A great gift arrived to us the other day! Father Marinko Filipovic, the Parish priest of Kopanice, Bosnia and Herzegovina and his parishioners raised enough money for us to buy a new motorbike for our Friary and for use at Padri Vjeko School. This is most remarkable, due to the fact that his Parish only numbers 261 parishioners! And it must be noted that they are kindred spirits because it was especially the bikers of the Parish that donated money.

This motorbike will be a great help in our pastoral work, as we have to travel from village to village on roads that are badly in need of repair. And a motorbike is definitely more economical than trying to run and maintain a car for the same purpose.

The motorbike is also being used at Padri Vjeko Centre. Some of our teachers have to daily make the journey from one school building to the other, a distance of almost one kilometer and it saves so much times and energy for them to be able to go back and forth by motorbike. And when we have to go into the nearby town of Gitarama for needed supplies, the motorbike saves us transport cost of goods to be delivered.

This is a great opportunity for our teachers to learn to ride a motorbike, something they could not otherwise do because the cost of a motorbike would be prohibitively expensive for any one teacher to buy for themselves.

So a big thank you to those of you who understand the true gift of giving – giving something to people that they cannot afford to buy for themselves! You truly know the meaning of caring for others in the world who are not so fortunate and who now have a chance to enjoy this wonderful gift of a motorbike.