By Rita McInerney

For four months Tamara and Eric Huber, parishioners of St. Thomas Aquinas in Alpharetta, shared their life and home with a Croatian boy and his father.

The boy, Sandi Persic, who turned 11 on Oct. 13, and his father, Lucano, came here so the boy could undergo treatment at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. He is an example of how wars continue to claim victims after the guns are silenced. Sandi was five when he became a casualty of World War II.

He and his younger brother, Ivan, were playing around the barn on their grandfather’s farm in 1989. They dug up a live hand grenade. It exploded.

Ivan’s shirt caught on fire and he suffered minor burns on his arm. Sandi’s lower right arm was blown off; he lost a finger on his injured left hand. A major chunk of his right leg was lost. One eye was lost and he was blinded in his other eye. His face and body received extensive wounds.

After a long hospital stay he went home to his parents, Lucano and Anita, and Ivan. Home is Pula, Croatia, a city of about 60,000 people on the Adriatic in Croatia. The area is apart from the war zones in the current ethnic conflict claiming so many lives in the former Yugoslavia.

There were innumerable trips back and forth to the hospital and a long effort by Sandi’s doctor to interest the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in his case.

IOM is an independent humanitarian organization founded in 1951 in Brussels. It receives some of its funding from 49 member nations. The United States is one of the 49.

Transportation to the U.S. was contingent upon an assurance of pro-bono treatment and that the two had a place to stay. Scottish Rite provided pro-bono medical care and the Hubers opened their homes and hearts.

The Migration and Refugee Service of Catholic Social Services of the archdiocese was called after IOM had received Scottish Rite’s agreement to help. Caseworker Bob Kamack received the call from IOM. Could he find housing for the two during their stay?

Kamack said he called five or six churches and Father Al Jowdy, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas, was the only person responding. Within a few days Eric Huber called the caseworker to say he and his family would open their home to the Persics.

The willing couple was quick to admit they really couldn’t afford the hospitality and looked to the parish for help. Eric is a furloughed Delta pilot. They have two young sons, Eric Paul, two, and Joshua, six months.

“We’ve done this before. We felt compelled to respond,” Huber said, “as the right thing to do.”

Assistance from the parish was forthcoming. There was a special collection, part of it earmarked for the Hubers and Persics. Parishioners were generous. The parish St. Vincent de Paul Society was predictably helpful.

Deacon Ed LaHouse coordinated parish response. Seven volunteers signed on to drive the Persics to Scottish Rite. Several others took them on day trips to the World of Coca-Cola in downtown Atlanta, Stone Mountain, the North Georgia mountains. Twenty-five people were involved in preparing and delivering meals to the Huber household two nights each week.

Deacon LaHouse took father and son to Helen in the North Georgia mountains for a day and was impressed as Lucano described for his sightless son all that the two men could see. “What I thought would be a tough day turned out to be very pleasant.”

When Father Jowdy called Kamack, he had “perfect confidence” in the parishioners. “I have never asked the parish to do anything that they haven’t responded to,” he said.

As for the Hubers, they are “one of those families that radiate hospitality and generosity. They had every reason not to come forward, but they did and formed a beautiful relationship.”

The volunteer corps “worked out great,” Huber said. On the days Sandi was to have surgery, he made sure he accompanied Lucano to offer support. Sandi had reconstruction and plastic surgery on his face and surgery on his left hand. He couldn’t open it fully. He had impressions made for two eye prostheses.

While Lucano took care of Sandi, Huber says, “My wife became a mother figure for him.”

Although Sandi couldn’t see, he related to the specific noises from the two-year-old’s toys. They became his playthings. He loved baby Joshua like a big brother and the baby always laughed at his antics.

According to a Scottish Rite house publication which carried an article on Sandi, Melissa Sams, one of his nurses found him to be “a remarkable boy. He stayed in good spirits,” she said, despite being half a world away from his mother and brother, unable to see and hospitalized in a facility where he could not speak the language. “And he had the greatest smile,” she is quoted as saying. “He managed to experience a lot of life despite his disabilities.”

Communication came easier as the time passed. Lucano taught himself English from a book he brought with him. The Hubers turned their formal living room into “their (Persics) room.” One member of their small faith community at St. Thomas Aquinas put on doors to give the guests their privacy.

Group members are all friends made while Mrs. Huber was going through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at the parish. Her husband accompanied her to every session.

“Going through that experience in the church definitely made us more open to doing what’s right,” Huber said. “It’s a great bunch of people.”

Sandi received his new eyes the week before father and son flew home to Anita and Ivan on Oct. 3. There was an early birthday party for Sandi that weekend attended by the volunteers who had helped the Persics.

At the 10:30 Mass on Oct. 2, Father Jowdy gave a farewell blessing to the Persics and then led the congregation in singing “Happy Birthday” to Sandi. They left for Croatia and home the next day.

The first week the Persics were back home, Sandi called the Hubers three times. He needn’t worry. They won’t forget him.

The Hubers and their small faith group talked about him at a meeting after he left, about his cheerfulness and positive outlook on life.

Eric Huber mentioned the night the household was sitting around the table when Sandi suddenly said, “Thanks, God.” When he asked Sandi what he was thankful for, the boy replied, “for everything.”