parallel through their shared story of redemption. Stay tuned for part 2 to read this part of the story.

When I am in Osijek on Sundays, I accompany a Christian Roma family to a nearby Roma community to visit a series of  homes where we build relationships and often share the good news of Jesus.   We always conclude our visits by having lunch at the family whose mother was miraculously healed after being in bed for four years (Click here to read that story.)  There, they insist on treating us like royalty, waiting on us hand and foot and serving coffee, food, and dessert. This past Sunday, we noticed that some of the teenage girls had rags tied up in their hair (their way of creating curls), and we were invited to their cultural dance at the nearby theater house.

Even when the performance began, the noisy hubbub did not subside, making it difficult to hear the two young women describing what we were about to see.  As three men, each sandwiched between two women in brightly colored, traditional Roma dresses, emerged onto the stage, I really had no idea what to expect.  I was amazed to see their method of dancing which involves continuous, fast hopping on alternating feet while performing the actual dance.

Overcome by the loud, intoxicating music and the whirling colors,  I allowed myself to be pulled into this surprising experience. I was struck by a profound dichotomy: I had just finished visiting impoverished families in tumbledown shacks, surrounded by mud and manure, and now I was immersed in this explosion of beautiful cultural expression. These were the disdained peoples of Europe? What would happen if the redemption promised in the Good News took root in this culture—transforming the poverty and brokenness— so that the world could see the Roma as one of the many beautiful and unique trees  displayed in God’s vast garden of cultures?

I left feeling very privileged that I had been able to catch a glimpse beyond the poverty, beyond the many problems and difficulties the Roma face.  But isn’t that glimpse really how God sees the Roma anyway?