Enlarge Mato and Mirjana Lukic in front of their home in Plaza Midwood.

Posted: September 26th, 2009 Andria Krewson

By Aleigh Acerni

Photos by Deborah Triplett

Interviewed via interpreter Ines Pecanac Lukic




If you’ve driven through the Plaza Midwood neighborhood during the past several months, you may have noticed Mato Lukic sitting in his driveway on Matheson Avenue, behind a table loaded with vegetables, mostly tomatoes, for sale.

His wife, Mirjana, may have been nearby—tending to the flowerbeds in her front yard, or supervising from her front porch.

You may not have realized, if you didn’t stop to buy a tomato or two, that the Lukics aren’t your typical retired American couple. They don’t speak English. Only one of them, Mirjana, is an American citizen. Refugees from Bosnia, they have lived through two wars, been persecuted for their “mixed” marriage (they are from different religious backgrounds), and were forced to flee their homeland—mostly on foot—to survive.

“The life over there was hard,” Mirjana said, speaking through her daughter-in-law, Ines Pecanac Lukic, who served as interpreter. “We couldn’t find jobs. We walked miles and miles to get away.”

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Posted: September 23rd, 2009 Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman

Amazing things happen when you bring seemingly different people together. For instance, it's likely you'll find they are much more alike than they are different.
On Sept. 19, Urban Ministries held it 8th annual art show and silent auction, hosted by its ArtWorks 945 program. Proceeds from the sale are split with the artist and the program.

The center, founded in 1994, is an interfaith organization serving poor and homeless people with, as they put it, "love, compassion and tangible help that comes in countless forms."

"It's great for both the community and our neighbors," says Penny Mann, ArtWorks 945's director. "The community gets to see what we're up to and our neighbors receive validation."

By neighbors, Mann means the homeless who tuck themselves away in plain sight all across the Queen City.

The event showcases talented artists, who also are homeless, while drawing people who might not otherwise cross paths.

My grandmother, Flora Snow, was in town, so I thought I'd take her with me. She was raised during the Great Depression on a ranch in Nebraska where the minority race was Black Elk's fading Lakota Sioux tribe, who, according to grandma, was full of troublemakers and alcoholics.

Today, she lives in Montgomery, Ala., where, as she puts it, "The city's all black now."

I'm not sure she hears herself when she says things like that and I don't think she would consider herself a bigot. In fact, I don't think she'd consider herself anything below completely pious. She and my grandfather dutifully donate to charity and volunteer at a soup kitchen. They pay attention the news and bear witness to today's troubles.

Despite that, she remains somewhat removed and uninformed about many of the issues facing today's urban poor. And, frankly, so do I. And I believe, so do most of us.

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Posted: August 31st, 2009 Andria Krewson

It started by chance, or some might say divine intervention, when a children’s minister met a group of tall, dark young men in a Charlotte grocery store.

And it grew into a cross-cultural commitment that was much more than a summer mission trip or donations to foreign missionaries.

Carl and Nina Phillips are members of St. John’s Baptist Church on Hawthorne Lane. David Thon is one of the “Lost Boys” of the Sudan who settled in Charlotte in 2001. The Phillips were his mentors as he navigated a new life in the United States and gained an education.

“We had no idea what we were getting into when we responded to a call for mentors from Caroletta Partain, also from St. John’s, who was organizing a mentoring program for the young men,” said Nina.

After the chance meeting between Martha Kearse, children’s minister at St. John’s, and a group of the “Lost Boys,” the historic church in Elizabeth began supplementing the services provided by Catholic Social Services, the agency that brought the group to Charlotte.

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Posted: August 31st, 2009 Andria Krewson

The friendship between Nina and Carol Phillips and David Thon wasn’t the only one forged when Charlotte became home to a group of young men from the Sudan in 2001.

And Thon isn’t the only one who worked, obtained degrees and found ways to help his home country.

Four others have earned their bachelor degrees: Joseph Majak, from Mars Hill; Manoi Athiaan Manoi, from UNC-Asheville; and Daniel Thongbor and James Mijak from UNC-Charlotte.

Manoi is continuing his master’s degree studies at North Carolina A&T State University. Abraham Garang is a senior at Lynchburg College in Virginia, and Atem Ajak plans to graduate soon from Defiance College in Ohio.

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