Hope 87 and the Sarajevo Tunnel

Back in the capital city of Sarajevo, our group continued our tour of the humanitarian organizations in Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH) with whom Week of Compassion works. We woke up a little earlier in the morning to get to Hope 87, an Austrian organization that works with landmine victims and amputees to 1.) get them the medical attention they need, 2.) offer them every opportunity for physical therapy, and 3.) work as the intermediary between amputees and employers to help them find meaningful and sustaining work.

Week of Compassion has been funding this organization since we began working in BiH in the mid-late nineties. One item in particular that we funded was this automatic wood engraver. It uses a laser to burn a sketch into a piece of wood, and the employees at Hope 87 can use it to make keychains, plaques, and other items that they can then, in turn, sell for a living. Amy says that she has often ordered large loads of their products for General Assembly or Week of Compassion events.

Here is our group checking out the automatic wood engraver. Samir is giving us the tour - I'll say more about him later.

A couple things were really striking about this organization. First, I was really impressed to know that they started working in Sarajevo in 1992. That is the year the whole conflict started, and Sarajevo literally blew up. So when the whole world was running away from Sarajevo - as embassies were being cleared out and many fled to safer ground, this organization ran INTO Sarajevo to be a healing and loving presence for the victims of landmine attacks. I can't think of a better Christian witness that putting one's own life and well-being at risk to help save another's life.

The other moment that got to me was when we spoke with one of the employees, Samir. He is a young man maybe in his early thirties, and suffered a terrible injury during the fighting in Sarajevo. Samir walked with a strange gait, and even though he had long jeans on that covered up his prosthetic leg, it was clear from his movement that he was an amputee. He said he was 17 at the time. Seventeen years old. He had volunteered for the Bosnian Army when he realized that the Serbs had surrounded his hometown and were crashing shells down on his neighborhood daily. One day, a Serb shell landed nearby him, and killed many around him. He was immediately taken to an Army Barracks Hospital, and he said that two times in the next 24 hours, he was pronounced dead.

Since he was a minor, he needed permission to get the amputation that he obviously needed. The problem was that his mother was stuck in Sarajevo and was unreachable at the time. His father was out on the front lines, and he couldn't be contacted either. So this brave, seventeen year old boy was forced to make this decision on his own, and sign his own leg away.

What a terrible ordeal for a seventeen year old to have to go through, and what a terrible decision to have to make. With his parents far away, the whole onus and weight of this fell on him.

As I heard Samir tell this story, my mind was totally drawn to that age - 17. I thought of the youth/young adults at our church. I thought of the Denham Boys who just graduated high school last year and moved into adulthood at 18. I thought about how invincible you feel at 17, and how your primary concerns usually revolve around appearing attractive to the opposite sex. I was overcome with just how completely depressing it must have been to know that a part of you was literally going to be missing for the rest of your life. Samir even said he was an athlete before the war at his high school, and one of the hardest realizations he had to come to was that he could not go out and play soccer like he always had. No one should have to deal with this, but especially not seventeen year olds.

Despite the tragic event, Samir has become quite successful and is a story of pure hope. He became involved with Hope 87 as a beneficiary. He went through all the PT necessary, they had a prosthesis (sp?) prepared for him, and they gave him training in information technology and videographic production. Then, after working for a few years, he has come back to Hope 87 to manage their IT department and help give back to the organization that helped give him his life back. He held his head high as he showed us around the office space, and he proudly gave us a plaque that he made on the automatic wood engraver thanking the Week of Compassion for all that we have done for this organization that means the world to him.

I came to Bonsia to hear stories of hope from people who have suffered unimaginably, and Samir's story is exactly that. He has taken the hand life has dealt him, and he has defied all the suffering and all the legitimate reasons to fall into depression, and instead, he stands tall and proudly serves other amputees.

Later that afternoon we went to the Sarajevo Tunnel. This was a tunnel, 800 meters long that was used by the Bosnian Army to supply the city with food, ammunition, medical supplies, etc during the Siege of Sarajevo from 1992-1995.

The tunnel led into the city from the Southeast corner, near the airport. It was the only lifeline the city had for 4 years. Amazingly, the Bosnian Army was able to keep the Serbs from claiming the strip of land around the airport and the tunnel.

This gives you some idea as to how cramped up this space was. This is Dzevad in front of me, and he's about 5'11" or so. Imagine men carrying 100 lbs of supplies and walking through this wet, mucky tunnel for somewhere between 45 minutes to 2 hours.

In the museum next door, they showed us some of the war time food packets. If you look closely here, you'll see a small bottle of Tobasco Sauce on the right side of the box. Much like us in Louisiana, the Bosnians found a way to keep the flavor flowing even during war time.

We visited the Old Jewish Cemetary, which is representative of the large Jewish population this city once boasted. During the Spanish Inquisition, many Spanish Jews (Sephardim) fled the Catholic Church and landed in Bosnia, where they were welcomed with open arms. Unfortunately, only about 200 Jews remain in the city - many left or were killed during WWII. But this cemetary stands as a reminder of the strong Jewish footprint on this city, and it also speaks to the level of tolerance for which Sarajevo stands.


So enough heady stuff. What else is the group doing while we're here? Well, we are definitely getting a lovely taste of Bosnian cuisine. Last night we all met up with Pepi, Amy's good friend and the director of the choir Pontanima (an interfaith choir here in Sarajevo). Here, we had our first taste of a local delicacy, roasted lamb. Here is our lamb a 'roasting on the spit!

I tried to start up a little conversation with the lamb roaster himself, who knew a little English. He said it takes about 2 and a half hours to cook one of these guys, and when I asked about spices or herbs used in the process, he said in a stern, Slavic way - "no spice, just lamb."

So maybe we could work on the spices back in Baton Rouge, but the roasting style, they have down pat :)

In the middle of our meal, a couple older gentlemen came by our table with accoustic, nylon stringed guitars and began singing Bosnian folk songs. It just so happens that Pepi, the choir director, also sings with the Bosnian National Opera! So with a little coaxing, Amy got him to join the guitarists and sang some incredibly beautiful melodies, including "My Sarajevo".


So I don't want to give the impression that everything we do is sorrowful and full of weeping. We see lots of things that are tough to stomach, but there are more stories of hope and perserverance than I could have imagined. And when we're not touring the humanitarian projects, we find time to have delicious meals, stop for our infinite coffee breaks, and just enjoy the beautiful landscape and company of Bosnia and it's resilient and spirit-filled people.