As the two Chabad Yeshiva students Elly Andrusier and Moshe Fox were setting out for their journey in the former Yugoslavia in early July, reminders of the recent war in the region were everywhere. Indeed, guides had warned them that traveling to Jewish communities in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Slovenia required great care and that Belgrade itself was still far too dangerous to visit. Taking in the bombed out buildings, destroyed railway lines, bullet-pocked homes and barbed wire-encroached military posts, the pair saw first hand the devastation from the civil war as they moved about seeking out local Jews.

Each summer, pairs of rabbinical students fan out around the globe to meet with Jews in some of the world's most remote locations to help them with pastoral services as well as practically -- with books and religious items not easily accessible to them throughout the year.

The community outreach program, known in some circles as the Lubavitch "Summer Peace Corps," was developed more than 50 years ago by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. It is sponsored by Merkos L'inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Lubavitch movement, and coordinated by its staff, who help with travel plans, visas, contacts in various countries, and lodging. The volunteer rabbinical students maintain contact with the Lubavitch World Headquarters throughout the summer, reporting on their progress and seeking assistance when needed.

Each day of the trip was spent visiting Jewish communities. In Zagreb, Croatia, the rabbinical students organized Torah classes; in the coastal town of Rijeka they visited the synagogues and spoke with congregants; in Bosnia they toured army bases and met Jewish servicemen on duty there.

Alternating between visits to the large cities and day trips to the small towns with as few as a dozen Jews, Andrusier and Fox maneuvered through shelled roadways and navigated dozens of local languages, to enhance Jewish life in these all but forgotten communities. The travel arrangements and routes had been coordinated with Chabad Centers in the cities.

"We kept having difficulties with our visas because you can never really get proper information before you set out," explains Andrusier. "So we utilized each delay in our itinerary for a quick visit to this or that village whose Jews we might not have had the chance to meet otherwise. It's hard to say who was more excited when we greeted them, we or the local community. They couldn't get over the idea we had come specifically for them."

"It was in the final hours of the fast on the 17th of Tammuz as we were walking along a deserted street in Sarajevo," relates Moshe Fox. "Someone started shouting and running towards us in an excited manner. Turns out it was a local boy who had just completed his three years in the Israeli army and returned home to visit his elderly parents. He was so overwhelmed to see Chassidic Jews in the midst of his home village that he ran out to greet us..."