Where has the year gone?

On Tuesday we drove 5 1/2 hours to Rijeka ,Croatia.  That is such a pleasant drive.  Croatia has some fantastic roads.  They are toll roads, but you are able to drive at 120kmh (75 mph).  The roads are well maintained, not at all like the roads in Bosnia, which are all secondary roads.  Upon arrival in Rijeka we met up with Elder and Sister Babbel.  Together we went to a shopping center to pay for a washing machine which will be donated to a homeless shelter.  After paying for the washing machine we went back to the Babbels' where they fed us a wonderful lunch.  When lunch was over we drove 2 hours to Zagreb to prepare for meetings the following day. 

Wednesday morning we met with the Croatia Red Cross. For the last three years we have been working with the Croatia Red Cross cleaning wells which were polluted during the war in the 1990's.  The crews clean over 1,000 wells each year.  The church has decided to continue another year with a new project.  We were able to sign a contract with the Red Cross and move this important work forward. 

After our meeting with the Red Cross we stopped by the Mission Office for a lunch date with E/S Erwin, the office couple. There is a new restaurant in Zagreb called "California Burrito".  It is the closest thing to Cafe Rio/Costa Vida that you can get here.
 

Thursday morning we left Croatia and drove back to Bosnia.  We took the route through Banja Luka, the second largest city in Bosnia as we needed to evaluate a clean-water project which was completed last June.  We took Vicky Tadić, a Banja Luka church member with us as we couldn't remember where the school which we had worked with was located.  Previously this school had a septic system.  Whenever it rained the children had to be sent home from school as the tank backed up and the "drain field" overflowed.  The Church was able to provide the materials and supplies so that the city could connect the school to the city sewer system.  This project was quite successful and still working very well.  After visiting this project we went with Vicky to our favorite restaurant in Banja Luka, "Mala Stanica".  They have great salads and a chocolate souffle that can't be beat.  Vicky was waiting for her mission call and the mission call letter was waiting for her in Croatia.  She went to Zagreb on Friday for a pre-missionary training conference.  She opened her call at the conference with all the other missionaries.  **Vicky has been called to the Gilbert, Arizona Mission.**  We know that she will have a wonderful experience serving 18 months there. We left Banja Luka and returned to Tuzla about 4PM. 

 

 

 

Friday we were able to go to the Tuzla children's outpatient clinic.  The Church was able to purchase a few items from their "wish list" to help them with their work.  The outpatient clinic has been doing the vision screening of kindergarten children as well as performing screening on preschool children who come to the clinic for immunizations.  Did we mention what a great job they have done? 

 

 

 

 

Thus ends another week in the lives of the Winters in Bosnia and Croatia.  Time has gone by so quickly.  We feel a great urgency for the many things we still want to do before we go home in November.        

Our New Apartment

Yesterday, Saturday, June 29th was our daughter Reachel Bagley's 33rd birthday.   We were able to Face Time with her and her family.  They were are spending the afternoon in their backyard at the pool as she lives in Arizona. Then according to Facebook she continued to party the rest of the day and night.  It looked that she had a great birthday.  We sure are glad that Reachel is a part of our family.  We are also thankful for her talents.  If not for her, this blog would not happen.  Anytime we have a problem, we call our computer guru. She is a amazing mother, wife and daughter.  We are proud to be her parents.

Saturday was a big day for us as well as we moved to a new apartment.  As many of you know our apartment did not have central heating.  This last winter was fairly mild, but we felt it best to get a different apartment with parking and central heating.  The young elders are also moving to a new apartment as well.  They will move tomorrow - pictures next week.  Since we have office furniture we hired someone to move us.  Thursday and Friday afternoon we spent the day packing up the old apartment.  Saturday morning the movers came and loaded everything up.  We only moved 3 kilometers from the old apartment but it was quite the ordeal.   The movers came at about 8AM and we were all moved into our new apartment by 11AM.  The rest of the day was spent unpacking and getting things organized so that we could cook dinner and get ourselves ready for church on Sunday.  Our new apartment is so nice.  We feel very blessed to have it. 

