December 4, 2010
Welcome to Bihać…
We made it! I’m writing to you from our new home in the northwest corner of the country, Bihać, and boy do I have a story for you!!
Some of you may remember my story about possibly training for a half-marathon in September, with my friend, Elma*. Well, because of my travel schedule, the half-marathon didn’t quite happen, but we did get to go on several training runs together and we kept in touch through the gym I worked out at in Dobrinja. It just so happens that Elma is originally from Bihać!! Not only that, but her younger sister, Azra*, still lives here. She set me up with Azra’s phone number and even the phone numbers of a couple of potential flats for rent.
After arriving in Bihac on Wednesday night and moving our things temporarily into our teammates’ house, I went ahead and sent Azra a text message. At this point, I had no idea how old Azra is, or what she is like at all. I just knew that Elma told me she would be willing to help us out. Right away on Thursday morning, I got a very excited text message back from Azra (mostly in English, with a couple words in Bosnian) asking where and when I would like to meet with her. So Thursday night, we arranged to meet “kod sata” (at the clock) – a very common meeting place in the center of Bihac.
Billy recognized Azra as Elma’s sister the moment we walked up…I, of course, wanted to be sure, so I gave her a call and sure enough, Billy was right! We went to a near-by coffee shop and talked and laughed and told stories for 2.5 hours. Azra is quite a bit like her sister, and even made me laugh by using the same hand gestures a couple of times. She is full of life and curious about America, currently studying sport at one of the universities here in Bihac (something we have in common), and is extremely excited to help us find an apartment!
But that’s not all… Through our conversation, we came to find out that Azra and her twin brother used to attend the kids klub that our team here in Bihać had 8 years ago!! She still remembers our teammate, “with the long dark hair”, that ran the program. She is very excited to help us with anything we do with music or sports, she wants to do it all!
We are blown away by God’s faithfulness in bringing us here, and just through this one coffee, we can see that God has a plan for us and He is in complete control. Please pray that the Lord will draw our new friend, Azra*, closer to Himself, and that our joint efforts to find an apartment are fruitful.
Be blessed, friends!
Jess