Living in the States versus Bosnia

Standing in front of the famous Stari Most bridge in Mostar

What I like about living in the U.S.

• Air conditioning
• Cheap gas (yes compared to about $8 per gallon in Bosnia)
• Availability of diversity of goods and services
• Cheap electronics
• More privacy
• Comfortable beds
• Having my own bathroom and shower
• Fast internet connectivity and easy access
• Independence
• The variety of food at restaurants
• Large shower you can turn around in and hot water all the time
• Cheap clothes (compared to Europe)
• The religious freedom

What I don’t like about living in the U.S.

• Fast-paced lifestyles that leave little time for the simple things in life
• Isolation
• Commercialization of everything
• Demands on time and schedule
• The focus on productivity over relationship

One of many van rides through Bosnia

What I like about living in Bosnia

• Constant social interaction
• Dependency upon one another to make life work
• Awareness of neediness
• Appreciation readily expressed when helping the people
• Cheap food

What I don’t like about living in Bosnia

• Constant social interaction
• Superstition that permeates the older culture
• The evident tension between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims
• The lack of hope and encouragement
• The influences of communism that linger socially
• The constant remainders of the war in destroyed buildings throughout the country
• The difficulty of learning the Slovak language
• The heavy institutionalization of religion
• The lack of employment opportunities

Bosnia Update 9

Anita and me walking the steps in downtown Mostar, Bosnia (really Herzegovina)

Our final day in Bosnia was full. Anita and I scheduled a counseling/prayer session with a young believer from a Muslim background we ministered to last year. She is a beautiful 21 year old girl from a challenging background. Our friend Cory helped us coordinate with her to come in. We started the day with her session. As I listened to her tell stories of her children, it really broke my heart. The measure of poverty, neglect and abuse was hard to believe given her good disposition.

The session went really well and she had some awesome breakthrough. We dealt with a particularly painful event when she was 6 that led to her parents divorcing. She was able to forgive her parents and change her thinking about herself as a result of some of the things she went through. Women are so much easier to have good sessions with because they are more in touch with their emotions and can listen instead of just churn the gears endlessly in their head. The session lasted two and half hours. It was great. Anita had some good things to share with her. We spoke hope into her and prayed for her ability to get into college despite having practically no formal education. Our new friend Katie translated and she did a great job. I gave her opportunities to pray and speak encouragement in Bosnia and she did so.

We shot some video of a couple of people thanking us for coming after our session ended. Then, we packed everything up, had lunch and said our goodbyes to all our friends there in Mostar and some of the pastors and leaders who had gathered there for training at the bible school. They were having graduation that evening and two of our close friends were graduating from the school – Beki and Dejana. But, we couldn’t stay because we had an early flight out of Sarajevo in the morning.

On the drive back the old car four of us were driving in started overheating in the think rush-hour traffic of Sarajevo. It broke down and started smoking. We pulled over and signaled the van with the rest of the team in front of us to pull over as well. We ended up sitting there for about 2 hours while we waited for it to cool down, to put water in the radiator and such. It was the first stressful experience we had in the trip. We thought we might have to split up the team and try to make it back to Breza separately. But, some mechanics came by and helped get the car patched up enough to make the rest of the trip to Breza.

Several of us went out to dinner once we got back to Breza. It was one of our favorite restaurants there but we hadn’t been on this trip. After wards, we spent time repacking our for the flight out. Some of us took cold showers. We got to bed at Midnight and then had to get up at 4am to head out for the airport.

At one of our favorite restaurants in Breza

The travels went smoothly on the way back home. We only had 16 hours of actual flight time. I stayed awake on all the flights in an effort to readjust to the 7 hour time difference when we got back home. We parted ways with Ben, Ali and Suzy in London as they were going on to Scotland for a week and then Ali and Suzy were going to Israel after that. Anita and I watched about 4 movies on the 10-hour flight from London to Houston. Overall, it was pretty comfortable. Our connecting flights were close together and so we didn’t have any significant layovers.

We were greeted by several people from Becky’s church in Houston. Liz Ramos drove our car to the airport. We decided to go ahead and try to drive back home from Houston to Arlington. We felt that would give us the best chance to rest and recover instead of spending the night in Houston. We made a Starbucks run for caffeine and made it home just fine. I stopped and got some groceries on the way into town so we didn’t have to get out the next day.

All told, it was about 26 hours between leaving Breza and arriving home in Arlington. It took 30 hours in the opposite direction, so it wasn’t bad at all. We’ve been back for a few days now and we still haven’t fully recovered for some reason. But, we are doing well. We are back on a normal sleeping schedule but our energy levels and digestive systems haven’t quit returned to normality.

Part of Breza, Bosnia

Bosnia Update 8

I’m running low on time and will need to make this quick…

Thursday started out well. Becky finished up the training program. It was a lot of work. She did 16 hours of actual class time over the past 4 days. She was relieved to have completed it. The students were expressive of their appreciation.

I brought 2 pair of pants and 2 pair of shorts on this trip. I needed to packed light because the vehicles that transport us are so small and we had all the extra luggage from the Lively’s to return to them. It rained for the week before we came and after checking the weather a few times before coming I decided to pack for both cool and rainy as well as hot. Because it’s been so hot I’ve only been wearing only 2 shorts. So, I wore my first pare for 4 days and am on the fifth day of my second pair. We did some laundry yesterday night (Wednesday) in the tiny washing machine. We hung them out on the clothe lines on the roof of the 3 floor but then it rained heavily (and stormed) overnight and soaked them again. We let them dry throughout the day and I was able to have some clean shorts again.

