Service and Language

As Humanitarian missionaries, Elder and Sister Lamb ( our upstairs neighbors) organized the opportunity for us, Elder and Sister Schmidt from Osijek and the young missionaries serving in Sarajevo to go and spend the day volunteering at the Duje Center. The Duje Center is an amazing place (we highlighted it in the post dated 12 December 2026). 

In previous times, young missionaries traveled to the Duje center a couple of times a month to spend the day working in the greenhouses; preparing, planting or harvesting.This particular day, we met in the morning at the Duje center. There was a short tour for some, who had not previously visited. 

The young elders then went with the greenhouse foreman and spend a couple hours digging water diversion trenches. 

We (Elder and Sister Lambs, Elder and Sister Schmidt and Sisters Hunter and Ray and us) got in our cars and followed Mersiha Imamović in her van. We drove about 10 km to a field of crops that had been donated by the farmer, to the Duje Center. 

The told us we would be harvesting beets. When we arrived at the field, I looked at the root vegetable and thought to myself, "these are not the vegetable I expected". I then learned that in the Bosnian word, "repa" can be used/interchanged for both beet and turnip - LOL. So, we were really harvesting turnips. 

The field was a little bigger than an acre and there were already several women there working. Some people pulled the turnips from the ground and stacked them into piles. 

Others sat around the piles and with a knife, topped any greens and the root and placed them in 5 gallon buckets. 

Still others hauled the buckets to the edge of the field and filled large poly-bags. 

The weather was perfect! Sunny and not too warm. The field dirt was dry enough that the turnips pulled easily and the dirt fell away. It made me so happy to be digging in the dirt - to be outside in the sunshine. I loved the smell of the dirt and to be be soaking up the sun. 

Elder Lamb and the young sisters visited with some of the other workers (as they had language). I thought and thought about how I might verbally interact. I thought about words I knew and wondered what I could express to my fellow Bosnian volunteers. 

After a bit I said, "ja molim vrt". What I thought I was saying was, "I love gardening". But what I really said was "I pray dirt". (I had used molim/pray, instead of volim/love.) The women looked at me a little confused. Luckily, Elder Lamb, who is fluent in Bosnian, was within earshot and was able to explain my mistake and that I really did love gardening - lol. The women smiled at my mistake. He graciously translated a bit, as the women asked me about my garden at home in Idaho. LOL - adventures in language. Sometimes I feel like I have only enough language to be dangerous 🙃

We worked hard and got about 80% of the field harvested. The bags we filled would fill the transport truck they had and more. So after a bit, we just made a large pile of topped turnips that they would come and get the next day. 

When our time was done, our gracious hosts met us back at a restaurant run by the Duje Center, then we were their guest at a delicious lunch. 

After a late lunch, we got into our cars and headed back to Sarajevo. It was a great day!

Another wonderful experience we had this week was dinner with friends. We along wth Elder and Sister Lambs were invited to share a meal with Emir, Diana and their children. They were wonderful hosts and we were honored to be in their home - the food was delicious and the conversation lively - but the best thing was the love and friendship we felt. 

This whole week was grounding for me - dirt, sunshine, work, good food, family and friendship. The more experiences I have, the more I realize that things we have in common are so much greater than our differences.