The feeling that prompted me I know has prompted me many times in my life, but because of that experience I was more aware of it. I recognized it when it came. It was that same feeling that came one day when I had been watching the events that had been unfolding in what was then Yugoslavia. We were watching awful scenes of what was happening there day after day and night after night. Although I didn't want to see it, I was compelled to put the TV on every day to see how the situation was unfolding.
One particular night I can remember watching a program on the women who had been released from the Serbian rape camps. I was watching the looks on their faces and I really felt inside this same feeling come. I felt I needed to do something, but I didn't know what. At this time I was serving as Relief Society President in my ward and I questioned my feelings again. I'm not an adventurous woman at all and I didn't even go down to the London temple without my husband. I had no intentions of ever leaving my family at any time. I really felt strongly that the Lord was requesting me to do something more than just take out my cheque book and write a cheque for a charity that was doing something over there.
I spent a lot of time on my knees over the next few days, pleading with the Lord to help me to know what it was that He wanted me to do. I phoned several charities that went over into Bosnia. I was just checking around to see what I could do. I asked that if I started an appeal what would be the best aid to take in, what would you advise me to collect and if I could collect some stuff, would you be willing to take it on the back of one of your convoys? It was never my intention to go into a war zone. I love my family far too much to even remotely think that I would get involved in anything like that. My intentions in the beginning were to just do something that would help me feel better, knowing that I had done something practical for them. Finally I got one charity that was willing to take all the aid over to Bosnia, if I collected it.
It was just before Christmas of 1992 and I went and saw my bishop. I told him that I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for the Relief Society sisters to get involved in some compassionate service that was outside of our area. Then I went and saw the stake president. I then went to our area church headquarters to see if we could use the basement of our chapel, which was completely empty, for storage, just on a temporary basis. They were very supportive and said yes, I could do that.
The next Sunday I went to the Relief Society sisters and within three weeks we had collected 38 tons of the most incredible aid. We did 24-hour shifts boxing and packing and going through all the aid. All the missionaries used their Preparation days to come in and help. People who would have never walked into a Latter-day Saint church before came in and stood side by side with the Latter-day Saints, sang with them and laughed with them as they boxed and packed. It was just the most unbelievable time. I think with it being near Christmas, everyone became infused with giving.
Everyone became involved, not only our own church, but many other denominations as well, hospitals, the Post Office, schools, the police force and the general public. Day after day there would be wagons pulling up and dropping off tents, cooking equipment, emergency equipment and hygiene items. There was everything from food parcels to medical supplies. It was just incredible.
I had already arranged with one of the transport companies that their donation would be that they would pick up all the stuff and deliver it down to London where the charity was based, free of charge for me and this charity was going to take it over there. Two days before it was to leave the charity rang me up and said that they were very sorry, but they couldn't take it. They had run out of money and they were not taking stuff over any more, which left me in a real dilemma, because the church was absolutely packed full. The classrooms were full; even the bishop's office was full of baby milk and disposable baby nappies. Then on Sunday I went to church early as the Relief Society president to make the room look nice, and as I got there, my heart just absolutely sank to my boots because a lorry had been and dumped about 10 tons of aid in front of the chapel doors the previous night.
When we arrived at church, we couldn't get near the building so church services were not held that day. We had to spend virtually all of that Sunday, moving all the boxes just so everybody could get into church, and I wasn't the flavor of the month, with the bishop. We just had Sacrament meeting and everything else was cancelled. The Primary children thought it was wonderful.
When that happened, I was absolutely devastated. I can remember getting down on my knees and saying to my Heavenly Father, "Lord, what have I done? Was I listening to the wrong promptings? What has happened here? Everything has gone wrong. Yet there is all this wonderful stuff, absolutely incredible aid, that is waiting to go and they were waiting for it, and I have no means of getting it there." More vans and cars were showing up all the time with more contributions. The whole situation was spiraling out of control.
I found out that somebody had gone to the newspaper. Some of the newspaper headlines said "Christmas Carol Bags for Bosnia", "Mother of Seven Bags for Bosnia", or "The Latter-day Saints are bagging for Bosnia." It really seemed to somehow capture the imagination. The BBC picked up the story and although it was wonderful because it got more aid coming in, it put me in a difficult position as how to get it over to Bosnia.
Again there was another article about what we were doing and underneath was this tiny little piece. It said "Convoy of Hope bound for Bosnia. Anyone wishing to join this convoy would they ring this number." I rang them up hoping that they would be able to take all the aid that I had got. It was not with the intention of going myself, just hoping that they would take all the aid. But they wouldn't, instead they said "We would love to have you join us."
It was a convoy of people who had collected all their own stuff and they were joining on to a convoy. However when you voluntarily go into a war zone, all insurance is null and void. Now, because, I've had cancer and nobody can still to this day understand why I survived and I am reasonably healthy, nobody will touch me with insurance. But my husband is well insured, so when he offered to go and join the convoy, we were told that he would lose his insurance coverage. I said, "If you stand on a land mine or if you're shot by a sniper or a shell lands on you, we will be in trouble because I will have the children to look after. I just have this feeling inside that the Lord wanted me to go."
