Orthodox Christmas in Banja Luka...

  On January 6th, Jim's Birthday, we came into Banja Luka and  were again excited to see the Badnjak trees on every street corner. read here about Bosnia Christmas traditions






One of their traditions is that after staw is spread out on the floor the oldest woman in the family comes in and clucks like a chicken and begins throwing candy into the straw. There is a scramble for the candy by the children, but they all ended up sharing what they had gathered. I had the honor of helping Nada, but they had to give me clucking lessons!

I wish this was a better picture, this was Christmas Day, January 7th,  We had Sarma, refried beans, pork from one of their pigs that they slaughtered, (I asked if that made them sad, they said, "no we feed it to eat it") corn bread, pickles and peppers that had been preseved earlier in the fall, goat cheese, and some wonderful cakes and home made coconut candies. I'm bringing home that recipe!


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This is their traditional bread that has a coin baked in it. Whoever gets the coin has good luck for the whole year.

The Mission Presidents niece and their nanny, Jamie, Sister Robinson, (they came to say good-bye as well because they went home to Utah last week) Grandma Nada, Tihana, our Croatian translator, Sister Tanner, the mission nurse and her companion, Sister Rowe.
The Tadic family invited guests from Zagreb to eat Christmas dinner with them, they stayed at our house and attended church the next day. Grandma Nada brought all the women a pair of Bosnian slippers Sunday. Our guests were thrilled!

Pretty cute feet, don't you think?

We had a great Bosnian Christmas, New Years followed and now we are trying to get going again on humanitarian projects. We have several in the works, but January is pretty much a loss. Most offices have been closed all month or are just making due with a skeleton staff. The new year will bring us many opportunites to serve and hopefully we will see the Church becoming legal and the young missionaries arriving! Oh happy day! We really are praying that it will happen before we go home!