A culturally-typical building in Mostar

Fortunately, the thunder storm brought in some much cooler weather. We were able to go on walks and open windows and enjoy doing things outside without having to focus on breathing and not passing out from the heat and humidity.

I had a challenging counseling/prayer session with one of the young converted Muslim students today. It lasted over 3 hours. He had so many layers of brokenness that I took 6 pages of notes. We touched on many things but could only make marginal progress in most of them.

I’ve heard countless stories as people share the secrets of their lives and hearts and I realize how great the need for healing is in this country. It is an opportunity so big only God is capable of comprehending it or addressing it. I am overwhelmed but am confident that God’s sovereign plans are on time and track.

I set up the small digital camcorder Susan brought along for the trip on a tripod and we shot some video testimonials from some of the students thanking us for coming and communicating thanks back to those who sponsored and sent us (White Bluff Chapel for Anita and me). I hope to edit them into a video montage after we return home to give to our sponsors. While I was in the prayer session, Anita took care of recording a few video testimonials. We hope to collect more tomorrow after the students complete their tests for Becky’s class and before we start packing up. Anita and I are going to try to fit in another counseling/praying session with a young Muslim girl we ministered to last year who responded well to our efforts.

We went into town and had an enjoyable dinner together. We are pretty spent but it hardly seems possible that we are concluding almost 2 weeks here. I would be good with staying a couple more weeks but there are many opportunities back home too. We got some ice cream after dinner and took a scenic stroll through the crowded streets and made it back to the school around 10pm.

We built many new relationships here this visit. We’ve been surprised at how many people have come up to us and told us how much our previous visit impacted their lives. The people here are so appreciative of our help. It seems that there is so much darkness here that any light leaves a lasting impact.

Traveling in style throughout Bosnia - 9 to a van...

Everyone on the team has been bringing me their digital cameras and letting me download them into a collection on my laptop. So, I now have over a 1,000 photos of this trip. I’ve posted over a hundred of them so far on my website at http://www.johntisdale.com/Support/Bosnia/Bosnia2009Photos/tabid/1030/Default.aspx. It may take some time before I’ve gone through them all, processed them and posted them.

I’m not sure that I’m even going to have time to upload any photos for my blog this evening. We have to start packing tonight. We have a busy schedule tomorrow prior to hitting the road and driving back to Breza to spend the night. We also have a tight flight schedule on Saturday and are praying that we are able to make all our connecting flights with little overlap.

Bosnia Update 7

I have collected over 1,100 photos between the team. Hope to get them all online before long. You can find additional photos on my personal site at http://www.johntisdale.com/Support/Bosnia/Bosnia2009Photos/tabid/1030/Default.aspx.

Our team dining at ABC Pizza in Mostar

Wednesday started out with the usual tasks of breakfast with the students. Becky and some of the team were with the students training and discipling them from 8:30 to 2pm. Some of us walked into the historic district of town. Some of the team shopped for souvenirs. Anita and I aren’t at a place financially where we can afford to buy souvenirs. Anita did find a bead bracelet that was only about $2.50 USD and I suggested she go ahead and buy it. I decided to purchase a hand fan (the closest things to air conditioning here) for the same price. That’s probably all we can afford to spend on ourselves this trip.

So, we mostly sat at an outdoor café near the river and had some cool drinks. One of the restaurants there serves ice in their drinks and so we like to have drinks there. I enjoyed watching all the people walk by of many nationalities and languages. It is a major tourist thoroughfare and so there’s such a variety of people to see.

Scenic Bosnian Countryside

We had some ice cream that only about 70 cents US (the food is cheap here). We walked around the cobblestone walking roads for an hour or more but it was so hot. We returned to the school for lunch at 2pm. We had some spinach, potatoes and fried chicken. It was a good hearty meal. We got more time with David Lively over the meal.

I am long overdue for a haircut and talked to David and others about where they get theirs cut. It only costs about $3.50 here but the barbers don’t speak any English and most of the men get buzz cuts. Anita was a little concerned that they may butcher my hair and then I may have a job interview back in the states in the next couple of weeks and it wouldn’t look good. So, I decided to pass on the opportunity even though my long hair doesn’t fit the hot climate here.

A typical scene in Bosnia

Following lunch I had a counseling/prayer session with one of the students. Ben, who is another certified facilitator join me as the note taker. The session was with someone we ministered to last year. He is a dear man who has been here in Bosnia since the war humbly serving the needs of the local people with such sweet dedication. We developed a good friendship last year and it was great to have the opportunity to help him get emotional healing and greater freedom.

We had a good time of prayer and then the Lord took him back to a time when he was a teenager. He had an experienced with his mom that seemed fairly insignificant. But, it caused him to feel unsafe sharing his heart with her. I asked him lots of questions and we took many of those things to the Lord in prayer and it was really interesting to see how God gradually unfolded some mysteries of his own heart to him. That is, this man didn’t realize how he had closed off part of his heart especially to people in authority over him and kept himself at a safe distance.

One step at a time, the Lord helped him see how we desired more transparency and intimacy in his friendships and relationships but he had been operating out of defensive mechanisms to protect himself most of his life. It was a sweet experience because he kept having little epiphanies where we began to discover more and more about his own heart and how his unseen perceptions influenced his relationships with others.

