At long last, this is a new podcast episode! In this episode we address a couple of basic questions about what we do here in Eastern Europe, including:

Who are you and what do you do?Why make a podcast?Why is Bosnia "strategic"?Why is important to "bring people together"?

Here are the notes / script for the episode -- you can read here, or just plug in the earphones and listen. Enjoy!

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Jonathan, and I work with young people and college students in the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I run a local Christian ministry to teens and students int eh city of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, I am on the staff of Cru, which is a big international Christian ministry organization. This is the first podcast in a very long time, so I want to give that introduction, since many of you might be listening to this episode as your first ever listen to us. 

I am a Protestant Christian, and my opinions and conclusions that I share here will come from that viewpoint and perspective. You are welcome to disagree with those conclusions — not everyone needs to agree with us in order to listen — and it is likely that we might disagree, because my experiences are most likely very different from the majority of American Christians. So from time to time I am probably going to share something here that reflects on international relations or political crises or dilemmas, stories from world history, and other things that will be interesting to a very wide range of people in our audience. So, hopefully, we will talk about some things that are interesting to everyone out there as we go through all the things that affect us here in the region where we are, Eastern Europe. It will not be just a continuous conversation about theology, though I am a theology student. It will not be just a dissection of Christian doctrine. 

The podcast will be a discussion of different things that I have learned as a foreigner living in a strange land for the last 10+ years. So we will touch on a lot of different issues and conversations that people are having around the world. We will talk about things generally from a Christian perspective, but we will acknowledge that there are other perspectives out there in the world, and that people listening to us might have different ways of looking at things. We will certainly always attempt to be respectful, and treat everyone with dignity that they deserve — As the book of 1 Peter in the New Testament says, Treat everyone with high regard: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God. 

Why a Podcast?

There are many reasons to do a podcast. 

1. It's easy. It’s an easy way to get in touch with all of you and let you know what we are doing. And we have many, many friends, supporters, donors, and followers who we want to connect with and keep up with back home in the US. It may sound like a complicated thing, but in reality this is a very simple enterprise. It’s just me and my computer and a couple of little gadgets, sitting down to a personal conversation with all of you. Ideas are great, and they are of course more personal, but they are hard to set up and produce - there are lights and picture and sound; podcasts are a lot more simple and provide us with a way to do more personal communication without getting into video. This is a budget podcast, and it will stay that way. We might have some guests on in the future, some more family members, but in general it will be just another way for me to connect with all of you on a budget. 

2. It allows us to produce long-form content. Let’s be honest - we are overloaded with all the social media bite-sized posts, clips, articles, links, etc etc etc. Most of the things you read from me fit a different niche in your information diet, and podcasting lends itself to that niche. It allows me to go deeper into my content, provide some longer answers to questions that we often get about our work,

This is the second episode in a series that will attempt to answer several of the questions that people ask about Bosnia, Sarajevo, Mostar, and Eastern Europe in general. We are going to talk about Communism, America, Atheism, Religion — there’s going to be a lot of issues thrown together here. I hope you like it. Today’s episode is called “what's in a name” it's the story of Herzegovina and how it got its long interesting and confusing name.

This is the first episode in a series that will attempt to answer several of the questions that people ask about Bosnia, Sarajevo, Mostar, and Eastern Europe in general. We are going to talk about Communism, America, Atheism, Religion — there’s going to be a lot of issues thrown together here. I hope you like it. Today’s episode is called “Winter but never Christmas — Stories of the holidays in Sarajevo”

It has been quite a while since I've recorded a new podcast, and I hope that you haven't fallen into despair while waiting for this episode. This time we are focusing on culture, something that we think about often, and something that I think is very important. I hope this episode is useful and helpful as you think about your own culture and how you can be a positive influence on those in your community. 

Notes: many thoughts were influenced by Dr. Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, NY, USA. To see what he had to say about this same idea, you can view his talk at the Q Ideas conference on YouTube.

Finally, here is the long-awaited third episode of podcast. The audience has been clamouring for the next instalment, the press has been calling, and time has been tight, but I have managed to finally bless my listeners with the sweet sound of my voice again ;-)

As you listen, keep in mind that this episode is meant first to inform you of the situation, since it has become an important current event in the country where I live. Second, it is meant to raise questions that I believe we need to think about, especially those of us who claim to be Christians. I have tried to refrain from voicing any hard and fast opinions here, as I know this can be a controversial issue.

Notes and links for the information discussed in this episode can be found at the bottom of this post.

Enjoy.

=== Podcast transcript ===

Podcast 3: Refugee Question

Hi I’m Jonathan, and this is The Bosnia Project podcast. The Bosnia Project is the chronicle of my life as a world traveler youth worker father and husband. Today is episode three, and we are going to talk about the Refugee crisis in Bosnia and how it affects us as believers.

The Bosnia Project is the story of how I came to live and work overseas in a country called Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s my blog, the Bosnia Project dot com, this podcast, and our Facebook community, and email updates we send out to our supporters and followers.

