United Methodist delegation finds renewed spirit in Kosovo

Date: October 5, 1999

Photos Version

KOSOVO MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (UMNS) -- The village of Bare is busy again. The small mountain community near Mitrovica, about 25 miles northwest of Pristina, is emerging from the dark shadows of war and ethnic cleansing.

A line of trucks carrying red clay tiles and roofing timbers from Croatia waits six-deep on the narrow road outside town, each waiting its turn to unload at a United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) depot.

Elementary school students take their lessons outdoors, perched on wood beams destined to repair their shattered school. Winter tents, erected as temporary classrooms, are being filled with new school furniture and the parent-teacher council is once again holding meetings.

"This is the happiest day of my time here," said Angela Oliver, UMCOR's director of community development in Kosovo. "This is what it's all about, when we're all working together." As she spoke, villagers lined up with tractor-drawn wagons for their share of tiles.

A delegation of four spouses of United Methodist bishops and a representative of the churchwide Board of Global Ministries Women's Division traveled to the Balkans Sept. 18-28 to view UMCOR's work and help devise new strategies for church relief efforts around the world.

Members of the delegation included: Mitzie Dew, wife of Phoenix Area Bishop William W. Dew Jr.; Jane Ives, wife of West Virginia Area Bishop S. Clifton Ives ; Leigh Kammerer, husband of Charlotte (N.C.) Area Bishop Charlene Kammerer; Hannah Meadors, wife of Mississippi Area Bishop Marshall L. Meadors Jr.; and Claretta Nesbitt of the Women's Division. The group was led by Meadors and Judy Wollen, UMCOR's volunteer coordinator for the area, based in Armenia.

Until a few months ago, Kosovo was a province of Serbia, one of two countries that make up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Today, Kosovo is under military occupation by a United Nations peacekeeping force. Multinational U.N. civilian police patrol the streets.

The federal republic was formed in 1992 by Serbia and Montenegro, which were once part of Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia during the Cold War.

UMCOR began assessing needs in Kosovo in June, just days after the end of a NATO bombing campaign that forced Yugoslavia to stop its strategy of ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians in the province. The fighting had forced some 800,000 Albanians to flee their homes. Full-blown relief efforts began in July.

As the refugees began to return, humanitarian agencies like UMCOR helped provide hope for the people, Oliver said. More than $4.5 million in aid has been raised by UMCOR alone.

"The change in the people in this village is remarkable," Oliver said. "They're smiling. It's just remarkable."

"We had nothing after the war," said Imer Kadriu, a member of Bare's parent-teacher council. "We have hope now."

There is a sense of urgency to the work in Bare (pronounced BAH-ray). The steep dirt roads of the village will give way to rivers of mud in the coming Balkan winter, just a few weeks away.

"This is a high-priority village," Oliver explained. "If the homes aren't repaired before winter, the people will flood the towns." Of the village's 168 houses, 130 were destroyed in the war.

The housing repairs are part of UMCOR's three-prong strategy to return a whole village to a sense of normalcy. Other components include food security -- distribution of hand planting tools, tractor repair and winter-wheat seed distribution -- and community development such as helping reform parent-teacher councils in the schools.

UMCOR is undertaking this process in four villages, including Bare. It will repair about 500 homes. "Rather than getting ourselves spread too thin, we're getting one whole community up and running," explained Robert Harris, head of mission for UMCOR in Sarajevo.

The shelter project is considered a "self-help" program through which UMCOR provides the materials and homeowners do the work themselves. It's meant to replace the roof and provide windows and doors for one room that can be heated for winter. More complete repairs will have to wait for spring, Harris said.

UMCOR may hire local engineers to create a cadre of trainers skilled in local construction methods since many of the young men with those skills were killed during the war, Harris said. "Some of the people don't have any able-bodied help and some don't have the skills."

The trip left a deep impression on members of the delegation. "To experience first-hand what we've heard about -- miles and miles of burned out houses and knowing each of those is somebody's home -- really changes things," Ives said.

"Before I came, people said they would pray for us," she said. "What I'm seeing is so many people who need so much more. I feel humbled. There's so much we take for granted, not just material things, but intangibles -- security, freedom from terror. I've always believed that from those to whom much has been given, much will be required. I know that on a deeper level now."

Meanwhile, the mood in the Kosovar capital of Pristina is buoyant. As Kosovar Albanians emerge from 2,000 years of occupation by various colonial powers and an 18-month campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs, national pride is running high.

The nighttime streets are crowded with strolling couples. Cafes and nightclubs are packed. The Albanian flag is proudly displayed on stores, homes and cars. Children wear miniature KLA uniforms to school. All of these scenes would have been unimaginable just a few months ago.

"I think this is our year," said Enver Krasniqi, 41, a Pristina resident and local program officer for UMCOR. "We have the heart and we have the energy. 1999 is the year of Kosovo."

"You're talking about creating a new country," Oliver said. "This is one of the first times in history a former province may become an independent country."

The United States is held in high regard by Kosovar Albanians, despite an 11-week NATO bombing campaign targeting Serb strongholds -- a campaign that wrecked many of Pristina's high-profile buildings and left the country without communications links to the rest of the world.

"The Albanian people have a saying," Krasniqi said, watching an elderly man pick through the rubble of a home destroyed by a stray bomb. "'First God; second USA.'"

Seeing the long-term work of healing begin, Dew reflected on her feelings about being in the delegation. "It's United Methodist Church members who start the avenues of help in our churches all over our global network. I felt a sense of real pride that we were here representing our church members."

Support for the people of Kosovo can be provided through financial gifts to these UMCOR Advance numbers: Kosovo Emergency Relief, #333405; Mother/Child Survival, #982645, Kosovo; Youth House, #982844, Kosovo. Check donations can be placed in church collection plates or mailed directly to 475 Riverside Drive, Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by calling 1-800-554-8583.

*DuBose is a photojournalist for United Methodist News Service.

Source: United Methodist News Service.