Sectin of Mostar

I took him through a process of forgiving his mother and repenting of believing some lies about himself and his ways of relating with others. It was a sweet experience watching God bring transformation to him. It is interesting how the Lord speaks and relates differently to each person based on their personality and unique characteristics.

I also have found it to be quite interesting that in all of my counseling/prayer session this trip, not one of them has been related to the war. This told me a great deal about how deep the needs and issues are in this country that most people’s pain goes back to issues before the war. The affects of communism are clear. It’s also apparent how much abuse goes on behind closed doors in homes that are never brought out into the light. People just live with the pain of abuse, neglect and shame without question.

I did some typing on my blog between this session and our worship and prayer training session that started at 6pm today. I downloaded more photos from my camera as well as someone else’s, did some processing on them and then uploaded them to my blog site as well as my personal site.

Part of Sarajevo, Bosnia

This was the third and final day of our worship and praying training session. There was a lot of excitement and anticipation among the people. It was great to see growing numbers each night. Karen and Anita really pushed people past their comfort zones each evening. Most people were reluctant to sing scriptures in front of others. Most didn’t want to pray out loud or sing songs with others listening. But, each person followed the directions anyway and everyone got a lot of breakthrough.

We turned on the sound system here for the first time so that people could get used to hearing their voices amplified. Our team did more demonstrating as the first part of the training. I was on one microphone praying while someone else did the singing. We focused on the prayer and worship on Romans 15:5-7,13. So, I prayed for unity, hope, joy and other key principles found in this passage over the Bosnian people. Everyone participated in the singing portion in their own language. The Lord was clearly present in the experience. We had someone translating all of the English into Bosnian.

After the first 10-15 minute demonstration session, we began substituting our people for theirs. We asked for volunteers in the congregation to come to the microphones. One person prayed on one microphone and another sang on the other (they did so in Bosnian). The Lord was present in power. Every 10 minutes or so we switched people so as many people could participate in front of everyone as possible. It was evident that most had never done anything like it. Many started out hesitantly but soon were caught up in expressing their heart of intercession for the nation and worship of God.

At the end, everyone came up and hugged us, thanked us, gave testimonies of how it brought such freedom, empowerment, transformation, etc. For the church members who came that weren’t a part of the school, they knew they wouldn’t see us again on this trip and so they said their thanks and goodbyes. We were asked many times when we would be returning. We told them that we hopes to return this November but plans hadn’t been finalized yet. After talking it over with Becky, it sounds pretty certain that it is going to happen around that time frame.

Having lunch at Porto pizza in Mostar just down the hill from the Bible school

We debriefed a little with various team members in the student lounge before wrapping it up and preparing for bed. Anita felt my mattress for the first time and realized that mine was closely akin to a stiff board. I discovered that for the past 3 nights she’s been sleeping on a comfortable foam mattress. We’ve both been sleeping on the top bunks of two beds on opposing walls to try to get some air circulation from the opened skylight window. Both of the upper and lower mattresses on her bed were soft foam. Mine were both hard. We measured them and discovered her mattresses were larger than mine and wouldn’t fit. So, we pulled her lower mattress onto the floor and wedged it between our two beds. So, I got to sleep on a comfortable mattress instead of a board.

Bosnia Update 6

One of Countless Cemetaries

We’ve settled into a bit of a routine here in Mostar. Becky and part of the team leads 4 hours of training in the bible school starting at 8:30am. The rest of the team has been praying walking through the city and other activities in the mornings. We get some time with the students here at the bible school over breakfast and lunch. Most of us have counseling and prayer sessions right after lunch. Then, we walk into town for dinner. Then, we come back and most of the team helps lead a two-hour prayer and worship training session. Then, we have some fellowship before showering and heading off to bed.

We continue to meet with people we ministered to last year and hear testimonies of the impact it had on their lives. People talk about being set free, empowered, understanding their identity better and such. A young Muslim woman that Anita and I met with last year and counseled, prayed for and blessed it here. She had had little contact with believers prior to meeting with us last year. It was apparent that she had many layers of self defense. By the time we finished our session last year, her countenance was clearly transformed. As soon as we walked into the sanctuary and she saw us, she lit up and hugged us. It is good to see her connected into the Christian church here now. Her name is Amra and we hope to connect with her some more on Thursday for another counseling session.

One of our favorite evening treats Bosnian ice cream

Some of the team walked into town yesterday with Sabrina Lively to get a tour and background to the city. I had already been last year and decided to stay behind and rest. Anita joined them. They returned soaking wet and exhausted from walking in the heat and sun.

After lunch I had a counseling/prayer session with a young Muslim man from a small town in the area who has come to Christ. It was a difficult session because he had so many severe issues. He brought 4-5 significant issues up that clearly needed addressing. I spent 2 and half hours in the session dealing with one of them. He had so much guilt and shame on him. He had no peace or rest but was under constant turmoil. Anita was supposed to be the note taker for the session but she wanted to go with some of the other women and both of us felt peaceful about her not coming. David Lively translated for me and I did without a note taker for this session. It ended up being a good thing because he had a lot of issues that were gender sensitive.

He was a talker and spent the first hour confessing his struggles and sins. It was good for him and at the end of the session said that he had never before shared those things with anyone before. So, it was good that he got it all off his chest. He is the only Christian youth in his small town and so he doesn’t have much fellowship with anyone his age. Instead, he hangs out with non-believers who live broken lives of sin. So, he has difficulty finding people to talk transparently about his issues.

