HOPE HOSPITALITY that feel like FAMILY By Andrew Nash
MIRSADA’S STORY
Mirsada’s
parents had a plan to escape from the Bosnian Civil War. The first step was getting to Germany. The second step was getting arrested intentionally. “When we came to Germany, we had to actually go to the bus station and act like we didn’t have money to pay for tickets so that they would arrest us,” Mirsada said. “So that way, when they arrest us in Germany, we tell them we don’t have any papers, that we don’t have anything. That’s the way they could fix it for us to stay over there as immigrants.”
Mirsada was nine years old when her parents took her and her three younger sisters from their home country to seek refuge before the fighting broke out. In Germany, she met her husband and had the couple’s first daughter. With a six-month-old in tow, Mirsada, her husband, her parents and her sisters moved from Germany to Utah to live near an aunt. This aunt turned out not to be the support structure the family needed. “We were crying. We really wanted to go back because we could not find jobs,” she explained. “My husband and my dad were looking for jobs, but they could not find anything. We didn’t even know where the store was. Actually, the store was close to the corner from our house; you just walk a little bit, turn right and there was the store. But we didn’t know.”
CBF field personnel Mira Zivanov (right) sits with Mirsada (left) in St. Louis, Mo., where they met through the Zivanovs’ food pantry ministry and became fast friends.
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fellowship!
