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Humanitarian Aid in Macedonia

My friend Christina Cekov received a phone call one morning last week. On the line was Sister Evrozija, a Catholic Sister and physician, living and working in a city in south-central Macedonia. “Can you help us?” she asked.

Sister Evrozija explained that a transport, a shipment of humanitarian aid, had recently arrived in that city, to help the Kosovar refugees. The shipment was sent to the local Orthodox Church.

First, the priest filled his car and took home what he wanted, she told me. Then the word went out to members of the Orthodox community to come and get aid. Only Orthodox people were invited to come. Some came in Mercedes and other expensive cars. Others walked. They pushed and shoved to get to the free food; they trampled the lawn and the flower beds. They reached and grabbed. In less than an hour, everything was gone.

“There is only one refugee family here [in the city],” said the Sister. “They are Muslims, and they got nothing. Six people are living together; their only income is the pension of one invalid woman. They need help. Can your church help?”

Christina Cekov is a church volunteer who manages the social aid program of the United Methodist Church in Macedonia. Over the past sixteen years, she has worked to establish a cooperative relationship with the Sisters from the Eastern Catholic Church in Macedonia. She knows from experience that she can trust the Sisters to identify who is really in need and to properly distribute aid. Whomever she works with, she is careful to see that the church’s money is well spent.

“Yes, we have some money. We can help,” Christina answers. “Write a letter telling me what they need, and we’ll take care of it.”

Sister Evrozija’s comments were not meant as an indictment of the Orthodox Church, its clergy or its members; they were simply a statement of the facts.

In the past eight years, since Macedonia voted to become an independent republic, the same scene or one very similar to it has been played out in many churches and other organizations throughout this small, impoverished country.

Certain aspects of the Macedonian culture are clearly evident in the scene outside the Orthodox Church. First, there is a requirement to take care of one’s own. One’s own may be one’s immediate family, one’s extended family, one’s church, one’s political party, even one’s ethnic group -- at the expense of others who may be in greater need. Some churchgoers even quote a verse from the New Testament, Galatians 6:10, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (NIV), as justification for helping their own congregation and as a solid reason not to help people of the Islamic religion.

Jobs are given to family members and close friends, or to someone who can do a favor for one’s family in return. Qualifications are a secondary consideration. This, too, is part of taking care of one’s own. One Macedonian I know has persuaded a foreign organization to fund a small clinic, reportedly to serve the refugees. The man’s wife is an unemployed doctor; he wants the clinic so that she will have a job. The clinic will be nowhere near the refugee settlements, because it is more important to serve “our own.”

Second, there is a doctrine of parity in the Macedonian culture. What is done for one, must be done for all -- whether or not there is need. If Christina is seen giving pills against hypertension to one old woman in the congregation, three others will ask her for the same pills, whether or not their blood pressure is high. Another woman I know, an American teacher, was working with a student group. The group received a gift of $300 from a service club in the United States.

“Okay. Can we identify, say, the ten most needy students and buy school supplies for them?”

“Oh, no!” responded the horrified students, “We must buy supplies for everyone.”

“But we only have $300; that isn’t enough,” the teacher stated. “And many of you already have the supplies you need.”

Nonetheless the students would not waver from the principle that what is given to one must be given to all. It was too well ingrained in them.

A lot of humanitarian aid is coming into Macedonia now, because of the enormous influx of refugees. For the reasons I have explained, much of it will be misdirected, not by people who are evil or dishonest, but by people who are doing what their culture says is important and right. Understandably, some people in the West like the satisfaction of doing something with their own hands to help the refugees, like making health kits with towels, soap and toothbrushes or collecting usable clothing. But such shipments are a nightmare for people like Christina who try to see that aid really goes to the people for whom it is intended. She, too, has had her church’s lawn and flower beds trampled by people clambering for whatever can be had for free.

Writing a check may be less satisfying than putting together a bundle of toiletries, but, on the receiving end, money is easier to manage -- especially when one knows who can be trusted.