Not really. Only a little.
So in case I haven’t explained what Unsung Heroes is before buckle your seat belts friends because you’re about to find out. As you may have picked up by this point in a typical World Race month we go into a country and are set up with a specific ministry host. We stay there for the entire month doing whatever needs to be done. “But how does World Race have all these contacts?!” You ask in the most urgent of voices. Well keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times ladies and gents because that’s what Unsung Heroes is all about. Instead of being set up with a host we travel around the whole country looking for new contacts that World Race can partner with in the future.
What does this look like you might ask? Well it’s a lot of taking buses, staying with random people, cold calling, and drinking insane amounts of coffee. At the beginning of the month our team set a goal of meeting with 7 contacts over the course of the month. As of yesterday we have met with 9 in 7 different cities.
How could that have possibly happened? You ask with great suspense. Excellent question. Most of our contacts came from one of the first groups we met with. The Protestant Christian community in Bosnia is quite small and everyone seems to know everyone. But the contact that I want to tell you a little more about came about through a more obscure and God sent connection.
I was catching up with one of my dearest and oldest friends Ron and the conversation went something like this:
Ron- Hey what country are you in now?
Me- Bosnia
Ron- Oh wow! Will would be so jealous!
(Will is a mutual friend of ours from college)
Me- Why would Will be jealous?
Ron- He grew up in Bosnia, his parents still live there
And thus began the very excited contacting of the beautiful, the amazing, the unparalleled, Beth Summay. I had barely said two words about who we were and what we were doing and we had an invitation to come stay with them for as long as we liked and they would help in any way that they could.
Long story short we set dates for toward the end of the month and went about trying to fill our other dates leading up to then with other contacts. Well let me tell you that proved to be easier said than done. Most of the places where we had contacts were smaller towns and villages so there were no hostels to speak of. It got to be our last day in Sarajevo and we had no idea where we were going to go or where we were going to stay. We were homeless and had no leads.
Except for Beth.
After exhausting every other option we could think of we decided that we would go ahead and travel to the city where the Summay’s lived, stay in a hostel, and take day trips out to our other contacts. So I proceeded to message Beth to see if there were any hostels that she would recommend. She proceeded to say (I’m paraphrasing) that we were being ridiculous and we would come and stay at their house and we were welcome at anytime we just had to let her know when our bus would arrive.
The Summay’s were in the plainest words a total God send. We stayed with them for 10 days and within that period of time we learned and laughed so much. Beth’s husband Jeff gave us an introduction into Islamic/Muslim culture, we did Bible studies, cooked meals, did home visits, celebrated Easter, and played a lot of Settlers of Catan. I feel like we got one of the best examples of what it means to be long term missionaries, embrace the culture, and do relation based discipleship, that I’ve seen on the race so far. The focus of their ministry is to build relationships in the community and create a Bosnian run church planting movement through discipleship.
Beth and Jeff welcomed us with open arms at a moment when we had no clue where we were going to sleep that night. It was truly a pleasure to get to do life with them for a short time. They poured into us physically (with sweets and delicious food), emotionally (with rest time and encouragement), and spiritually (with insight and wisdom). My team and I are so grateful to them and everything they did for us during our time here in Bosnia.