In his struggles between Islam and Christianity, he burned a bible and some Christian literature he had been given at one point in his life and after coming to Christ had a lot of guilt over having done so. We talked through some issues of struggle and guilt. Of them, one of them seemed to have a lot of emotion attached to it for him and so after the initial dialogue, I settled in on this issue from when he was a teenager.

Our friend Karen dining near the famous Mostar bridge

His father was an abusive alcoholic and beat his family members. During one episode of drunken violence, in order to protect his mother, he started hitting his father back to fend him off. There was a lot of violence involved in the episode. He carried a lot of guilt for having hit his father. His mother has since died and he lives alone with his father now. We walked through him forgiving his father and forgiving himself (even though he had done a necessary thing to protect his mother). We worked through many layers of shame and guilt. After praying through it and revisiting the memory several times to ask the Lord to bring redemption and restoration to many aspects of it, I asked him one last time to return to the memory to see if there was still any pain associated with it and he said there was none there now.

Anything that happens inside a home that is painful or shameful isn’t mentioned outside of the home. There is so much covering up to save face that the people here operate out of so much brokenness. This man, like most I’ve encountered here operate out of self-centered Christianity. Everything comes down to their abilities and their own strength (which is pretty common in the western church too). He carried the weight of his flaws and failures on his own shoulders. When he found himself not measuring up, he had to try harder. Naturally there is no life, peace, rest or freedom in this way of life.

I tried to help him make a shift of taking his brokenness to the cross and allow Jesus to exchange the shame for healing and restoration. I tried to help him stop reacting to this shame and guilt out of his own strength and wisdom. Instead of him reacting to the shame with shifting blame and balancing his own scales, he could turn to the Lord and receive his identity in the completed redemptive work of Jesus on the cross. It’s all about living as a son instead of a slave. It’s a shift from productivity to intimate relationship.

Many believers struggle with the same issues in the states but the culture here reinforces covering up, shifting blame and hiding. Shame is the means of motivation throughout the culture and educational systems here. Even when someone does well, they are shamed and never praised or encouraged out of fear that they will become prideful and stop growing. So, even the top student in the class will be shamed in hoped that they will try harder. But, the shame-based systems don’t work at all. The people here are clear evidence to that fact.

View outside a window at the bible school here in Mostar

At the end of the session I asked this young man whether he had any questions. He asked some questions about how to respond to certain cultural situations. I turned it over to David to answer them as I knew he would understand the issues better. I encourage the man to use the processes and tools I had used to continue the healing process. We are training up many of the pastors and leaders here in Bosnia with his system in hope that the healing process can continue while we are out of the country.

This young man stopped me on a couple of occasions and with the help of a translator asked me to pray for him about other issues he was facing. I asked him if he was comfortable with me asking other members of our time to join me including women and after discussing how he can share his needs without getting into details, he agreed. So, I’ve scheduled a time where several members of our will be praying for him with me. We need to speak a lot of truth to him to help him shift out of broken ways of thinking and living.

One of countless mosques here in Bosnia

Some of the team went and picked up pizzas and bread and we ate together in one of the downstairs rooms in the school. Afterwards, we had another very good session training the leaders here on how to combine prayer and worship. We broke into small groups and each took turns singing psalms, praying for one another and such. Anita and Karen did all of the organizing and planning. They did an awesome job and helping them take baby steps forward in a systematic manner. By the end of the second day, the people were praying out loud, reading scripture passages and singing in front of others (and then combining them together in sequences). Most of them thought they could never do that at the beginning of the first day.

Change and progress is slow here because tradition is followed closely and people don’t like to take initiative. But, they were very encouraged with the results and the progress they made. The people have shown so much appreciation and thanks for our efforts. They’ve all asked us to come back. The pastor of the church here in Mostar told us that he was surprised how many people showed up for our worship and prayer training. The numbers grew each night which is unusual for the people in his church. We also had many of the leaders from the school here join us.

Serejavo Bosnia

The Lord has been doing a work of transformation in my own heart too. He’s been helping me understand His heart for redemption and restoration of all people. I’ve been using the same process and principles I use on others on myself. I slept in one morning this week and the Lord ministered healing to an area where I had shame from childhood. He is so gentle and kind in how He gives us breathing room and yet persistent to continue moving us toward greater freedom and healing.

Anita and I are at a key strategic point. When we return to the states, I’m going to shift my focus to finding work. I’m interested in taking a job in my areas of expertise. I’m still open to taking contract work and have a couple of options I want to pursue. I feel torn because there is a part of me that would like to do ministry fulltime. We’ve discussed the possibility of moving here to Bosnia for an extended period of time. If I didn’t have debt from a failed business 7 years ago, it would be an easier decision. I may get a job that would allow me pay off the remainder of that debt over the next of years and then more options would open up to us.

Our friend Bobbi

I’ve come to realize more clearly that I have a compassionate heart to see people get healing and become the people God created them to be. This region of the world is so much in need of healing and restoration. Naturally the West is too but the people aren’t as desperate for it as they are here. So, we tend to see more fruit from our investment here. I’m trying to listen to what the Lord is saying about all of this. My natural mind says that my only option is to get a job in the US and stay focused on retiring the remainder of our debt. But, I have to consider that the Lord is capable of doing what otherwise seems impossible. So, I want to leave plenty of room for Him to say to do something different than what I think is the only solution.

