Bonus Feature 4 of Journey Through Daniel | NIVES' STORY Willow Journey

NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT JOY FROM YOU.
There’s a song that says, “If you receive and you believe, testify.” I don’t really like to talk about myself, but I think it’s important to do so when we go through certain things in life and experience certain things, and whenever God’s presence is in someone’s life, it’s encouraging to share with others.
My name is Nives, and I grew up in Croatia. I was born in Yugoslavia, and I was a child from a mixed marriage between a Croatian and a Serb. This didn’t really matter when we had Yugoslavia, but when the civil war in Croatia started in 1991, that seemed to be all that mattered. On top of being from a mixed marriage, I had the last name of a Serbian president so I couldn’t hide. I belonged nowhere on either side. I’m from a town that had a lot of military presence and my town was a border town. Those were the unlucky ones in the war because for four years, there was always some kind of a fighting and shooting and bombing until the war ended in 1995.
The first year was the worst. I never knew when it was going to happen. I could be playing tennis and suddenly there’s an alarm. I’m running home and there are bombs flying, falling down, and planes are above my head. And I’d think, “All right, I’m almost home, maybe I’ll make it, maybe not.” And that’s where faith comes in, when you have no influence, no power, no control. That’s when we can say, “Okay, God, come on, step in. I just can’t do this on my own. If I make it through, if I survive, just show me the way. What’s my purpose? Why am I doing this? Why am I the lucky one? What do I do with this experience? It can’t be for nothing.”


In high school, I was an okay tennis player, and I was invited to play tennis in Germany. I told my parents, “I’m 17. I want to go. I don’t want to be here in the middle of the war. I’m done with this.” I was young and didn’t know how hard it was going to be. That was the first time in my life when I really felt like I couldn’t do this. It was just too hard. I was so attached to my mom. My life goal was to get a job in the same building with her, but it just felt like a wind behind my back. Like, you’ve got to go do this, you’ve got to go do this. Have faith that it’s going to be okay. It wasn’t even so much that I was adventurous or brave. Not at all. It was just how the whole thing happened. Even how they invited me out of nowhere, even though they never saw me play. So I went to Germany, and played one year for them. Then I came home to finish high school and while I was preparing to finish and graduate, I got an offer to come to Chicago and play tennis for DePaul University. I was 18.
I had taken a little English in school, but you can’t compare that to the college level. I didn’t even know what the SAT exam was. I got a book, studied for a month, and took the exam. Now that I have kids living here in the US, I realize what a process it is and how important it is. I didn’t know then, which was a blessing at the time. I passed the exam by five points to get in. But that’s when the real work began for me. I had to play tennis every day, travel to tournaments every weekend, along with studying and going to school as well. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about what I’m capable of doing and also just the culture here. I didn’t know much about America. I did not have an American Dream.
It just happened. When I came here, it was very different from what I was used to, and it took me many years to assimilate. I was very fortunate that I was always around people who were loving and supportive, who didn’t care that my English was broken, that I spoke funny and was missing a lot of words. I was surrounded by student athletes and over time, I got better, and the professors understood and supported me.
But of course there are people who assume that if you don’t speak perfect English, that means that you are not sm