Mission: Love

While Eastern Europe is not considered the hot spot for spring breakers, IU and Miami of Ohio students decided to travel across oceans and countries to the small, war-torn territory known to natives as Kosova. The trip was one of many overseas spring break trips sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. \nAfter many complications \nand an unexpected stay in Macedonia, 16 students, including myself, took an 18-hour bus ride through the Albanian mountains into Pristina, Kosova. We arrived two days late because of the border closings. Little did we know that the four days to come would be full of incredible opportunities to meet people of the city, including students at the university in Pristina. \nEach morning, the American and Albanian students gathered to pray for the day ahead. After praying, we broke up and went to campus. There, we gathered students for a game of "slow-mo football" where our teams dressed in crazy outfits and played football in slow motion. At night, each American student went with an Albanian student to the residence halls to meet people. Laying aside books and homework, Kosovar students invited us in, made us coffee and talked with us about their lives. \nWhile NATO came into Kosova more than two years ago, saving Kosovars from Serbian control, the memories and scars are still evident in the voices of these students … voices behind stories that most of us had only read and heard about in the news.\nWe met several students who were more than willing to share their personal war experiences. One night, before a program that we put on for nearly 700 students, I met a woman named Naile Bacaj, a student at the university in Pristina. After the program, at a nearby coffee shop, Bacaj talked with me about her life. She described her experience with the war: "My family had to leave our home, as refugees, and go to Montenegro … where I didn't know anyone. For three months, we lived there. When we came back to our home, everything was burnt and gone." \nVacant homes and buildings are scattered throughout Pristina, footprints of the war everywhere the Kosovars turn. In fact, a Serbian church remains in the middle of the city, reminding Kosovars of the long suffering that their enemies brought to their hometown. We saw soldiers guarding the church. We were told that they are there 24 hours a day so that it won't be destroyed by Kosovars angered by its presence. \nBut life goes on for the Kosovars. A new form of government has brought hope to the land. Vendors line the streets, selling sunglasses, CDs and Albanian flags, the flag Kosova claims as its own. Coffee shops are on each corner, and the people inside sip thick turkish coffee and chai tea while talking about the simple things in life. Old men smoking cigarettes sit on park benches, enjoying games of chess. While the territory has yet to find peace because of a government that is only temporal, the Kosovars continue with life, the pain of the war draining slowly from their minds. \nWhile many war-stricken Kosovars might be poor in body, many have great hope. For many of the students with whom we talked, Christianity has provided hope in the midst of all the loss and hurt of the war. Bergita Nikaj, a young Kosovar woman studying to be a doctor, said the religion has changed her life. \n"During the war when I thought my father was dead, I remember praying and praying and trusting God that he wasn't dead. Through the whole month of not knowing, I felt God's presence. And when I saw him alive, I turned my heart over to God," Nicaj told Campus Crusade for Christ worker Jill Henderson. \nNikaj is now a leader in "Institute Yete e Rey" (The New Life Institute), a Christian organization on her campus. She teaches women in her residence hall about what the Bible says. \n"When I read God's word, that is when peace takes place in my heart … and I feel that time and time and time again," Nikaj said.\nThe love of God that Nikaj found in the midst of an intense war is the same love that brought students from Albania, Kosova and America together in unity. While our team had to leave Kosova a day early because of dangerous border situations, we left having shared with the Kosovars (as well as Macedonians), not only beautiful memories that will last a lifetime, but also our beliefs about God.