Croatia joins EU, Bosnia takes a hit, I rant

This article describes how, when neighboring Croatia joins the EU on July 1, Bosnia’s farmers will lose their main export market and get hit bad.  I could add it to the long list of economic ailments in our dear country, most of whose origins can be traced to the top.

Here’s how:  In order to sell food to EU nations, Bosnia needs to make sure its food meets EU hygiene codes.  Many private farmers have already met these standards, but Bosnia’s government still has not agreed on a unified verification system.

Image: Bosnian farmers protesting government idiocy. 

In politically-divided postwar Bosnia (now 18 years after the war ended) the three ethno-religious groups cannot agree on much of anything.  Gridlock ensues, progress is not made, and the average Bosnian suffers.  In this case, farmers who are making good products could lose their livelihood because the government can’t agree on a way to certify the products.  If verifying the quality of their nation’s products so that citizens can earn a living isn’t among the very obvious duties of a government, I don’t know what is.

What to say?  It’s insane, it’s exasperating.  Bosnians of all ethic stripes are already sick of a political system that only helps those in power to get rich and stay in power.  Yet before each election nationalistic politicians stir up paranoid xenophobia (“You can’t vote for the other guy, ’cause he’s not one of us. We have to stick together and look out for our own.”) and stay in power.  Pray that next time, people will be so sick of it that their frustration will dominate the fear and they’ll throw the bums out.

“Be angry, but do not sin.” -Ephesians 4:26

20th anniversary of Bosnian war

Right now there are ceremonies in Sarajevo marking 20 years since the start of the war that destroyed much of Bosnia & Herzegovina and killed more than 100,000 people. Each of the red chairs pictured above marks one of the 11,541 Sarajevo residents who lost their life. The chairs stretch down the main street for more than a kilometer (for those of you who have been there, from the eternal flame all the way beyond BBI Centar to Marjindvor).

We pray for God’s healing for this land so precious to us, and we miss being there even more today.

Nice.

Right now we are enjoying a very pleasant surprise, which we never saw coming.

In eight hours, we’ll board the flight that will eventually take us to the States. We are in Prague, finishing a co-worker’s wedding and a couple days seeing the city. But our flight tomorrow is at 6am, which presented a big problem. What to do the night before, and how to maximize Gabi’s sleep? We want as cheerful a little girl as possible before a long plane flight. PRG airport is 17km from the city. As mentioned in the previous post, we have a lot of luggage. Public transportation would not be possible if we stayed in the city. I looked into airport hotel rooms (though I can’t stand paying $100+ for a room I’ll spend very little time in, I’m learning as a parent that some of these expenses are necessary), but even that would mean leaving the room at 4am and waking Gabi reeeaally early. So we decided to look for a comfy-ish place to sleep in the airport, a corner where we could put Gabi down in her travel bed. She’d be able to sleep a precious extra hour, and we’d be calmer knowing that we’re already at our destination. Of course, we predicted lousy sleep for the two of us, and a chance that Gabi would be awakened repeatedly.

Tough choice. We decided to scope out the airport and see how it looked, and then get a hotel room if necessary.

Unexpected surprise #1: We were able to check our heavy bags in at 6pm the night before our flight. Words can’t express how relieved we are to see all that stuff float down the belt and off to some back hangar, hopefully for a reunion in SEA.

Unexpected surprise #2: The woman at the check in counter didn’t give us any flack for bag weight. Some of our bags were definitely on the edge, and the wrong agent can make life quite difficult. Big smiles and small talk get you a long way in any culture.

Unexpected surprise #3: Ducking down an out of the way hallway on the third floor, we found the “Mama s Detmi” (mother with child) room. Huge score. This 20×20 carpeted playroom has a changing table, sink, table and chairs, a baby see-saw, a crib in the corner, and decorations of Lightning McQueen all over the walls! Oh, and it’s empty. Gabi had dinner and went to bed on time, and she’s been in dream land for three hours now. Jess and I got to spend some precious time in prayer for the huge transition ahead of us. We haven’t had nearly enough of that lately.

This is such a great gift from the Lord. It’s amazing how the little things mean so much to you, especially when you’re in flux. Where we expected constant loud flight announcements and bright lights on a hard floor, we instead got a quiet room with a quite romantic view of the sun setting on the runway. And now here I am blogging while Jess sleeps a few feet away.

So far our only guests have been an employee on break and a guy without kids, both of whom quickly excused themselves. If you’re reading this, pray for seven more quiet hours! And pray that we get some sleep.

*I’m slightly hesitant to blab the secret of the Mama s Detmi room, but I suppose the overlap is quite small between readers of our blog (a few) and people traveling through Prague and looking to sleep in the airport. So don’t worry PRG, your secret’s safe with us!

How we feel leaving Bosnia for a year

Our bags are packed and sitting by the door. In 9 hours, 24min, 31 sec we will board a bus on a lengthy journey which will ultimately take us back to California for one year of study at Fuller Seminary, after which we’ll return to ministry in Bosnia.

