I JUST CAN’T WAIT to get back to my Bosnian refugees! A sudden and unexpected opportunity came last Saturday night and so with two wonderful friends, Anne and Ted, I fly out on Thursday (21st May). The refugees are in Tasovcici Camp only 8 miles from Our Lady’s Shrine in Medjugorje.
Sometimes they feel that Our Lady doesn’t hear their prayers!
Most of teeming pilgrims are not told about their desperate plight. There is no organized outreach to help them.
Our Charity – called HOUSING AID BOSNIA - (H.A.B. for short) fills an enormous gap and was founded in an effort to provide houses for the refugees. The Friends of H.A.B. have been wonderfully generous and so far we have been able to build 83 brand new houses an addition to helping a further 32 families to complete at least the bottom part of their house. This is slow because we need more funds. Any offers?
Meanwhile those remaining in the camp live in these tiny asbestos roofed huts. ORIGINALLY, I WAS VERY SCARED to go inside one of these refugee huts in case I picked up some dreadful disease!! But I soon learnt that, despite their awful poverty, they were exceptionally clean. I am no longer frightened of having refreshment or a meal with them. Do remind me to tell you of the time I spent Christmas there, when we had Christmas lunch with one of the refugees’ family. What a story that was !!
These are unbearably hot in the summer when temperatures soar to 40 degrees! Eggs could fry on the ground! They have neither hot nor cold running water nor do they have a toilet. There is a communal toilet and washing block but it is quite awful. They dream of having one day the luxury of a bathroom of their very own.
I GO OUT TO CHECK on the building progress, pay the workmen and to look out for some more building land. I need your prayerful help. There is a very good plot which is coming up to auction very soon. I have put a Miraculous medal already in the land – which is how nuns usually get their land! You must help, too, by praying that this land may be ours.