I couldn't explain it to anybody and I can probably explain it better now with hindsight, but I knew that I would be all right. He wasn't too happy about it, but after a day of fasting and prayer, we came to the conclusion that this would probably be the best solution. One of my daughters, who was very adventurous, decided that she was going to go with me and drive a truck. It was a big seven and a half ton truck, which was about 28 feet long, it was massive and she was going to drive it with me.
I phoned a lot of my friends, who had big trucks and vehicles, many of them came and supported me and they joined the convoy as well. There were 110 vehicles that left on that first, humongous convoy. There were 38 ton trucks, 7-1/2 ton trucks (which is the largest one you can drive on an ordinary license, and that is what I drove.) There were also minibuses, small vans and even cars with trailers that went.
On that first convoy it took us 10 days to get through Europe. It was a massive adventure for me and such a big decision to make, because the only pictures that I had ever seen of Bosnia were the ones of warfare. The whole time we were traveling I was wondering what I was going to see. I am rather a compassionate person and get very involved with people. I was getting very nervous as to how I would react with seeing people in distress over there, because I don't cope with it very well.
I was feeling proud that I was driving this vehicle through Europe and I was doing ok. It was a major accomplishment for me. We went through some of the most wonderful scenery, right through Europe. It was 2,500 miles. We slept rough, in minus temperatures but it was a wonderful experience.
We arrived in Croatia, in the capital Zagreb. There was a large meeting held. There were 400 drivers altogether. We were asked if any of us would volunteer for crisis areas. I suppose it was because I was very naive, having grown up in the Church, and we both looked at each other and thought, "Well, we've not driven all this way to stick our aid in some warehouse. We're off to a crisis area to give it to the people." We volunteered.
What we didn't realize was that it was a crisis area because it was under shell fire and no one else was crazy enough to go. I looked around and there was only us and two other men who put their hands up to go into crisis areas. I can still remember now the sinking feeling that came over me. I wondered if I had made a mistake. But I was too proud to renege on the decision I had made. That was how it started. I got into doing these convoys by chance really.
I think the Lord got me doing this in the only way He knew I would do it. There was no way I was brave enough to have actually made the decision straight away. I just wasn't that sort of a woman at all. It was just a step at a time, which is the way He usually does things with me.
That first experience was unbelievable. We went into an area where the Canadian peacekeeping forces were, in a place called Polinska Poljana. The Serbian guns were only a matter of 20 feet away from us. We had to transfer all the supplies into the back of a big army wagon, so that they didn't know that there were any civilians there. We had to go through a mine field. I don't know whether you have ever been through a mine field or not, but it was quite an experience doing that.
We went over a pontoon bridge, which absolutely terrified me, because I couldn't swim. The river, with it being winter, was very badly swollen. The pontoon bridge was just big thick beams of wood that had all been chained together and then they were chained to oil drums that were floating on the side. It was quite an expanse across the river. It was already lapping up between the wooden beams and we had to take our large truck over this pontoon bridge.
The unfortunate thing was that my eyesight isn’t great and though I was fine driving through Europe, I didn't fancy driving on this pontoon bridge. I was worried about taking this heavy vehicle on to the bridge because it was only made for army vehicles. When we actually drove on to the pontoon bridge, there must have only been a couple of inches from the wheels to the edge of the bridge. My daughter is an excellent driver and so I had said, "You can drive the truck and I will stand in front of you and direct you over inch by inch." What I hadn't realized was that as the vehicle went on to the pontoon bridge it pushed it down below the water line. I was there with the water was just swishing round my legs and trying to direct the truck safely across the bridge, but I was terrified.
That was such an important experience to me because I immediately recognized that I needed help from my Heavenly Father. It was very unnerving when I could not actually see what I was walking on in the water. It was quite murky and muddy and it was very cold. My feet were freezing in the water. I can remember just standing there and saying "Lord, you have gotten me into this." My legs were stiff, they wouldn't move, I was petrified, and I said "Somehow you are going to have to work a miracle on my legs and get them moving because I cannot move them myself."
Immediately I had said it, all fear left, which was unbelievable to me. The fear was gone, and I was able to walk across with that vehicle. As the planks went under the water, so did the chains which were a guideline as to where the edge of the bridge was, but as a team we made it across to the other side.
We went down through an area where 381 people had been just killed. It just changed me completely when I saw that area. What distressed me more than anything were the people. Nothing prepared me for their sunken, hollow, lonely eyes. On our journey back, I realized that I couldn't turn away from them. Having been over there, I could no longer stand by and do nothing. I had seen the people, I saw what they needed. I saw how lonely and heartbroken they were because they felt that the world had just turned their back on them and had allowed the most unspeakable horrors to happen to them. That first trip really sealed in my heart a love for the people over there, which I have never been able to shake off.
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