Belgrade, Serbia: Friday, July 21, 2000: I watched as the conversation between Jim and the health minister quickened. I almost jumped in, but then I thought, I don’t have anything to sell here. The two people talking have more to lose than I do, and I’m not expected to regulate this meeting. I’ll respond at an appropriate time. So, I just sat back and relaxed.
Eventually I was asked a direct question about inventory and procedure. At that time I started from the top and thanked the health minister for giving Jim and me his time and honoring us with the meeting. I assured him that we had only traveled to Yugoslavia to assist if possible. I then said that perhaps they won’t need anything we have, but we’re here to explore the possibilities and get acquainted.
The health minister then began to relax a little. I continued by complimenting him on what I had observed in the hospitals we had assessed. “Yugoslavia has a good health-care system and doctors and nurses who are very qualified and very dedicated.”
I gave him some specific examples and then went on. “I believe that Yugoslavia in the past has been a model for other Eastern European countries. But right now, and for an unknown time in the future, there is difficulty, and there will be opportunities for friends to help. Eventually Yugoslavia will once again be a leader. There is a certain spirit of optimism and courage that is very observable in the country, and that spirit will take Yugoslavia successfully through the difficult times.”
By that time, everyone around the table was smiling, and their heads were moving up and down, including the health minister’s. He then told me that he is really in trouble on medications. There simply is no money to buy medicine, especially heart medications and medications for diabetes. He asked if I had any suggestions, and I told him that Project C.U.R.E. ships out very few pharmaceuticals because of the expiration-dating procedures for the drugs and because of the inconsistent policies of the recipient countries. I went on to explain how and why the pharmaceutical companies date their products the way they do. I also told him that I had suggested to North Korea that they test for themselves the drugs that are close to the expiration date. If they test good, they can use them. If they don’t test to their satisfaction, they can opt not to use them.
The health minister leaned back and smiled. He realized I was there only to help him. I assured him that Project C.U.R.E. will never violate any of their policies or requests. As we talked and everyone around the table got friendlier, I felt strongly that I should share with the health minister why I was really there and what God had done to change my life. When I asked him if he had time for me to tell him a story, he said, “Yes, of course.”
I started out telling him about trading rabbits as a boy and deciding I would be a millionaire before I was twenty-five. Then I said that by age thirty, I was way past my goal, but nobody had told me that just because you have the ability to accumulate wealth, it doesn’t necessarily make you happy. And I wasn’t a happy man. I told him that Anna Marie and I decided to give away all our accumulated wealth and start over again, and I told God that if he would get me off the hamster wheel, out of the cage, and just make me a simple man again, I would never use my ability to accumulate wealth for myself. I would just help other people.
“That’s why I’m here today, Dr. Kobac. I don’t take any money for what I do. It’s a gift to God and to other people. I just want to help the people of Yugoslavia while they’re having a difficult time.”
I went into more detail than this, but when I finished, the health minister was fighting back tears as he said, “You have told me the most important story. What you have said is the only hope for the world. I have been very discouraged and bitter over what has happened, but now that you have told me this powerful story, I have hope.”
Our meeting was supposed to last for only thirty minutes but went on for an hour and a half. I apologized for taking so much of the health minister’s valuable time, but he replied, “No, no! You have come here with the most important thing possible. Do not apologize.”
Everyone was only whispering when we all filed out of the health minister’s office. Project C.U.R.E. confronted Slobodan Milošević’s closest friends and cabinet members with God’s love today, and that love was incredibly effective!
At this point, Jim and I were late for our next appointment at the Belgrade Institute of Psychiatry, so we hurried across town and into Dr. Sanda Raskovicivic’s office. The director is in charge of a 750-bed mental hospital, one hundred day patients who are limited to staying only one month, and 250,000 outpatients a year. She is in desperate need of IV solution, poles, and starting kits; needles and syringes; an EEG machine and an EKG machine; and lots of medications.
As we walked from her main hospital building to an annex, I commented on how nice her building looked, and that it appeared to have a fresh coat of paint. “It is new paint; it’s some new building, too,” she said. Then Dr. Sanda pointed to a large building about fifty yards away. “That’s Belgrade’s main police station. It was repeatedly bombed, and some of the bombs missed and hit my hospital. I was sitting in a room, and suddenly the ceiling came falling in around me, and all the windows fell out. I thought it was the aftershock of an earthquake somewhere. I didn’t know we had been bombed. I’m a woman doctor. What would I know about bombs and war?”
Dr. Sanda told me that she quickly figured out that she was in real bad trouble. The roof was gone, the doors and windows were gone, there was a lot of damage to the building, and there were fires everywhere. “I went down to my patients and told them to stay calm. ‘I need your help. Everyone needs your help. I am going to untie you from your beds, but you must not try to run away. You must stay calm and help me get everyone through this.’ That’s what I told them.”
She went on with her story, telling me that all the patients stayed calm, and some even went to other parts of the building to help other patients. “While there was chaos, terror, and lunacy outside the institution, there was absolute calm and perfect control inside the mental hospital.”
Next Week: The Interview