Bosnia Update 5

Church Service on Sunday Morning in Breza

Some of the locals are reporting that it’s the hottest it’s been this time of year in 20 years or so. We are feeling it. Sunday morning we held the worship service at Breza and the church was packed wall-to-wall (more than I’ve ever seen there before). The Roma group has grown. The men coming from Door of Hope is larger. The dentist and his team were there and others they’ve been reaching. Miladen, Anita and Bobo led the worship and Becky brought the message.

I shot video of the service but my laptop is so old that it doesn’t have enough memory or hard drive space to work with video (besides being slow, big, heavy). So, I will have to wait until I get back to the states to do anything else with the video. I’ve deleted practically everything on my hard drive just to fit the photos we are taking.

Restaurant in Breza

Following the service, we spent time saying our goodbyes to most of the people in Breza. Although we will be back through to spend the night on Friday, we probably won’t see most of the people there. We packed up our belongings and hit the road by early afternoon. There are a multi-vehicle wreck that blocked traffic in and out of Breza. So, we had to take mountain backroads to get out of town. It added almost an hour to our normally 3 hour drive to Mostar. The drive through the mountains was beautiful as always. There are large mountains and rivers of fluorescent green water from the natural minerals in the water.

There are bombed out buildings all along the way. The Serbians bombed out many of the homes and buildings and had snipers in the mountains to prevent people from fleeing for safety. Many of them haven’t been touched since. It is reported that there are still an estimated half million unexploded land mines in the country and so one doesn’t venture out into the woods or mountains. So, we enjoy the scenery from afar.

Bosnian Pyramid

We stopped at a restaurant along the way and Anita and I shared a plate of lamb. They roast it whole on a skewer prominently. It was good. The bathrooms where were the squatter variety (eastern – most are of the European flavor but a small percentage follow the eastern traditions as Bosnia is the dividing line between east and Europe you get a little flavor of both). Some of the ladies had a hard time figuring out how to use them and so it was an educational experience for them.

We arrived in Mostar in late afternoon. We stopped by David and Sabrina Lively’s house on the outskirts of town. They oversee the evangelical school in Mostar. David has been here representing Christ since the war (he did humanitarian relief work during the war and never left). He is one of the key leaders in the Christian church here in Bosnia. We enjoyed some tea and desert over conversation. We mapped out the details of our schedule for the week here. It’s a busy week with our team divided up doing many different things throughout the week. I have difficulty keeping it all straight so I just go where I’m told to go and do what I’m told to do and it works out pretty well.

Thanks from Bosnian Leaders

We arrived at the the evangelical training school before dark. The entryway to the school looks like anything but a Christian school from the outside (except for a small sign – more like a prison entry with barbed wire and such). Mostar is actually in Herzegovina instead of Bosnia proper (it’s called Bosnia and Herzegovina because it’s composed to two primary segments that all fall under the same nation but they have separate governments too). The school building was bombed out during the war but has been completely rebuilt beautifully over the past 13 years. It’s basically a 4-story building with different rooms on each half floor.

Our dorm room is on the top floor. So, when we have to go to our room, it is a long climb up stairs in the heat and humidity. If you take a shower and walk up the stairs from bottom to top you pretty much need another shower by the time you get to the top. The humidity feels like Houston but without air conditioning or fans, there’s no escape from the heat and humidity.

Church Service

Our room has one window that is a skylight to the roof and so it provides practically no breeze or air circulation. So, we lie in our individual bunk beds at night and try to breathe the thick air and fall asleep. I have difficulty sleeping in the heat and so I’ve been going downstairs into the student lounge on the bottom floor where there’s air conditioning in the small room. I put 2 chairs together and sleep some there until it cools down enough in the middle of the night to sleep on the top floor. It’s the only way I’ve gotten any sleep here.

On Monday morning some of our team helped Becky teaching a class to 18 students in the school. They had four hours of teaching. We had counseling/prayer sessions scheduled on Monday morning with the students but they had to make some changes due to other class schedules.

Mostar

I had lunch with David Lively. We spent a couple of hours discussing the complexities of the problems facing the evangelical church here in Bosnia. He understands the issues better than just about anyone as he’s been here since the beginning. I discussed my interest in doing more here but as I’ve come to understand the multi-dimensional issues facing the young Christian church here, I’ve struggled to know even what questions to ask.

He confirmed a lot of my thoughts and helped fill in some gaps. Most of the believers in Bosnia are first-generation. Few Christians in the country can say their parents are believers. So, most have families that are Muslim, Serb or Croat. Most face persecution for their faith. There are only 12 small evangelical churches in the country. Most of the pastors here are in their 20’s. So, the training school has a lot of work on their hands to train them up and equip them adequately. There was a lot of growth in the Christian church during the war and in the years that followed in the aftermath. But, as the country stabilized, most of the middle and upper class people returned to their former roots because they weren’t as desperate as during the times of war.

Us

So, most of the Christians are young and come from fringe elements of society (poor, jobless, Gypsies, substance abuse, etc.) where they are already considered social outcasts. So, switching to the Christian faith isn’t as big of a deal because they are used to persecution. The Christian church here is considered a sect by the Muslims, Croats and Serbs. So, anyone who becomes a Christian is considered a outside the realms of social standing. But, some people are making strides in changing this perception – but progress is very slow.

David is trying to build relations with Croat leaders. As he’s attended some of the Catholic services here, he feels that the gospel is being taught in some segments and wants to build bridges. They have made some progress but there have also been setbacks. Ministering to the Muslims is more of a challenge. When the Serbs brought in their army from Serbia to begin overtaking regions of the country, the Muslims and Croats banned together at the beginning of the war to defend their homes and country.

