Ronko Malinovic misses the mountains of his native Bosnia. His wife, Armina Basic, misses her mother and sister.

But saying good-bye to the native soil and family also meant leaving behind the rockets, roving bands of paramilitary troops and the genocide that transformed the once beautiful countryside into a mass grave.

The couple shared their story March 3 with second-graders at St. Francis Xavier School in La Grange who are, in fact, a part of the immigrant family’s storybook ending.

La Grange Park-based New Hope Connection is an interfaith organization  providing persecuted refugees with about everything needed to start a new life — a place to live, rent, furniture, clothing, sometimes a donated car. The organization helps in finding jobs and teaching English to the refugees.

Since 1994, New Hope Connection has sponsored 18 refugee families.

St. Francis along with St. Cletus and St. John of the Cross parishes, The Sisters of St. Joseph in La Grange Park, the First United Methodist Church of La Grange, the First Congregational Church of La Grange, and the Islamic Foundation Mosque in Villa Park, have supplied the organization with items needed to furnish homes and other assistance.

Don Chopp, past president of New Hope Connection, praised the parish, and particularly the students, for their generosity throughout the years.

“You gave us more than we needed before Christmas and the year before you did the same thing,” Chopp told the assembly.

The group has a 40-foot trailer that contains the makings for new homes for those seeking a new life.

Malinovic was imprisoned three months for refusing to take up arms against his fellow Bosnian countrymen in a war that pitted people of different religions against each other. He escaped to a forest, where he hid for four years.

Malinovic, who is Eastern Orthodox, and Basic, a Muslim, married in 1993 after Basic’s first husband was killed while serving in the army. The couple and Basic’s two children, Nikolina and Verdran, left their home town and walked for 15 days, 500 kilometers, through the mountains to another town in Orthodox territory. There, they met persecution because Basic, who was then pregnant, was a Muslim. That same day, Malinovic was caught by police and sent to the front line. A few hours later, he was told Basic had been sent to another hospital 50 miles away.

Malinovic left the army as a deserter and fugitive to see his wife and new son, Vladan.

They went to Serbia in 1995 to an immigration center where people could file an application for immigration to the United States. A few months later the family arrived for the start of a new life.

“Here, people are different,” said Malinovic, who works as a house painter. “I never had people say I will not help you. In my country, nobody cared. Here, everyone helps you. Here, people are very, very good.

“People in my country think everyone in the U.S. is rich. I say no, people here have a discipline for work. Here is a very good life. I have a big, big thank you for everybody.”

Chopp asked the students to put themselves in the place of people like Malinovic and Basic were in when they arrived.

“At any time in the world, there are about 100 wars going on, most of those we never hear about,” Chopp said. “Imagine what it would be like if you and your family had to leave the United States and move to another country where you don’t speak the language, you don’t know anybody or have anything. That’s the condition that we have with the families we have been able to support.”

For Malinovic, the memory of war is never far.

“Still today, sometime at night, I jump when I hear a big noise outside — I think its bomb,” he said. “I don’t like politics too much. I only like working.”