4th of July week

The 4th of July was just another day here in Bosnia.  It rained most of the day and there were no fireworks.  We would have had a little celebration with just the missionaries but two are from Australia and one is from Germany and everyone thinks we're Canadians, so... We had district meeting on the 4th and the Elders announced they were celebrating by having tacos for dinner.  When I said "tacos?  Tacos are Mexican, not American,"  they both said oh, ya, I guess that's right.  Oh well.

We had a very productive meeting with a potential partner this week.  We hope we will be able to partner and make some good things happen.  We have been scouring the old projects and partner lists and making appointments to renew old acquaintances and remind them that LDS Charities is here and ready to assist.  We have some great ideas and are trying to get things underway but haven't been too successful yet.

Saturday we were in Zenica (ZEN-eets-ah) to kick off a new project to help mothers caring for severely disabled children.  A psychologist will do group and individual sessions to teach them better coping skills.  We planned for 20 women and 30 showed up.  The NGO we are working with has done some amazing things already.  The president of the NGO, who is the one who started it, has a disabled 12-year old son that reminds us of our nephew Corey.  We told him a little about Corey and he was so thrilled that we might understand a little about his circumstances.

Banner with donors that will hang in the center until the project completes

The people here are so hospitable and kind to us, everywhere we go.  One of the mothers who came for training had baked a cake to share with us that morning.  It was still warm and oh so good.  Then the president and the social worker insisted on taking us for coffee.  Going for coffee is an excuse to sit and talk for awhile and a very big part of the culture here.  It is a rather nice part of the culture that allows you to slow down for a few minutes (or hours) and enjoy each other.

After we returned from Zenica, we had dinner with Edina and her family at one of our favorite restaurants.  Edina is one of the good women we work with at Muslim Aid.  We have been hearing about her family since we arrived and we finally got to meet them.

Edina, Davud, Tarik and Harun

You can see Davud and Harun's faces better in this photo

The twins are 3 1/2 years old and very well behaved.  They ate pretty well also - they liked the sea bass and vegetables and even the salad.  The best part was the chocolate ice cream that came in the little jars you can see in front of Davud.  They each had their own jar and were happy little guys.

On Friday the six Sarajevo district missionaries did a service project at Riders of Hope.  Riders of Hope is an equestrian therapeutic riding program for disabled children and adults.  They also do many other things like summer camps and riding lessons and trail rides.  The owners have been great friends of the church and are willing to help us with anything.  We called to see if we could come by to visit and she explained that they were painting and doing some other work.  I asked if we could bring the missionaries to help.

John filling the wheelbarrow

John and I cleared the spot where the ramp had been sitting.  It was full of weeds and grass and large rocks.  We removed all the debris and raked it level.  It felt good to do some physical work.  When the wheelbarrow was full, John started to move it.  The clamp holding it onto the wheels came off and the barrow (is that what it's called?) fell off, spilling all our hard work.  Sister Dunn rushed over to help.  She is a tiny thing, under 5 feet tall.  She picked up the big scoop shovel and went to work as soon as John had the wheelbarrow reassembled.

Sister Dunn's shovel full of dirt and rocks probably weighs as much as she does!

Elder Roberts, Sister Smith and Sister Dunn painting

Elder Evans was painting, too.  He was hidden in the previous picture.

The ramp was moved to a new spot and needed a good paint job.  It was a hot afternoon and the paint dried on that metal almost as soon as they applied it.  They used almost all the paint and completed the job just as it was time to leave.

The missionaries just left our house.  The food consumption has decreased significantly now that we have sisters back with us.  Today they were full of funny stories about the meaning of people's names.  From there we moved on to communism and how the people here still love Tito and the old Yugoslavia when everyone had a job and a place to live and food to eat.  This is a fascinating place to live!