Remi and Dejana our good friends and drivers to Mostar

But, the Croats eventually began to fear that the Muslims would turn on them and so they turned their guns on the Muslims at one of their meetings. Then, the Croats drove the Muslims out of their region into camps at gunpoint – killing many in the process. Then, it erupted into a 3-way war. We heard one story of a Muslim who was trying to understand the meaning of the cross. The Croats erected a huge cross on their side of city here in Mostar on the hillside. The Muslim who was trying to understand what the cross symbolized said that what the meant to him is the place where the Croats snipers were stationed atop the hill to shoot at their children. This makes it difficult to clearly communicate the teachings, principles and person of Jesus when the barriers are so significant.

Part of Mostar

We held the first in a series of worship services on Monday evening. Anita and Karen led out. We trained the Bosnians how to sing the Psalms and several other principles described in scripture. We had a lot of breakthrough. Many of the people testified at the end that they couldn’t wait until they get back to their churches to practice what they learned (all the Christian leaders come to the school here in Mostar to be trained and then take what they learn back to their churches).

Us on the drive to Mostar

Most of the worship was in Bosnian. Anita played the piano and the pastor of the church here in Mostar (Delibore) played the guitar and translated. We had a time of praying for the healing of the nation, for the salvation of family members and such. Interesting enough, the next night when the group returned (in larger numbers), the pastor testified one of his family members called this morning and said he wanted to be baptized! He had no clue of this prior to this prayer and worship service where we collectively prayed for the salvation of family members.

Dinner in Mostar

We didn’t finish up until after midnight. I have to stay up even later in order to update the blog and photos. So, it’s often 1am at the end of a very long day while everyone else is sleeping that I’m here typing this so I hope it is readable. Most of our photos are during leisure times because we have time to take photos. We’re typically too busy during ministry times to take photos. So, the photos tend to look more like a vacation than it actually is. And, during the counseling sessions, we want to be sensitive to the privacy of those to whom we are ministering.

Scene from the School in Mostar

Croat side of Mostar

Mosque on Muslim side of Mostar

Natural green water in the river that separates the Muslim and Croats sides of Mostar

Bosnia Update 4

Counseling Sessions

Saturday proved to be an exhausting but impactful day. We drove early in the morning from Breza to Zenica. The weather here has been unusually hot. Few vehicles or buildings have air conditioning. And, there’s a lot of superstition about breezes. So, most Bosnians do not put their windows down in their vehicles or homes even when it is an oven inside. The building where we met had no air conditioning, fans or air movement. So, it was in the 90′s inside and we worked there for the better part of 14 hours in some very emotionally intense situations. The humidity has been so thick it must have been close to 100 percent. We road in Miladen’s car and had some interesting conversations with him. He suggested that I consider taking a job in Sarajevo and shared some thoughts about it.

Loading the Romas for Transportation

There was a large group of people gathered around the building where we were holding our counseling/prayer sessions. It was immediately apparent that there were more people signed up for sessions with us than we had planned for. Anita was the note taker in my first session. It was a challenging one. He had some issues that are deeply ingrained in the Bosnian culture. The more we work here the more we are coming to understand the complexity of underlying issues in the culture. Bosnia is the junction point between Europe and Asia. The Turkish influence from the 15th century is still clear. Tito’s decisions from the 1980′s continues to play a key role. It’s also apparent that the affects of communism still linger deeply entrenched in the way people think. The affects from the war continue to impact people. The mix between the Muslims (Islam), Croats (Catholics) and Serbs (Orthodox) makes for some interesting dynamics.

The man in our first counseling/prayer session struck up a good friendship with us during the 2-hour session. By the time we finished, he wanted us to go to lunch with him and his wife. They joined our crowd. I decided to have the traditional cevapi (sausages in pita bread) – it weighs heavy on the stomach but is good. Anita and Karen shared some green peppers stuffed with rice and beef. We had some good coffee (very thick strong Turkish-based coffee). Once we started going to the grocery store, many of our favorite Bosnian foods came back to mind. We had some really interesting conversations over lunch. We came to discover that he, Mario, knew our friend Candy Warner when she was here in Bosnia for a few years (sent from our church many years ago). Zenica is an interesting city. They have a large steel mill that used to employ 35,000 people but is now down to around 1,500. This is one of the few cities that during the war, the Muslim and Croats fought together to defend their city and fight off the Serbian aggressors.

After lunch, I had another session. Anita went to a ministry headquartered in Zenica and prayed with the leadership with several other women. Suzie from our team was the note taker. The man I was counseling/praying for was a big burly man with cheap tattoos covering his body. He had some significant issues at home with a paralyzed child and an unbelieving spouse. Mario from my first session was the translator for me in this session. It was an incredible experience. He had so much shame on him and so much anger. I systematically helped him work through his anger issues, his questions about God and his daughter as well as his wife. I lead him in prayers to forgive his wife and others involved. I asked the Lord to show him a picture of how He sees his wife and he reported seeing an image of Jesus standing their grieved over her anger and the shame she heaped on her husband for being a believer. After he forgave her, forgave himself and others involved in difficult situations, his countenance was clearly changed. He reported feeling peace, pure and he used the word reborn. It wasn’t clear whether he was saved in the experience or not. By the time I finished up the session it was clear that his view of himself, God, his daughter and his wife were clearly transformed. It was one of those textbook sessions where all the signs of transformation where clearly and distinctly met. He talked about being able to see his wife through different eyes and respond to her out of compassion instead of anger.

