#1
As the embers from the Balkans wars continue to cool down, and the region settles into a still somewhat tenuous peace, Church World Service is moving away from emergency related work and into longerterm development projects. “We know what the risks are in creating dependence on paternalistic relief aid,” said Vitali Vorona (vee-TAH-lee voh-ROH-nah), CWS Balkans Director. “That is why we focus on assistance that empowers people and helps them generate their own resources.”

Among the empowered people are 250 families in three villages near Mostar (moh-stahr), Bosnia
Herzegovina (her-sah-GO-vin-ah) — Lokve (lohk-veh), Bivolje Brdo (biv-vohl-jeh brid-oh) and Gradina
Pocitelj (grahn-din-ah poh-chee-tel-yeh) — who received agricultural assistance from CWS in the form
of 22,000 kilos of seed potatoes.

To “payback” the loan, the communities sent more than 35 tons of potatoes to seven soup kitchens throughout the country, where more than 6,000 people received food — based on need, not on ethnic background. The families are on their way to independence, and in the process, they are helping to build peace in a country struggling with the legacy of war.

Week of Compassion has been a major supporter of the CWS Balkans Program, and this is just another example of how our gifts of dollars and potatoes — like the loaves and fish — are multiplied over and over to feed thousands.


#2
We are very thankful. This has come at a very crucial time for us,” said Rahmuddin Huzruddin (rah-mu-deen hoos-roo-deen), 22, as he placed wooden beams atop the house he and his family have rebuilt in the village of RabatQarabaghi (rah-baht kah-rah-bah-gee), Afghanistan. Huzruddin lives in an area just yards from what at one time was the frontline of fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

Church World Service and its local Afghan partners assisted 40 families in RabatQarabaghi as they reconstructed their homes. This was part of the overall project that Week of Compassion is supporting through CWS to provide housing to some 1,500 families in the Shomali Valley, just north of Kabul.

For Marvin Parvez, director of CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan, the hard work and dedication of the people is a marvel. “The two things I most admire about the Afghan people,” he said, “are their resilience and capacity to bounce back.”

Now CWS and WOC hope to build another 1,500 homes to help further the reconstruction and reconciliation of this beleaguered nation. God does use our gifts for big purposes.


#3
No one is more vulnerable than the more than 35 million people in our world today who are uprooted from their homes by the horrors of war, intolerance, and natural disaster.

In 1991, Belinda Chilombo (chee-lohm-boh), her husband, and five children fled their village in Angola. For eight years they hid in the bush as war raged between government troops and UNITA rebels. Three of Belinda’s children died there.

When peace finally came to Angola more than a decade later, the Chilombos returned to their village. Only the walls were left of what was once their mud house. Belinda planted a few seeds she had jealously saved over the years, hauling water from a well two kilometers away. She cut down some small trees to turn into charcoal and sell to passing traders on the armamentlittered highway near her home.

Though times remain hard, Belinda hopes her two remaining children can attend school. “They grew up in the bush and don’t know anything but how to run from other people,” she said. “I’d like them to learn something else.”

Church World Service and WOC have helped some 9,000 wardisplaced and returned Angolan families with health services, agricultural and food assistance, land mine awareness training, and rebuilding and rehabilitation of school facilities.

Our gifts to WOC do make a difference — please give generously.