“The Bosnia Project” is a process and a product, all wrapped up into one thing, and this podcast, the blog, and everything else is a way to catch all that work, write it down, record it and preserve it, so that it can be of use to someone. This is the Bosnia Project, and it will continue for a good while longer.

I often say that we are building a community where people can belong, believe in God, and become the people he has created them to be. It all starts with belonging. My personal path to where I am today began with a community that made me feel that I belong, that I had a place in their fellowship. That eventually gave me the tools that I needed to believe and become the person I am today. That’s why I believe that belonging is an essential part of becoming a believer and seeing meaningful life change.

There are lots of groups and ministries that are based on this principle. Alcoholics Anonymous, depression recovery, and many other kinds of mercy ministries are effective because of the community they create for people in need. These communities create a kind of social framework that helps lift people up out of the places they are in, so they can reform their lives.

When people fall into destructive lifestyles, they often find camaraderie there. There are often lots of other people who help them descend into places they otherwise wouldn’t want to go. And when people are finally able to recover, it is often because of the help they receive a community. Very few ever recover in isolation.

For you and me, in a very similar way, I think community is essential if we are serious about becoming the people we are created to be. Any kind of small group, men’s group, women’s Bible studies — they give us hope and focus us, and help us know that there are other people who care about us and want us to advance.

Introduction

Today in Bosnia refugees have begun to show up on our doorstep. These are people who don’t belong anywhere. They’ve been driven from their homes and literally have no place to call home, and they’ve started to show up in great numbers in the country where I live now. We often think of the refugee crisis as something akin to serving the poor in the places where we live. It’s a very complex thing.

===

Driving back from meeting

In Bosnia and Herzegovina you have the capital city of Sarajevo, where I lived for a total of 7 years altogether, and then as you go west, towards the border of Croatia and European Union, the only big city you come through is Mostar, where I live right now. Right now, I’m driving back from Sarajevo to Mostar.

This is the second episode of THE BOSNIA PROJECT podcast. This one came out pretty well, and I hope you enjoy it -- it is a rehash of an old blog post, with a few new comments added by me. You can read the old list here, or just listen to this episode via your phone or however you listen to podcasts.

The music in this podcast is mostly from former-Yugoslavia artists. If you'd like to check them out, here is a list:

"Posoljeni Zrak i Razlivena Tinta"

Artist: Gibonni (feat. Damir Urban & Maja)

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiYrp2H6lUc 

"Mišići"

Artist: Dino Merlin

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2kh9gIde5s

Burek

Arist: Dino Merlin

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/0tLwvxsVvWI

 

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Podcast transcript

Hi I’m Jonathan, and this is The Bosnia Project podcast. The Bosnia Project is the chronicle of my life as a world traveler youth worker father and husband. Today is episode two, and we are going to share 10 ideas that help give us a balanced life, and they work if you live overseas or in your home country.

The Bosnia Project is the story of how I came to live and work overseas in a country called Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s my blog, the Bosnia Project dot com, this podcast, and our Facebook community, and email updates we send out to our supporters and followers.

“The Bosnia Project” is at least two things. The first is obvious — it’s a project. This life in Bosnia is a project that takes up all my time and talents. But then the second thing is the thing that is produced - the product is me. So The Bosnia Project a process and a product, all wrapped up into one thing, and this podcast, the blog, and everything else is a way to catch all that work, write it down, record it and preserve it, so that it can be of use to someone. This is the Bosnia Project, and it will continue for a good while longer.

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The big idea in the last episode was that belonging changes everything. Belonging is often the key that opens the door to meaningful experiences and lasting memories. If you want to have any kind of influence on someone, you need to try and find some way to invite them into your life. But when you do, you have to be ready - they might influence you just as much as you influence them.

It is also helpful to see just how much we are influenced ourselves by the things two which we belong. We belong to families, and they influence us, forever. We belong to churches, schools, organisations, companies, and they influence us immeasurably.

If you want to change anything about yourself - if you want to experience meaningful progress - you should look for a group of people who are going to help you change in the way you want. If you want to lose weight, if you want to gain a new skill, if you want to become a better parent - it’s always best to find a few people who also want that thing, and go in that direction together. You’ll get encouragement, you’ll get motivation, and you’ll get that sense of belonging that will help you leave your old habits behind and take up new ones that you want.

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Today I am going to share 10 things that I do to try to lead a balanced life overseas. The thing about this is, as you listen to this list, you gain new perspective about living in the United States, or wherever you happen to live. Because really, these are things that would be beneficial to do wherever you happen to live.

And this list can also be found on my blog; a link is in the description to this podcast, and the blog has some different remarks about each thing from what I’ll be saying here.

Cut the grass

When I came to Mostar, the city where we now live, I had not had a yard or garden in my whole time living in BiH. When we moved to Mostar 3 years ago, we had accumulated three kids, a dog, and a few hobbies — we were looking for a house. No more apartments in buildings in the centres of c...

This is the podcast. Enjoy!