Speaking of someone with a soul from God, this first picture was taken with my little friend Sinajd (SIN-aeed). He is a 10 year old resident of Maglaj who was just kind of hanging around the soup kitchen we visited there. We exchanged some high fives and some fist bumps, and then I tried my best to use my limited Bosnian language skills to talk soccer with the little guy. Apparently his favorite player is Messi, but he loves his native Bosnia Herzegovina national team :) He proceeded to follow us around the rest of the morning.
Dzevad, our guide, was giving him a hard time about his nails being dirty. That might seem a littl harsh, but people here are very direct. Amy says that they will comment that you seem to be carrying a little extra weight since the last time they saw you, and Dzevad has said that he doesn't think twice about telling a men he needs to reapply some deoderant (which, truthfully, has been an issue with some of the guys we've met). So Dzevad teases him about this and said, "Why doesn't your mother take car of those dirty nails" He went on to say he had no mother, and that his father didn't do that kind of stuff.
So he runs errands for the soup kitchen and gets dirty in the process. Even a 10 year old without a mother, a boy who lives in poverty in a war town country, finds a way to serve and to be useful to God.
We learned from Atif, the director of the Merhamet branch in Maglaj, that with the help of the Week of Compassion, they have been able to construct 12 greenhouses in a nearby rural vilages in which they can produce many of the vegetables and wheat that they use in the soup kitchens. He went on and on about these soup kitchens, and was obviously very proud of the progress they've made, especially in the last year, to become self sufficient and to reduce their costs as they feed the poor in Maglaj. So we loaded back up in the van and took a road trip to see these greenhouses.
What we saw was unbelievable. In two years, 12 greenhouses had been constructed with beans, peppers, tomatoes, and beets. But the story of how this got started is realy incredible...
1.) Disciples of Christ church members who happen to be farmers committ to tithe their crops to the Week of Compassion. That's it - they harvest their crop and donate 10% to Week of Compassion. Amy said that WoC gave $24,000 worth of grants to incentivize the project and to make matching grants.
2.) Week of Compassion gives it to the Foods Resource Bank, and international non-government organization. As more and more food is given to the Week of Compassion Account, the Foods Resource Bank increases the "credit" we have with them. After a two year campaign, WoC raised $262,000 worth of credit with FRB.
3.) So for you accountants out there, the brass tax is this: WoC makes a $24,000 investment and leverage their total up to $262,000. Find me another investment that can bring those kinds of returns! What an incredible illustration for God's ability to use small seeds to develop immense plants.
4.) That $262,000 has been divided up between WoC projects in Latin America, and this particular project in Bosnia. So WoC chose to spend $50,000 to give to Church World Service, who in turn used it to fund Merhamet in Bosnia. And with that $50,000, seven of these twelve greenhouses were built (with help from other donors as well).
5.) Now, Merhamet has taken the first steps to growing its own food that it, then in turn, gives to its local soup kitchens. In just a few short steps, our tithing in the United States gets compounded by over 500% and goes directly to people in need, feeding the "least of these" in Bosnia.
It's beautiful to be at that end of the process. We see Week of Compassion come every year and we see their collections throughout the year, but getting to see how little donations can be given into God's hands to be compounded several times over and then go to do God's work in this world is realy amazing. And Week of Compassion allows for us to play a part in that.
I got a little taste of the action too - here I am munching down on a tasty green pepper, freshly picked from the greenhouse 2 minutes early. Not even Whole Foods can get that organic!
On the road to the greenhouses, we noticed some Bosnian Army personnell working to demine an elderly woman's home. Yellow and white tape marking old mine fields from the war are spotted all along the road in Bosnia / Herzegovina even today. We stopped for a while to talk to these brave men who are working to make their land safe, literally, again. When asked why they chose this profession, they said - "It pays well, and there are just no other jobs." When we asked what "good pay" is, they said about 40 Euro a day, or about $60/day.
We've been told that unemployment in Bosnia is at about 45%, and Dzevad thinks the real number is closer to 60%. In Canton 10, where we visited on Tuesday, we saw statistics showing 92% unemployment. And the root cause, we are told, is that all the factories were simply destroyed. A people that had 100% employment before 1992 now see 1 in every 2 people who are willing to work without work. And these men risk their lives every day for $60.
We had dinner that evening with Atif, the director of Merhamet in Maglaj. We ate at a restaurant on the River Bosnia, from which the rest of the country gets its name. After ordering, we were presented with a performance from one of the dance troupes that Merhamet sponsors and teaches. The youth were between 14-21 years old, and performed two dances - one was the Croatian national dance, and the other was a Muslim dance.
After dinner, Atif gave an impassioned speech (translated by Amy) about how important it is for us as religious leaders to build these connections internationally. He was immensely grateful for the Week of Compassion, and it's approach to development. He said that many people and organizations came to him and said, "Here's a lot of money, and this is what we want you to do with it." But with WoC it was a different ball game. The Disciples came in and asked "What are your needs?" Once that was determined, we sought out our own resources (the farmers, donors, and those crop-tithes) and did everything we could to meet the needs expressed by Atif. He was immensely grateful for this! And he was so happy to show us his land and culture, and begged us to carry on the story of his organization and the good work they're doing in Bosnia back to our home churches, so this relationship can continue, and the gifts given to God can continue to multiply, and bear much fruit.
Thus far, the images of the tunnel stirke me more than any other. I don't know why, except that sometimes life seems to ride on such small devices.
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