Stories & Quotes From Bosnia & Herzegovina

A Family’s Joy

Our local partners visited one family with six children. The father is unwell and not able to work. They live in extreme poverty in one room and depend on a humanitarian programme to survive. For the first time they heard the Good News of the Gospel and experienced great joy as they opened their shoeboxes. Their mother who brought them to the outreach event cried tears of joy as she watched her children experience such happiness.

Shoebox Gifts Bring Unity

“We distributed about 220 shoeboxes, and shared the message love God and your neighbour as yourself to a town that still bears the effects of civil war. Due to war two ethnic groups (Bosnjaks and Serbs) live separately in fear of one another, but at this distribution they were together and their kids played together. For this town that is a big deal.”

– Local Church Partner.

Shoeboxes For Migrants

We distributed shoebox gifts to children in a camp for migrants in Salakovac, near Mostar. Our contact person to enter the camp was a lady who works for the International Migrants Office and she told us how she received a shoebox when she was a child in Konjic just after the war, and how she was honoured to have the opportunity now to see other children in need receiving shoeboxes.

– Local Church Partner.

UK Volunteers Visit Bosnia and Herzegovina

Trish, our Operation Christmas Child Regional Manager for the East of England, recently visited Bosnia with a group of UK volunteers. The team visited homes in the local community and saw the joy each shoebox brought. Trish said,

“One little girl, who was about two, got her shoebox and there was a Peppa Pig in her box and that was the first thing she saw. She grabbed that and hugged it. Each one of the children would take things out one at a time and look at them, not like our kids who might empty out the box!”

The team also visited a boy with Cerebral Palsy who was delighted to receive a toothbrush after having had a visit from the dentist earlier that day. His whole face lit up when he saw the toothbrush. Anne, one of the UK volunteer’s, has a husband who also has Cerebral Palsy and she was able to encourage the boy’s mother who worries for his future.

Azima (former shoebox recipient and now Operation Christmas Child volunteer) shared with Trish that many children were coming to know Jesus as a result of receiving a shoebox and choosing to go along to her The Greatest Journey class.

“You don’t know the difference that a shoebox is making in a child’s life,” said Trish. “They get to hear the Word of God, and they get to experience God’s love through a shoebox.”