It started with a radio report…

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On a drive home one Friday afternoon in November 1992, Jason Reed heard a report on NPR about the war in the newly formed countries of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.  It spoke of the terrible fighting and how thousands were at risk of dying over the winter because there was no safe way to deliver food and fuel to keep warm.  Jason was the Youth Director at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Springfield, VA.  He canceled the regular youth group activities for that Sunday and called a special meeting instead.  At that meeting he told the gathered teens and adult leaders about the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and asked the simple question:  “should we do something to help?”

 

This question began a journey that led to service projects, lots of learning, and further explorations.  In the spring of 1994, during the war, Jason traveled to Croatia and worked at LIFE Center, an organization caring for refugees from nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina. He went back to LIFE Center in 1995 and 1996, continuing to work with refugee children and repairing and renovating LIFE Center's facilities.  

 

In 1997 Jason led his first team of youth and adults to Croatia to assist in constructing longer-term support facilities for war refugees.  Later that fall he met Bobby Houser who invited him to bring a team to Bosnia and Herzegovina to join TWI for the Children in helping children there who were suffering in the immediate aftermath of the war.  

 

In 1998 Jason led a team who spent a week in Croatia working at LIFE Center and a week in Bosnia and Herzegovina holding Friendship Camps in four towns. Friendship Camps are one-day programs for children ages 9-14 that include music, games, drama activities, art projects, and lunch.  
The team's time and work in Bosnia and Herzegovina was coordinated by Vjeko and Azra Saje, residents of Sarajevo and extraordinary community leaders.  Vjeko and Azra's leadership and partnership with these trips continues to this day.

 

In 1999 the team had to stay in Croatia and cancel its time in Bosnia and Herzegovina because of the threatened NATO bombing in the area as a part of the war in neighboring Kosovo.

 

In 1999 Jason and his family moved to New Jersey after he took a position as Youth Ministry Specialist with the New Jersey Synod, ELCA. The interest in this trip took root in the New Jersey Synod, and so began the next part of this journey with the synod’s first trip in 2000.

 

From 2000 to 2019 Jason organized and led the New Jersey Synod’s Bosnia International Servant Trip (Bosnia IST) ministry, which trained and led intergenerational Travel Teams to hold Friendship Camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina each June.  In 2013 Camp New Hope, a 4-day residential program for young peacemakers from across the country, was added to the itinerary.  If you’d like more info about the New Jersey Synod's Bosnia IST, here is their website and facebook page.

 

Since 1998 over 200 teens and adults from around the US have traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina on trips led by Jason — with over half of them going more than once!  These teams have hosted 180+ Friendship Camps and Camp New Hope programs for 30,000 participants!  Team members have visited schools, orphanages, churches, mosques, community and cultural centers, war cemeteries and memorials, concentration camp sites and mass grave identification centers.  They have heard stories of war and peace-building, community reconciliation work, brokenness and hope.  They have shared with new friends in Bosnia and Herzegovina countless meals and coffee and ice cream, gone dancing, swimming and river rafting, sung, laughed, and built life-long friendships.  They have been changed forever.

 

Jason and Vjeko and Azra are eager to help new groups travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and grow as peacemakers and world-changers!