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ZENICA, CENTRAL BOSNIA -- When Vicki Munger of Enid, Okla., told people back home she was traveling to Central Bosnia to help refugees, they responded, "Are you crazy? There's a war on there."
But the United Methodist laywoman -- who spent much of four weeks scraping walls and painting rooms in a school which had been converted into temporary refugee housing -- was grateful for the experience. She was also astonished by the generosity of people who "invited us in for coffee and gave us their food even if they really didn't have it to give."
Munger was part of the second Volunteer-in-Mission team which returned July 19 to the United States after working in Central Bosnia for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). Organized by the Oklahoma Annual (regional) Conference, three teams of volunteers, aged 15 to 65 years, are repairing housing and assisting in community service programs during the summer.
"They love us here (but) they think we're weird to come all the way over here to a war zone and paint their houses," quipped 18-year-old Lisa Stewart from Atlanta.
Stewart read about "Operation: Restore Bosnia" in her conference newspaper and admitted she was looking for something to do this summer with "a little adventure and a sense of purpose." In some ways, according to Stewart, the situation in Bosnia isn't so different from her own downtown Atlanta. "People at home, like people here, just need a bit of help and a bit of love," she explained.
Stewart did express some fear about being in a place that is still the target of an occasional artillery shell. "There's only one road out of town and we're stuck if something goes wrong," she said.
But her overwhelming impression of Zenica -- a city 70 miles northwest of Sarejevo with an ever-increasing refugee population -- is that of a peaceful city where people are getting on as best they can with normal life. "I think the media portrays this country as a place in constant turmoil ... and it's just not like that," she added.
During the past two years, UMCOR has taken on a number of projects in Bosnia in cooperation with groups like the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, rebuilding homes, schools, and community centers as well as providing essential medical and humanitarian aid.
Carol Van Gorp, UMCOR's volunteer coordinator, said the agency hopes to expand its work here on a more human level. "We've done a lot of construction projects, but through the volunteers, we show in a more personal way that United Methodists care what happens here," she explained. Oklahomans Rebecca Naylor, 26, and Brad Ellis, 18, worked at a UMCOR day care center here playing games, organizing arts and crafts projects and visiting with local children. After participating in an intensive game of "red light-green light," Naylor and Ellis agreed that even in war-torn parts of the world, children need to learn, have fun and find hope.
Van Gorp acknowledged that the work can be both rewarding and heartbreaking. "Watching the volunteers working with refugee children, you can see the kids visibly relax, laugh, hug, play games ... and it's then they may share a story about some horrible thing they've seen -- watching a parent being killed, seeing someone dragged away."
July, 1995