Another Kind of Vacation: Our Experience in Kosova

Anna and Josh Hayden

When people asked us where we were going on vacation last summer and we responded, “Kosova,” most gave us a funny look and remarked dryly that it wasn’t the typical vacation destination.* They were right. A war-torn European province struggling for independence wasn’t exactly the beach. Yet this past July, we spent two weeks in the province of Kosova teaching a leadership workshop for Albanian college students. We were invited on the trip by a friend and colleague from Belmont University, never imagining that Kosova and the Albanian people were what God had in store for us this past summer.

Racism and division between Albanians and Serbians has a long history. During Slobodan Milosevic’s regime, Albanians lost many of their civil rights. They were not allowed to have more than an 8^th-grade education, were forced to obey curfews, and were subjected to anti-Albanian rhetoric. The situation peaked in 1999, when thousands of Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbians and forced from their homes. NATO intervention brought the fighting to a halt, and UN peacekeeping forces now occupy Kosova.

The leadership workshop where we taught was sponsored by the Qiriazi Institute, an NGO in Kosova created after the war in 1999 to foster Kosovar leadership training and development. Kosova, currently a UN protectorate whose people are anxious for independence, was governed by Serbs prior to the war. Because of its recent history, and because the average age of the population is twenty-five, Kosova has a great need for capable leaders. As we reflect on our experiences and relationships with the students there, two themes emerge: the radical nature of servant leadership and the power of forgiveness.

Another Kind of Leadership

One of the immediate challenges we faced was in presenting the love and service of Christ in a culture with an ethnic identity strongly tied to Islam and a widespread distrust of Christianity. The workshop was designed to expose college students to leadership characterized by integrity, moral vision and service to others. Though not explicitly Christian, the leadership concepts that we taught were all based on the character of Christ and the love and service seen in His life through the Gospels. Seminars on topics such as vision, integrity, listening, and valuing people encouraged students to give their gifts and abilities to something greater than themselves.

In light of the recent conflict, it was not surprising that the students struggled with the seminar on valuing people. Many asked, “What if people do not value us?” This presented a great opportunity to teach them that servant leaders lead without expecting anything in return. We explained that servant leaders value others not because of what they get out of it, but because all people are fearfully and wonderfully made. Communicating to students that other people do not have to earn or merit love was a powerful contrast to their day-to-day experiences. For instance, Albanian culture often does not value women in the same way as men. A female student described her status in her family by saying that her father cares nothing for her; he only cares about her brothers. She said with hurt and bitterness, “My father, he leaves me nothing.” Many female students expressed similar concerns. Other students remarked that they were eager to value everyone—except Serbs. At those moments we were reminded that without the transforming power of Jesus Christ, true change was impossible.

Another Kind of Forgiveness

Liridon, one of the students, invited us to his family’s house for dinner one evening. His father told us that before and during the war with the Serbs, he spent time in prison and was severely abused. Liridon related how his family escaped harm by hiding in trash bags on the back of a cart heading out of Kosova. Another student was forced to watch as his parents were tied to a haystack and burned to death. Most of Peja, our home base while we were there, was destroyed during the war by Serb forces, and the city is only slowly recovering. These and many other students’ stories forced us to face the suffering the Albanians had endured. What does forgiveness and reconciliation look like between peoples with a centuries-old history of fighting and hate? How do Albanians embody forgiveness in the face of such horror and personal loss?

These are some of the complicated issues we wrestled with in our seminars. Ethnic conflict is prevalent throughout the Bible, and in this respect there is nothing new in regards to the Albanian-Serbian conflict. In Matthew 18, Jesus calls his disciples to respond to such conflict with inexhaustible forgiveness. God, as an artist, created ethnicities with beauty and differences. God, in his triune nature, exhibits perfect difference-in-harmony, and it is only through God that different peoples, like the Albanians and the Serbians, can achieve harmony out of discord. In fact, creating harmony out of discord is the very essence of Christ’s redemptive work.

At the end of our time, we were left with more questions than answers. How can we raise up quality leaders in the midst of such religious and ethnic strife? How can the sufferings of the Albanian people be redemptive? As we continue to seek wisdom and understanding, it is our prayer that our efforts are a part of God’s greater plan to redeem and restore Kosova for his glory.

* “Kosova” is the Albanian spelling of the province. “Kosovo” is the Serbian spelling. Given that Kosova is 90 percent Albanian, and that we were working with Albanian students, we have decided to use the Albanian spelling here.

Anna Caruso Hayden is a Trinity Forum Academy alumnus. She and her husband Josh currently reside in Nashville, Tennessee, where Anna works for the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Josh is a doctoral student at Vanderbilt and currently teaches leadership theory to undergraduates. In their free time, Anna enjoys ballet class and Josh plays the banjo. Click here for a full-size image of their vacation picture.

1 Responses • Alumni, Fri 16 Nov 2007