Going on 24….
It was a calm and pleasant Saturday, May 25, 1996 when I first set foot in Macedonia. I remember it like it was yesterday because I wrote about it and catalogued those memories. I flew in from Zagreb, late in the afternoon, after spending a week working in Croatia, and the reason for my three-day visit was to determine if I would enjoy living in Macedonia and working in the region for three months.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
May 25, 2019 means I’ve been involved in and with Macedonia for 23 years and on May 26 I will begin my 24th year with Macedonia. More on how all that came to be in a moment. But first, here’s a fun fact: I have written well over one million words about and/or for Macedonia and the Macedonians during those years. These columns (this is column number 718) constitute the bulk of that — I first started writing in 2001 for Dnevnik and I have since written for other Macedonian newspapers, magazines and websites — but I have also written entire manuscripts, some published (a monograph on Boris Trajkovski), some not (an entire biography of Boris Trajkovski and others), as well as long-form essays, scripts, talking points and speeches for friends, so-called “non-papers” and many other things. In all of this writing I’ve tried to educate non-Macedonians, encourage Macedonians, and sometimes entertain both groups. And — bad news for my opponents! — I’m going to keep on writing as long as God gives me strength.
As concerns my writing I do want to thank two friends in particular who have translated the bulks of my columns over the years — Cvetin Chilimanov and Elizabeta Bozinoska — who have faithfully taken my words and thoughts and translated them into the beautiful Macedonian language so that Macedonians can at least consider what I have to say. A big, heart-felt thank you to them (and several others who have translated for me through the years) for covering up my own failings.
In addition to that writing, however, I’ve engaged in other “projects,” as I like to call them, the biggest being the documentary film A Name is a Name, released in 2009, about Macedonia’s name and identity, more relevant today than ever. We took it around the world then and today, ten years later, it’s still being shown in theaters, viewed online, and talked about. I’ve engaged in a number of other activities as well, from launching the Boris Trajkovski International Foundation, serving as executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Macedonia, and serving in various volunteer capacities with Macedonian organizations. And I currently record a weekly podcast along with my friend Cvetin, the Macedonian Content Farmers Podcast, where we discuss current events in Macedonia from a conservative point of view.
And I have a working list of about 20 more “projects” I’d like to tackle. These include publishing those unpublished manuscripts, two more movies I’d like to produce, a project involving Macedonian wine and a wine route, various web pages I’d like to create and promote, and a character-building institute I’d like to build that would teach young Macedonians about “first principles” because, as English writer, poet, and philosopher G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) put it, “The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad.”
Some people might want to know why I engage in these things and why I want to do more projects; after all, none of this is part of my day job, the work I engage in to earn a living. All of this is separate from that because I believe in giving back one’s time and resources to the community. For me, that community happens to be about 6,500 miles or 10,400 kilometers away from where I currently live. Though through the Internet my writings, the documentary film, and other things I have done make their way around the world.
Which brings me back to the issue of how I ever landed in Macedonia in the first place.
Whereas the Apostle Paul received “the Macedonian vision” of a Macedonian man begging him to “come over to Macedonia and help us!” I received “the Macedonian email.” Or something like that.
In the early and mid-90s I was working for a public relations firm in Washington, D.C. We had clients in Southeastern Europe and on one of my visits to the region in the spring of 1995 I met a gentleman with Mercy Corps, a humanitarian organization from Portland, Oregon, which was working in Kosovo. We stayed in touch and in the spring of 1996, he told me, via email, that he was moving his office from Zagreb to Skopje and had a temporary three-month opening and asked me if I would like to take it. At that point I had been in Washington, D.C. living and working for about seven years so I thought to myself, “Why not take a leave of absence from your job, Jason, go to Macedonia for three months, and have yourself an adventure?” So I took that three-day reconnaissance trip on May 25, 1996 and told myself I would come back for three months, but no more than three months.
And yet.
A full 23 years later, going on 24 years now, and I’m still with Macedonia. Why? The truth is this: because the Macedonians opened up their hearts and their homes to me, and welcomed me, a stranger, into their lives. For that, I am forever grateful because at the end of the day life is all about people and relationships and investing in them. I have been greatly blessed by the Macedonians in my life and that is something that can never be bought, sold, or traded. I hope I have been a blessing as well.
May God richly bless Macedonia and Macedonians, wherever you live.