 

As you can see we have plenty of room now.  It is not to late to come over for a visit.  This summer the weather has been quite pleasant.  Last year when we arrived it was usually hot.   So hot that we had three months of drought.  We have a balcony at our new apartment as we did at our last one.  At night you can sit outside and enjoy the cool night air and smell the Lipa (Linden) trees.  They smell a bit like lemon peel.  It is funny, but we don't remember smelling these trees last year.  It is really quite pleasant to just relax and enjoy the pleasant scent.

 

 

We were able to visit Orasje on Monday.  We visited the Pcelica (Little Bee) Kindergarten.   This project consisted of working with the city and Red Cross to replace asbesto pipe to the school with new PVC Pipe.  The children now have clean drinking water.  The local radio station even interviewed us. station.

 

While we were in Orasje, we went to the neighboring town of Domalijevac.  Back in April we were able to distribute potato seed and onion sets to a few families that were in need.  We went back for some pictures for our project journal.  We have a most delightful visit with one of the ladies that received the help.  She was happy to see us again and expressed her appreciation for the help.  It is such a privledge to be able to serve a mission in this way.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week our daughters Lizzy and Sara were brave souls and drove to Raymond, Alberta, Canada with three boys under 10.  From what we hear all six of the grandsons (Taylor, Landon, Dallin, Mason, James, and Thomas) are having a great time.  We have tried to Face Time with them, but it gets a little crazy?#!*.  We hope that Lizzy, Sara, Rebecca and Jordan will survive as well. 

 

Hope everyone at home has a wonderful 4th of July.  It truly is a blessing to live in America and enjoy all the freedoms that we do.    

Seed Distribution

Early Monday morning we went with the Red Cross of Tuzla to a town called Zvinice which is about 30 minutes south of Tuzla.  Back in October/November we were able to submit and get approval to distribute seeds to needy familiies who lost all their crops last summer due to the drought.  Normally these people would have seeds from the previous year's harvest to plant the following year.  Since it did not rain for three months last summer they lost all their crops.  We were able to provide potato seed, onion sets, vegetable seeds, fertilizer and fruit trees to more than 120 families.  We met at the feed store in Zvinice where various Red Cross offices  also gathered and picked up supplies to go back to their municipality and distribute the seeds. The people who lived in Zvinice just came to the store to pick up their seeds.  One lady had walked over 7 kilometers to get hers.  We were able to give her a ride back home as there was no way she was going to be able to get everything there.  She lives with her husband and two children.  While she was getting the seed her husband was home turning the soil by hand to prepare the ground for planting.  On Tuesday it was truly a humbling experience to be able to take seeds to a few of recipients.

People waiting for the distribution to begin   

    

    

Checking out the load

Loading it up

 

 Local distribution

 

Making sure everyone gets everything 

 

 25 kg of potato seed

 

A happy receiver

 

Garden is ready to plant

 

Delighted with his seeds

 

Another happy customer

 

Father & Son 

This lady lives alone, her husband died 5 years ago

 

 Very Thankful

 

Each must sign for their seed

 

On Thursday we went to Zone conference in Sarajevo where we learned that we will lose Elder Merl to Sarajevo this transfer.  Another group of new missionaries will arrive on Tuesday. We will be getting another new elder then. 

 

The elders finished this round of English classes. We always give them certificates stating that they have completed the five week course.

 

  

   

 

 

 

We try to use Saturday for our "P" day, but with everything that has been going on it usually does not happen.  Thus ends the week.  We continue to do all the necessary things for our vision screening project.  Hopefully the screening will begin the first week of April.  Tomorrow looks like a trip to Zagreb - unfortunately it is snowing there and they are forecasting snow for here as well.  But we need to go to Croatia to sign a contract with the local Red Cross so that they will be able to get a container of wheelchairs. Hopefully the snow will not stick to the ground.  There is so much travel involved in our mission, but we are thankful to have a car and the ability to travel wherever we need to.