by Rita McInerney

Osman and Vesna Vujinovic and their children, Maja, 14, and Benjamin, who will be 11 in June, are settling into a new apartment in Lawrenceville.

They fled their home in Mostar, Bosnia, in July, 1993, finally arriving in the United States Feb. 9.

They had considered flight since the outbreak of the tragic ethnic war two years ago. “But always we thought it would stop,” Mrs. Vujinovic said.

The Bosnian family is being sponsored by St. Benedict’s parish in Duluth. Several families were already here and three other families came on the same flight as the Vujinovics. All came through World Relief, a humanitarian agency that resettles refugees from troubled areas of the world.

Tom and Jo Huff, who share leadership of the parish social justice committee, tell how the Bosnian family and St. Benedict’s were brought together.

Joel Armistead, volunteer and family sponsor for World Relief, called Father Terry Young, pastor, to ask if St. Benedict’s would sponsor one of the four families then waiting in Rome. Father Young referred Armistead to the Huffs who invited him to speak to the social justice committee.

Armistead brought along three recently resettled Bosnians as well as before and after videos of the besieged city where the pre-war population was 125,000 people.

Once the social justice committee agreed to sponsor the family, the response from the parish of 1,700 families was “phenomenal,” Tom Huff said.

The parish St. Vincent de Paul Society agreed to cover the rent of the apartment for three months and purchased furniture at the SVDP store. Tags listing household items, bedding and linens were attached to the Christmas Giving Tree and were snatched up as quickly as tickets to a rock concert.

The Women’s Guild and the Knights of Columbus gave a washer and dryer. Tom Huff said World Relief contributed $4890, $120 for each family member, toward the expense of settling the family. The food committee added this sum to the cost of stocking the kitchen cabinets.

Details are myriad when groups are responsible for introducing a family to the American way of life. So there are other committees in action; clothes, transportation, employment, school.

Tom and Jo Huff want other parishes to experience the happiness that the people of St. Benedict’s have found.

“We really want the word to get out that there is a great opportunity and real need,” Huff said. The commitment is for 90 days during which the sponsors become friends with the newcomers.

“The minute we saw them, we loved them,” Huff said of the committee’s response to the family.

For him there was discovery that “through the whole thing, the Holy Spirit is working.”

Vivacious Maja interprets for her family. Both parents use the dictionary frequently to find the precise word they need to express a thought. The daughter is in the eighth grade at Lawrenceville Middle School and her brother Benjamin in fourth at Simonton Elementary School.

Vesna Vujinovic is grateful communication between teacher and students is good in her children’s schools. Schooling was more formal in Mostar, she said.

In pre-war Mostar, both parents had flourishing careers. Osman Vujinovic managed a large vineyard and fruit and vegetable plantation. She taught the literature of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav language at a gymnasium (high school). She also was certified for library work.

Their keen appetite for learning and love of books is evident in their new home. Manuals for learning English and Yugoslav-English dictionaries are at hand. Well-used books in their native language have their place.

Mrs. Vujinovic has pleasant memories of growing up in Sarajevo. The city’s church bells and the cry of the muezzin summoning Muslims to the mosques were harmonious. Later, she skied runs that Olympians would compete on in 1984.

Before 1992, the Vujinovics had a good life in Mostar. There was neighborliness, sometimes intermarriage, among Bosnians, Croatians, Serbs, Muslims, Christians and Jews. Osman Vujinovic is Muslim, his wife Christian. In summertime, the family would vacation on the Adriatic Sea, just a 30-minute drive from their home.

The war brought destruction. The beautiful stone bridges spanning the Neretva River in Mostar were wrecked by shelling and countless homes made uninhabitable.

Then came a day when their daughter became another casualty of war. Maja was playing with several other children outside their flat when the youngsters were hit by shrapnel. Hurt in the legs, arms and shoulders, Maja was hospitalized for several days.

Like other veterans of war, Maja has learned that shrapnel can resist surgeons’ probing. So she carries her own souvenir of war, a small jar in which she captures the tiny black pellets that surface from time to time on her young skin.

When the Vujinovics finally left Mostar, they carried seven suitcases. Mostly they contained such treasures as handmade table linens, paintings of familiar places, books in their native language.

“Clothes are easy to replace,” Vesna Vujinovic said of their choice.

During their odyssey from Bosnia, the family spent three months in Czechoslovakia and 40 days in a convent in Rome. This part of their journey was made memorable by the hospitality of the sisters of Our Lady of Sion. They smile when mentioning the “super” food and hospitality offered by the nuns.

When the plane left Rome for New York, Vesna Vujinovic “forgot the horror” that forced them to leave their home. “I put everything out of my mind.”

The family is grateful for their new friends at St. Benedict’s and for old friends among the other Bosnian families recently resettled in the Lawrenceville area by World Relief.

Of the Bosnian families now living in the Atlanta area, Maida Dzakula, her husband Bozo, and children Ivana, seven, and Boris, six, were first to arrive, in early September. They were neighbors of the Vujinovics in Mostar. She is Muslim, her husband and children Catholic.

Next, on Dec. 16, came Mrs. Dzakula’s parents, Mehmed Raisvanic, 76, and his wife Hatidza, 61. They were sponsored by Doug and Gina Baehl of St. Lawrence Church, Lawrenceville.

“We got the phone call from World Relief 36 hours before their arrival,” Mrs. Baehl said. Within 24 hours the garage at their home was overflowing from donations from Mr. Baehl’s co-workers at National Cash Register and from parish groups.

Mrs. Baehl said the couple’s daughter, Maida Dzakula, was so well established by then that she was able to take them through many of the procedures required.

Mrs. Baehl said there is a big time commitment involved in sponsoring a family. But they don’t regret putting their own plans on the “back burner” while becoming fast friends with the newcomers.

The Baehl’s visit the older couple twice a week and call Mehmed “Deda,” (grandfather) and Hatidza “Nana,” (grandmother). They play cards and enjoy Nana’s ample meals.

“They need to have exposure” to Americans and their way of life if they are to become self-sufficient, Mrs. Baehl said.

Next to arrive on Nov. 10 were other relatives of the Raisvanics, Goran and Azra Handac and their children, son Feda, 10, and daughter, Nastja, four. They were sponsored by Knights of Columbus at St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn. Goran, an aircraft technician in Mostar, found work as a machinist. he is a nephew of the older couple.

Another family, this one arriving Feb. 9, is also related to the Raisvanics. The Huskovics include Jasmin, an engineer, his wife Nella, a bookkeeper and niece of the Raisvanics, and their two girls Hanna, six and Mirna, three. They are being sponsored by the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Patrick’s Church in Norcross.

Linda Dowd of World Relief said the agency works with the U.S. State Department in bringing the Bosnians to a new life here. The crucial need is sponsors, whether churches, groups or individuals. She admits that she “beats on a lot of church doors” to find sponsors for families now arriving frequently from Italy. Groups or individuals interested in sponsoring a family are asked to call World Relief at 294-4352.