New year, new hope
for Bosnian woman

By Diane Villano
Times Staff Writer

Getting back into the swing of things after holiday vacations was tough for many this month. Nensi Juric had it tougher than most.
After sleeping in a comfortable bed, in a large, warm Bucks County house with plenty to eat for a month, Juric flew more than 4,500 miles home last week to a 12-by-16-foot tin hut she shares with her parents and two brothers at Capljina, a refugee camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Juric returns, however, with hope for the new year and a new home, thanks to an organization dubbed "His Work in Progress."
Juric, 22, spent Christmas and New Year’s in the Lower Makefield home of Walt and Janet Miller, co-founders of the Bucks County-based charity that brings aid to the poor and displaced people of war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina. The couple brought Juric over to help raise funds for a home-building project. The non-profit organization has already sent more than $2 million in aid and supplies in its six years of operation.
During her stay, Juric enjoyed America’s abundance. She did some sightseeing, rode a carousel at Peddler’s Village, and tasted her first banana split, which she thought was named after a Croatian city named Split. While she enjoyed the varieties of food here, compared to her meat-flavored soup back home, she preferred plainer fare —dishes without heavy sauces or spices.
The Bosnian student also met with "His Work in Progress." supporters, thanking them for their support and asking continued support. Juric also spread awareness about the organization’s mission through several radio and newspaper interviews.
While "His Work in Progress" is based in Bucks County, it has faithful support throughout the Northeast.
Students at Father Judge High School and Nazareth Academy have collected money as well as toiletries, shoes, boots, hats, scarves, gloves, even bicycles for the needy in Bosnia.
Ed Barber, of RE/MAX Eastern real estate on Grant Avenue donates some of his proceeds to "His Work in Progress" as well.
"It’s a wonderful thing, people here helping the less-fortunate in other countries. For what we waste in a day, we could feed a whole family for a week,’ Barber said.
Barber is also considering joining "His Work in Progress" on a Bosnian medical and construction mission this May.
The Millers first met Juric during a 2003 medical mission while visiting the refugee camp that Juric and 100 other families call home.
The young woman acted as a translator for the Millers and doctors during the mission.
"We set up exam rooms with sheets taken from our panciones (housing accommodations)," Janet Miller said. "Nensi would come into the examining room and listen to the elderly complaints and translate for the doctors. We were so impressed with her."
The next day, mission members spoke with Juric about problems in the camp.
The tin huts look like storage units minus the doors, Walt Miller said, adding that curtains in the doorway are all that blocks out the cold or the rain.
Five bathrooms — again, without doors — are shared by the 375 residents. Often only one meal a day, a meat-flavored soup or pasta, is prepared by women in the community kitchen.
"Walter asked if I could have one wish, what would it be? [I told him] a house," Juric said, something for which she has prayed for almost 13 years.
"The war started in 1993, in the place where we lived," Juric recalled. "My mother, father, two brothers, two aunts, and grandmother lived together in a village, on a little farm."
They grew vegetables, owned a cow, sheep . . . a typical "little farm."
"The army starts shooting," she recalled. "The army shot at the house, father (was) shot in the leg, his mother in the arm. We had to leave everything. Wouldn’t even let my mother take a bottle of milk for my two-year-old brother."
The army then took her father away and the rest of the family to jail. Lucky for them, the chief of police was a friend of the family.
"He was so good and released us," Juric said. "We stayed at [my] mother’s parents house for two years."
For most of that time, the family went without bread, subsisting on cheese, butter, milk, potatoes and beans. The price of flour, if available, was too costly.
Since being forced from the home that they loved, Juric’s family has moved seven times in almost 13 years, most recently at the refugee camp where the younger children must travel across a land-mine-infested field to go to school in three shifts. In fact, the school’s walls display land-mines and explosive devices so that students will know what they are if they see them on their way to school.
Said Juric: "The mood of the camp is mostly afraid, frustrated. Live for today, and tomorrow? Who knows."
In a December 2004 letter to the Millers, Juric wrote: "Now we eat just lunch from kitchen (lucky to get soup once a day if there is any)."
Though conditions at the camp don’t seem to improve, Juric hopes her family won’t have to stay there much longer.
In 2004 and with Juric in mind, "His Work in Progress" started the "Home for Christmas" project, raising money to build homes for Capljina refugee families.
The young translator’s family is at the top of the list. The Jurics were able to purchase a parcel of land with the help of family members. The non-profit organization is helping to fund the building of the actual structure.
With an initial $5,000, Juric’s father and brothers were able to dig for and build the home’s foundation. "His Work in Progress" plans to travel to Bosnia in May on a medical/construction mission.
"I would give everything for house. I pray to God for house [for] ten years that I don’t know any way to pray more," Juric wrote in 2004.
With a little luck Juric’s dream of living in a real house again will come true.
Before she headed home, Juric made a trip to Father Judge High School to talk with Tony Picarri, a supporter of "His Work in Progress" and liaison manager for BMR Construction. Picarri is working on Judge’s new field house.
"Nensi was interested in some of the construction methods," Picarri said. "I showed her masonry block walls and she indicated that they use concrete instead of blocks. I told her that there’s products that they put inside the blocks that will prevent the transfer of cold from the outside." ••
To learn more about "His Work in Progress," volunteer for the May mission, Home for Christmas and other projects, call 215-741-4947 or check out www.hwip.org
Reporter Diane Villano can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dvillano@phillynews.com