Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Things to Come.

This week, my team sat down with the full-time workers here to discuss options for the rest of our time here. I will be spending the next 6 months with two wonderful girls, both of whom are staying in Bosnia for a year. Coming to Bosnia, all I knew was that I needed to fulfill my teaching English but that certainly is not all I wanted to do while I was here.

Before I came to Bosnia, I knew that whatever I did overseas, I wanted to work with special needs. In Haiti, that was an easy ministry to get into because there was a special needs orphanage right now campus. The Miriam Center is such an incredible ministry and it was a blessing to be able to be apart of ministry there all of that summer. Like in Haiti, people with special needs are somewhat outcasts in society in Bosnia. Until recently, there really wasn't any programs or intuitions to work with them. Not knowing if there was even an option to do so, I asked the full-timers if there was any chance of me connecting with a special needs program here and they said YES! I will be going with Jeff (full-time worker) to check out a place where I potentially serve for the next 6 months.

Another wonderful surprise that should be starting up soon are accordion lessons. Words cannot even describe how happy I am about this! Jeff told me the possibilities of this happening. The most likely option would be to trade me teaching English classes for accordion lessons from a man up in one of the villages I will be working in. No matter what, I will find a way for this to happen. I was made to play the accordion!

Lastly, our team will be conducting a women's health conference in Pepelari. Breast cancer is the number one killer of women in Bosnia. We will be teaching the women how to give themselves mammograms and teaching them practical ways to ensure that they are keeping themselves as healthy as possible. I am so excited to spend a few days in Pepelari and it has been said that the women will be teaching us folk dances while we are staying there.

Basically, for the next 6 months I will be learning language, teaching English, learning new skills, and trying to make friends with younger people in the city. Jeff and Beth kept telling us longer term interns that their goal for us is to become as independent from them as possible. Therefore, I'm hoping to have a lot of coffee dates and a lot of home visits in the coming months. AND I hope to be able to play you all some awesome folk songs when I get back :D

Thank you all for the prayers and support. I'm only a week in and so excited for the things to come!

1 comment:

  1. Well, we may not teach them how to "give themselves mammograms" but we WILL hopefully teach them how to do self breast exams! :)

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