Teams after sessions

After this session, we went to dinner. We had an enjoyable time and met lots of local Christian Bosnians. We developed friendships with a couple who lives in Zenica and they asked us to stay with them during future visits to their city. One of our older friends who runs the Dorcus office in Sanski Most was there. She and Anita spent a lot of time catching up. She, Viki, discussed the possibility of my coming to Bosnia to work for Dorcus as they are growing and in need of my skillset. We talked about it a little further. Mario and I spent some time together while Anita and the women chatted at length. There were lots of people smoking around us and the sun was beating down on us. By the time we got back for our next session, I was feeling nauseous. I had to sit down for a while and drink some cold water. I think I was dehydrated from the heat and overheated.

Even more people had signed up for sessions and now instead of each of our team needing to do 3 sessions, we needed to do at least 4 to meet all the needs. We decided to move my session outside in front of the building where there was a breeze and I could cool down. Anita joined me for this session. We did this session right near a very loud busy street with lots of people walking by. But, it went really well. It was with a young Muslim man (early 20′s) who had come to Christ. He was a really nice guy. He fairly good English and so I didn’t have to use a translator for this session and so it went much faster than the others. It was very enjoyable to get to know him. After opening our session in prayer, I asked him to share what had brought him there. It didn’t take too long before he got to the point. Five years earlier he was driving a car and had an accident and his girlfriend who was in the car with him was killed. After asking a lot of questions and praying with him, it was apparent that he shielded himself others and lived out of a guilt-base paradigm. His whole life was all about trying to prove himself to others.

Us in Zenica

I eventually got him to a place of realizing that he had never forgiven himself for what had happened. I kept bringing him back to a memory he had in the hospital of where he first discovered the love of his life had died. We came to realize that he began believing a lie at that point that he would loose anyone he loved and so it was safest to not let anyone get too close to him. I asked him if he had a friend who had had the same thing happen to him and he couldn’t forgive himself for what had happened what he would say to that friend. He said that he would tell him to forgive himself and move on with his life. I asked him if he was willing to verbally forgave himself. He tried twice but never got the words out and was clearly experiencing pain in the effort. I used an illustration that when we get a splinter under our skin, it is painful but if we don’t get it out it grows more and more sensitive to touch. We tend to not want to touch it to get the splinter out but if we leave it the pain only increases. Most people are willing to live with emotional pain rather than allow God to dig into it, remove it and bring permanent healing. So, he said he was willing to experience pain in order to get permanent healing from this experience.

Finally, he was able to use his own name and tell himself that he forgave himself for the accident and his girlfriend’s death (even though it was an accident, he still needed to forgive himself in order to be okay with himself and let it go). He wept through the experience and then he stood up and said that an enormous weight had been lifted off of him. Even though the session wasn’t over, he kept thanking us and praising God. The rest of the session went really well. By the time we were done, he couldn’t stop talking and thanking. It was clear that many of the coping mechanisms he had been operating out of shifted and he could really allow the blood of Jesus to cover him and release him from guilt and shame.

Counseling/Prayer Session

It was getting late and I needed to do another session. We had another man lined up and waiting for me next. But, one of the local women in the church came along and mistakenly brought an elderly woman for us to meet with next. We prefer to stay with the same gender and so I was scheduled to meet with a middle-aged man. But, we also had to deal with the cultural norms that you don’t ask an elderly person to wait and take a younger person first. So, after getting some advice in the situation, I decided to meet with her. The young man from our previous session volunteered to do the translating for us. We moved inside where it was less noisy. This woman was really funny. I hit on several key issues from her past from the loss of her father at an early age to physical abuse from her mother and a miscarriage, among other issues. It proved to be a challenging session because when I tried to communicate the biblical principles of Jesus in the session, it was apparent that she had many cultural beliefs that got in her way. We worked through a lot of issues and after some time it was apparent that we weren’t going to get very far in terms of her understanding some biblical principles. Becky came along and ask all the teams to try to finish up fairly soon. So, I shifted our direction to speaking blessings over her and praying for some key issues in her life. Anita had our translator read a passage out of Isaiah 54 to her in Bosnia. She said some things about how it was an answer to her prayers.

We ended up doing about 24 sessions in the day. We were all spent by the time we left. There were a lot of praise reports. At least 2 people got saved in sessions and a few more of us had encounters that caused us to believe others may have gotten saved too. The pastor and his wife told us that they felt that it was the biggest transformation their church had ever experienced and that it helped them really move forward. It was hard saying goodbyes as we had such powerful experiences and had developed such close friendships in the past few days of encouraging, teaching and empowers their leadership and membership.

Saturday Counseling/Prayer Sessions Finishing Up

We were all spent by the time we drove off. We stopped to get some pitas to eat on the drive back and Becky and I went in and bought a few groceries to take back to Breza. We took turns sharing stories of breakthrough on the drive back. Some amazing things happened in people’s lives throughout the day. We got home really late and had to get up early the next morning to lead the church service at the church where we were staying in Breza.

Bosnia Update 3

Praying for Dado

We awoke on Friday morning to a different pace downstairs in the church. Instead of our small kitchen being a kitchen, it was transformed into a dentist office. A couple of Brazil along with an assistant from Asia are doing a fulltime permanent ministry here in Bosnia where they provide free dental services to residence. It was good to meet this group of dedicated believers. They were downstairs working all day. We shifted our kitchen into the sanctuary. Many of our old Roma (gypsy) friends came by the church and stayed for much of the day. It was good to spend some time with them. Bobo came by today and Remi too.

