New Release
Without a Homeland
In May 1999, Bobbie Lord got on a plane. She was headed to the Qatrom Refugee Camp in Korҫё, Albania to assist the Kosovar Albanians who had fled ethnic cleansing. It wasn’t the first humanitarian tour for Bobbie, who already had several years of experience working in countries including Kenya, Guatemala and Zambia.
This time she was working with Relief International, under the umbrella of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She had been assigned the job of camp manager at Qatrom and its 3,000 refugees. Despite her experience in humanitarian work, Bobbie was uncertain. At sixty, was she too old to handle the pressure? How could she ensure the refugees’ health and safety while also helping them deal with their trauma and boredom?
Heartbreaking and compassionate, Without a Homeland recounts the courage and resilience of a people facing unimaginable obstacles, and one woman’s mission to give them hope that someday, they would return home.
New Release
Reflections
A Guided Journal to Reflect on Life’s Great Questions
Inspired by the author’s humanitarian work at Qatrom Refugee Camp in Korҫё, Albania, Reflections: A Journal for Women to Discover Healing and Purpose invites women of all ages and backgrounds to contemplate and celebrate the essentials of a rich life.
By exploring the over forty writing prompts on topics such as grieving, community, gratitude and more, readers will discover a shift in:
- Understanding and commemorating the self
- Making peace with the past
- Cultivating a mindfulness of the present
- Embracing an abundant future
Blending thought-provoking questions and inspiring quotes, Reflections is both a gentle introduction to the art of journaling and an opportunity to explore the complexity and beauty of what makes us human.
Praise for Without a Homeland
About Bobbie
Roberta (Bobbie) Lord spent eleven years working overseas in the humanitarian field, where her focus was working with refugees in Kenya, Albania, Kosovo, and Guatemala as well as village men and women in Zambia. With Relief International under the umbrella of UNCHR, she served as camp manager at the Qatrom Refugee Camp in Albania, where the refugees nicknamed her “Mother of the Camp.”
Bobbie also facilitated workshops in the United States, including at Princess Basma Centre for Disabled Children in Jerusalem, where she developed a program for the mothers of disabled children, and at Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries in Chicago, where she assisted resettled refugee and immigrant women in improving their lives through social and economic development. She also has been a guest lecturer to many organizations including various women’s clubs, Rotary Clubs, and church groups.
No longer working overseas, she continues to empower young women while working as a house director in sororities on university campuses.
Bobbie considers herself foremost a humanitarian supporting those who have no voice. She has two sons, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Without a Homeland by Bobbie Lord offers a unique, invaluable glimpse into the inner workings of a refugee camp. Lord’s gifted storytelling about the daily activities and interactions at Qatrom really brings her subjects to life, imbuing the refugees with a sense of identity and humanity that all too often gets lost in government reports and news stories. Lord’s experiences serve as a reminder that we can all make the world around us a little better with some curiosity, compassion, and kindness. I hope this book will inspire many other readers – it certainly inspired me.
Even on a second reading of Without a Homeland, the emotional beats, the complexities of the refugee crisis, and the challenges of humanitarian work hit home. The themes of human suffering, home and family, hope and perseverance, service and compassion form the heart of the book. And despite dealing with such universal themes, the memoir tells a very particular story–that of Bobbie’s journey to serve others, the staff that supported her, and the refugees’ courage in the face of unimaginable horror and adversity.