Violin teacher works

and plays in Croatia

ith violin in hand, Pat Walchuk

discovered that she was the
entertainment at church services and
in refugee camps while visiting
Croatia last fall. Pat is a Strings
teacher for the Community Music
School in Continuing Education at
Capilano College. She went to Croatia
on a volunteer mission that included
working on a construction crew and
performing Bach on her violin.

Pat found herself in Fuzine, a small
town high in the mountains, bunked
down in a former orphanage/army
barracks. She and her husband Gerry
went there with 10 other men and
women aged 19 to 72 to help tur this
old building into a new long-term care
hospital. Called the Hope Centre, the
new facility will come to the aid of
refugees severely traumatized by the
civil war in former Yugoslavia.

The Walchuks are members of the Pat Walchuk is seen practising her

Canadian Baptist volunteers, but you violin before work. Her fingers would
don’t have to be a Baptist in order to become too stiff from her duties on a

volunteer. Pat says volunteers are construction site to practise at the end

recruited from a variety of churches
and organizations from all over the
world. Volunteers assist the Life
Centre organization in its endeavors to
provide sanctuaries for war-weary
civilians — be it men, women or
children.

“T wondered before I went what
they would have me do because I have
no skills and I’m not very strong,”
says Pat.

She ended up filling holes in
drywall, sweeping and helping out in
the kitchen. When asked about how
she filled her time when not
performing or working at the site, Pat
laughed and said she was so tired at
the end of each day that she just went
to bed.

She says they all tended to go to
bed early because there was no heat
and little light. Because their group
stayed in the Hope Centre on the
almost-completed third floor, they had
to make do with only one light in the

of the day.

hallway, and.one toilet and one shower
between 12 of them.

The Hope Centre is the third of three
charitable facilities propagated by the
Life Centre, an independent Christian
organization. The Life Centre in
Crikvenica on the coast, offers a 10-day
respite to refugees, while the Peace
Centre in Selce offers a three-week stay
to children who have been traumatized
by the war.

Pat visited all three refugee centres
and brought her violin along so that she
could perform. Organizers of the

volunteer mission had requested that she

bring it.

“A lot of the refugees are cultured
people who have been yanked out of
their normal life with nothing but what
they have on their backs. Anything to
enrich their life is considered
important,” notes Pat.

Submitted by Lauren Mulholland

@nformer