Us Surveying the Land

We went up the hill and spent time touring a Christian ministry called Door of Hope that helps drug addicts with recovery. We’ve ministered to many of the men from the facility at church services in the past. We met the men currently in the program. The director of the facility, Dado, discussed their program and we asked lots of questions. Then, we spent a lot of time praying for him. Afterwards, he took us on a tour of the facility. They have 3 gardens, cows, chickens, etc. They hope to expand because the demand for their services far exceeds their capacity and resources. There’s been as high as 90% unemployment among men in Bosnia and that has led to lots of substance abuse. Dado was a kindred spirit and instant friend.

Touring the Farm

Afterwards, we stopped by Miladen’s (the pastor of the church where we are staying) apartment and spent time visiting with his family. Our friend Vicki from Sanski Most was there. Miladen and his wife Vicky (another Vicky) had a child with a severe disability that requires constant attention. He prayed for him as we’ve done before. They had a new baby since we were here last March. He is normal and so cute. We ordered pizzas and enjoyed lots of fun conversation.

Miladen's Apartment

We walked back to the church and enjoyed some downtime prior to most of the team heading back to Zenica for another church service and training session. We didn’t have enough transportation for the whole team and so some of us stayed back and worked on logistics such as laundry, dishes and communication back home. The service went really well and the response was overwhelming. One young person received Christ at the end of the service.

Miladen's Family

Some of our team ministered to one of the Roma family who needed some prayer and counseling. Getting showers in the evenings and mornings is challenging with 10 team members and one bathroom. But we manage the process well enough.

Bosnia Update 2

In Our Room

We didn’t really get to sleep Tuesday because we were traveling all day and night (some of us caught some zzz’s on airport chairs and planes but it didn’t add up to much). It was great getting reacquainted with all our Bosnian friends. I got out my Bosnia language book on the plane and started getting familiar with common words and phrases. I had forgotten so much in the year since we were here last. We didn’t get to sleep until after 2am after getting unpacked. Then, someone’s alarm went off at 6am in a room next to ours and it took a while to get back to sleep. We got up fairly early and Anita, I went into town and bought some groceries at a small Muslim store and then walked across the street and bought an assortment of breads and bakery goods at the Pekera. We still had 24 marks in local currency from our last trip that allowed us to buy breakfast for the team before the bank opened where we could exchange currency.

Apartment Complex

We had a fairly relaxing first half of our day as we settled in. Most of our team on this trip had never been to Bosnia. So, we spent a lot of time helping them understand how to make life work here in the customs of this culture. We trained them on how the practical aspects. We went into town in the early afternoon and everyone exchanged currency. We had lunch at a favorite spot that serves good pizza. We went grocery shopping and got stocked up for our week long stay in Breza (before moving on to Mostar for the next week). There were about 10 people in the line at the small grocery store and many of the locals were talking and laughing. We suspected they were talking about us and laughing. One of the clerks there recognized Anita and I from previous visits and greeted us in English. My Bosnian was rusty enough that I couldn’t understand much of what was said.

The Zenica Church

In the evening we went to Zenich – about an hour away from where we are staying in Breza. This is the first time we’ve ministered in this town. We knew of it because the pastors there are the oldest Christian pastors in the country. We are good friends with their daughter and son-in-law who pastor a church in Sanski Most where we’ve stayed and ministered before. The church was in a large apartment complex. We found about 40 believers all waiting on us when we arrived. We brought along the keyboard from the church here in Breza for Anita to play for worship. Anita had no time to practice or prepare. They didn’t have an overhead projector as they do in most churches here in Bosnia. And, Anita didn’t have the words for the songs that were chosen. So, it was challenging for her to play and sing in Bosnian. The two worship song we did was familiar to us and we quickly picked it back up.

The church in Zenica

They didn’t have air conditioning in the church. It was hot and humid outside and the small room was packed full of people. So, it had to be over 90 degrees inside and the air was thick. The worship was good. I could tell Anita was struggling. She later told me that she had no sheet music or anything to go on and so they had to watch which chords the guitar player was playing and follow along. It was challenging. Our team leader, Becky Castle, brought the message. It was awesome as usual. Several of our team members gave testimonies. We prayed over several of the people afterwards. It was an enjoyable experience. Most of us lost a few pounds from the sauna experience. The believers were clearly encouraged by our presence and our words and expressed much appreciation.

Church in Zenica

Bosnia Update 1

Our plane from London to Munich

The trip to Bosnia was pretty exhausting but overall enjoyable. We drove from our home in Arlington, TX to Houston with our good friend Bobbi Geery following us (she stayed us for a couple of days prior to joining us for the trip to Bosnia). We flew a 777 from Houston to London. The entertainment options were great and so we all watched some movies and television shows (most everyone watched different selections). We had 5 hours to kill at Hethrow. So, we took turns guarding luggage while groups ate, got beverages, took naps, etc. We took a 737 between London and Munich. The 3 hour layover in Munich seemed to last longer than the one in London for most  of our 10-member team. I slept on the chairs for most of the 3 hours. The last leg went quickly enough. We arrived in Serajevo around 10pm. The total travel time was close to 30 hours.  Miladen greeted us along with Elvis and Amid. It was pretty challenging fitting 13 people into a small van and a compact car including all our laggage (which included 6 bags and tubs we brought along for David and Sabrina Lively). But, we managed to make it work – with some of us carrying luggage in our laps and people 4 wide in the van benches.

The Van Ride