The origin of the word "religion" means "to bind together." However, history has proven that religion has often been one of the root causes of the tearing apart of nations, factions and ethnicities that goes back hundreds of years.

A good example is what happened in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. I was privileged to go to Bosnia in 1997 after the war to work for 10 days as a volunteer in a youth house. Before I went, I learned a smattering of the history that caused the war.

Historically the people in the Balkans were primarily of the same ethnicity who followed Christian Eastern Orthodoxy. Islam was brought to the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire in 1463. The Turkish army would only trade with Islamics so the tradesmen became Muslims for economic, not religious, reasons.

Eventually the area became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. World War I began when a Bosnian student assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, who was visiting Sarajevo. After World War II, communism took over that area under the dictatorship of Tito, who split with Stalin in 1948, developing his own brand of communism and uniting Yugoslavia.

The practice of religion was not allowed. People lived together, but the old hatreds seethed underneath. After the death of Tito in 1980, the country began to collapse and broke up in 1992 with the beginning of the Yugoslav War.

Ethnic cleansing of the non-Christians by the Croats (primarily Catholic) and the Serbs (Eastern Orthodox) became rampant. Mosques were systematically destroyed by Serbian and Croatian armies. People who had lived together peaceably under Tito killed their neighbors across the street from each other. One of the high school girls who grew up under Tito told me, "I didn't know I was a Muslim until this war came along."

Evidence of the war was everywhere. As we rode from the Sarajevo airport to the youth house, we passed buildings filled with bullet holes or in some places reduced to rubble. On the side of one building was a graffiti sign that said "Welcome to Hell."

There were signs warning of mines.

However, when we reached the youth house, which was located in two floors of an apartment house, the two young women who were in charge and the children and youth eagerly welcomed us.

In the days that followed, our team tried to demonstrate the true meaning of religion — binding together. Under the auspices of UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief), we were there not to proselytize but to help heal the psychological wounds the war had caused.

These young people had lost male family members. More than 30 percent of them were orphans or refugees. Mothers had to work to support their families. The UMCOR youth houses around the country provided safe places for the children to be after school and during the summer, offering supervised recreation and classes in English, math, computers, dance, music, and drama across religious lines.

We had three high school girls who served as our interpreters. I taught English, replacing a Bosnian teacher who needed a vacation.

The older youths wanted to practice their conversational English, so we sat in a circle and they pulled questions, which I had written on slips of paper, out of a box — questions to initiate discussion. One question was, "Name someone you admire and why." Most of the girls said their mothers. (No wonder.) Another was, "What can you do to bring about peace?"

There was a lot of bitterness about the war. I expected this so had brought along a short play based on a true story that happened in Japan during the American occupation after World War II. It dealt with the fear and anger the Japanese people had toward Americans and what one American soldier did for the children in a blind school to help heal that. One of the interpreters translated it into Bosnian and helped me direct the play, which was performed on our last night there.

Our team leader and two other members spent time with the two directors planning for a new youth house because the present apartment building would soon be needed to house returning refugees . As a result a new youth house was completed in 2001 with a grant of $30 million from the U.N. and private donations. I felt blessed to have had a small part in making the true meaning of religion become visible.