We feel…down. Today I almost got choked up telling the woman at the local corner store by our building that we’re leaving for a year. She’s always so friendly, and her smile causes her to stand out in stark contrast to the others who work there. My relationship with her over the past three years consists of conversations 20 sec long or less, centered on us purchasing fruit. And yet when this day arrived, every teeny part of our life here feels so precious that our lower lip starts quaking when we stop to think about it.

We’ve said goodbye to friends, eaten favorite foods, and been to our favorite cafes one last time. Which isn’t really true at all, because we’re coming back in just one year. We keep reminding ourselves of that!

And on the flip side, we are so excited to see our family and spend a longer period of time close to them! We know that when the plane lands–and even long before that–we will be counting the minutes until we are reunited.

So we know that there are good reasons–continuing my theological education, recruiting for EUS, seeing our family, and over it all God’s calling–for this year. But for now, we’re just a bit down. And now you’ve gone and made me think about it more. Off to bed…we have an early train to catch!

Deron’s classes at Fuller

Here’s what’s coming up in the next year:

Biblical Theology of Mission
Anthropology
Systematic Theology: Christology and Soteriology
Leadership & Teamwork
Research Methods
Discipleship in Secular Society
The Church & Mission
Theology in Global Context
The Making of Global Christianity
Popular Islamic Piety
Thinking Missiologically
Language and Culture Learning

All that plus a thesis…I’m excited and terrified at the same time!

Introducing David & Irena

Here’s a short video with our co-workers David and Irena, in the northern Bosnia city of Banja Luka:

Self care

“Self-care is never a selfish act–it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.”

-Parker Palmer, quoted in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Bosnia’s complex politics

Today is election day in Bosnia, and BBC is offering a couple of good articles that are both helpful for understanding the nation, and depressing in seeing the hard facts in print.

2 big problems:

Nationalism. Our Bosnian co-worker said “if our country has any chance of remaining intact (and not splitting into two or more separate nations), the nationalistic parties need to lose power.” They get votes by inspiring fear of what the other guy will do to you if he gets elected, and thus perpetuate ethnic division and mistrust.

Complexity. The current political system, set in place after the war ended in 1995, has an impossibly complex structure of differing authorities–we heard there are 14 levels of government. That means bureaucracy x14, or 1/14 of the intended results actually reach the people.

Here are a few select quotes from the BBC articles:

“Fifteen years after the country’s inter-ethnic war, key political parties urged Bosnians to vote for candidates of their own ethnic group.”

“voters are to choose five presidents, 13 prime ministers and 700 MPs”

“the election campaign was dominated by nationalist rhetoric from Muslim, Croat and Serb leaders to mobilise their own ethnic vote.”

“Bosnia’s fragile economy, already hampered by corruption and political bickering, was hit hard by the global financial crisis. Official statistics show that unemployment was at 43% in July.”

“Just one of the major parties in the election openly transcends ethnic divisions.”

these elections matter because they “send an important signal about Bosnia’s ability to survive as a state and move forward on its declared path of EU integration, or remain mired in political deadlock and ethnic intolerance.”

Please pray for Bosnia’s leadership and future:

• for the nationalist dividers to lose, and the few parties that transcend ethnic lines to win, big.
• for governmental and economic reform
• for leaders with integrity who will not stoop to corruption

The waiting game…

We arrived safely in Budapest last Friday, after an uneventful 8-hr drive. Well, it was a bit longer because one of the two of us (the one carrying the third inside) needs to stretch her legs often.

We are thankful for Eden House, the ministry house we’re staying at. It is a part of the Southern Baptist Convention’s missions arm, and serves as a temporary home for missionaries from all over central and eastern Europe while they receive medical treatment or just get some fresh air out of their countries. We’re comfortable and happy, and there’s a full size kitchen and free wireless. That means we can cook good meals, and stay in contact with family, friends, and co-workers.

We are spending time doing EUS work (preparing English Class lesson plans, talking with supervisees, and writing reports), seeing a bit of Budapest (which is really beautiful!), and practicing for labor (we’re aiming for a natural, Bradley-method birth).

So here we are. Waiting. On one hand, we’d love for our baby to come today! On the other, we are enjoying these last few days before our life changes. But we know she’ll come in her own time, and for now she seems happy enough whaling away on Jess’ ribs from the inside. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement!

English classes off to a great start

Thanks to all of you who prayed for English Class testing last week! 37 of them are now in our classes, which began last Wednesday. I (Deron) am teaching an advanced course with 20 students, and they are a really fun group. Last week we talked about what makes “the good life” and then listened to and discussed the Switchfoot song “This is Home.” These students’ English is amazing. One guy speaks with absolutely no accent, and sounds like he could be from America.

Tonight for our weekly EUS meeting I’m co-leading, with a student, a seminar on “Religion and Science.” We’ll address the often-tense relationship between the two and discuss questions like “Does science prove that there is no God?” and “What does the Bible say about science (and more broadly, the pursuit of knowledge)?” Several of our English Class students said they’d like to come. Please pray that they will, and that we’ll have great discussion that sparks further questions!