Father's Day 2018

We spent Wednesday with a new potential partner who is helping the refugees here in Bosnia.  We visited their headquarters in Sarajevo first.  It reminded us of a smaller Humanitarian Center / Deseret Industries.  They are very organized and have many volunteers helping them. We watched a steady stream of donations coming in while we were there - from money to clothing to food.  We visited the safe house for refugee families.

Family safe house

There are currently 19 families at the house, including 46 children.  We hope to help provide some of the furnishings needed at the house.

Our next stop was the large parking lot of the main train station/bus depot in the city.  This NGO (non-government organization) estimates they feed between 500-700 refugees on the streets every day.  The train station is one of three location where they bring food.  They stay until the food is gone, maybe 1-2 hours.

Food on the street served from the back of a car

The menu was a pasta dish with lamb and traditional flat bread.  They serve the food in the yellow plastic bowls you see in the black bag.  There were about 300 hundred bowls in the bag; they ran out and switched to paper plates.  The bowls are taken back to the center and washed for the next meal.  Many of the people like their food spicy so they had large jars of hot pepper to shake onto the pasta.

At the water station

We noticed several children in the group and were told that IOM (International Organization for Migrants) was there and would take the women and children to a safe house or hostel so they are not on the streets.

Ramadan ended Friday evening.  Friday and Saturday were national holidays in Bosnia. It's been very interesting for us to learn more about Ramadan and what happens during that month.  What unites us is bigger than what divides us.

We had a break from feeding the Elders today.  Brother Rhees invited us to his house for chicken curry.  I think he's been a little lonesome without his family here.  After dinner we went with Elder Hanks and Elder Shaw to visit Suada, one of our members who lives about 30 minutes outside the city.  We were invited for cake but when we arrived she fed us a full meal and a huge plate of dessert.  Suada and her son Haris joined the church together.  Haris is the only member from Bosnia to serve a mission.  He served in the England Manchester mission and we learned tonight that he served with our grandson Josh.  It is such a small world in the church!

Dessert at Suada's house with Elder Hanks and Elder Shaw

It will be a short work week for us.  Transfer announcements are this week and summer zone conference will be in Zagreb with Bosnia and Slovenia zones.  We go to Zagreb with the Elders on Thursday.