Anja (green and gray shirt; last name not given) makes a heart while singing “Love in Any Language.” The New Jersey Synod’s servant team brings music, games, team-building activities and service projects to Šipovo, Bosnia, each year to promote postwar reconciliation.


grandchildren of one of the host families. Everyone, it seemed, knew about Friendship Camp in this small mountain town. By 8:30 a.m. the next day, girls and boys were climbing the hill to the schoolyard. An hour later, 300 students were lined up, eager to begin. “Always [children] are asking, ‘Can we


Breaking down walls


One child at a time Text and photo by Cynthia Henry


“


come?’ ” said local camp coordinator Kristina Kovać. “The number of kids is evidence that they enjoy it.” Every summer the New Jersey Synod sends an inter- generational team to promote postwar reconciliation and foster a mixed faith, multiethnic future for Bosnia. Team members lead songs, cooperative games, and team- building and service projects in English, with translation by Bosnian partners. The 2013 team brought 17 Ameri- cans, aged 17 to 64, from six states.


“I believe God is revealed in the relationships and interactions we have with the children, teachers, directors and parents in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” said team leader Lauren Finnila, a seminarian at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.


in Bosnia A


36 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org Since 2000, 167 travel team members from nearly 50


re you coming to camp tomorrow?” members of the New Jersey Synod servant team asked three girls at a res- taurant near Šipovo, Bosnia. Oh, yes, they nodded enthusiastically.


The teens hanging outside the apartments where the team was staying gave a thumbs-up. Absolutely, said the


Henry, a four-time servant team member, attends St. Paul Lutheran Church, Hainesport, N.J., and is an editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer.


ELCA congregations and seven other faith communities have served more than 24,000 Bosnian children. Home teams in the U.S. have decorated tote bags and sewn pil- lows as gifts, donated sports equipment, sponsored camps and offered prayers. This year the ever-evolving mission explored a part- nership with the Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod and piloted a three-day leadership retreat for middle school students. And the visits have been returned. In 2012, six Bosnian team members traveled to the ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans to share stories about war and recovery. The Bosnia ministry was founded by Jason Reed, youth ministry specialist for the New Jersey Synod, immediately after the country’s 1992-95 civil war, which erupted during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Bosnia endured years-long sieges, ethnically moti- vated massacres and concentration camps. The peace accord, signed outside Dayton, Ohio, created two semiau- tonomous entities linked by a central government, whose work today is constantly stymied by feuding politicians from the country’s three ethnic groups, each associated with a different religion.


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