Ministry Notes

Just thought I would pop in for a sec and give some insight to what's going on here in Croatia at the moment. Where to start?

Well on New Years Even the Holcomb family came to live and will be working as partners with us. We have prayed for so long (almost 10 years) for God to send us some American co laborers and He has.
the Holcomb have already been a blessing to us and we're looking forward to a lifetime of ministry together here in Croatia.
Oh yea and guess what, Mrs. Holcomb loves to shop, now is that from God or what??? We went to Graz, Austria the other day for some shopping and had a really good time. It's been so long since I had someone to shop with, I'm thankful for that small blessing. I can foresee many fun filled shopping trips in our future.


Lets see, what next. Well both churches are doing well. The attendance is a little down on Wednesdays in the church in Čakovec but I can see it that it's only a little lull. This happens sometimes especially when sickness hits our town.

The church in Varaždin is going great. We are few in numbers but with the addition of the Holcomb family we are already in need of a larger building.

We run two bus routes on Sundays to the church in Čakovec. We have been having real stuggles with out van for the in town route and actually couldn't even pick folks up for last weeks services due to mechanical problems. It broke my heart to tell our little Gypsy kids that they couldn't come to church. Praise the Lord the van is back from Ford and it only cost $400 to fix instead of the $2000 we thought. Yea! So the van is back and running, thank the Lord!

Last year when Bro. Sam Ward was here thousands of Gospel tracts were passed out daily for two weeks. Many people had the opportunity to be saved and many took the opportunity and found their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life!

A few weeks after Bro. Sam left we got a call from a Gypsy man who got a tract from another man who received a tract and Deon wanted to know if he could come to the church in Varaždin. Well duh, of course he could come, we couldn't wait to meet him. He did come and to our utter dlight he was so ready to be saved. His first meeting with us he accepted Jesus as his personal Savior and he's been a blessing ever since.

Oh yea and please pray for Bro. Sam. He is coming as a missionary to Croatia but first he must sell his home in the states. Pray that he sells it soon and gets a good price. We can't wait for his arrival and enthusiasm for winning souls.

Two weeks ago Deon brought his friend to church and Bojan also received Jesus as his Savior. Last week Johnny talked to Bojan about being baptized and he agreed to be baptized this last Sunday. Well Saturday rolled around and Johnny got a call from Deon saying that Bojan had gone home and told his family he got saved and was going to be baptized and they weren't rejoicing with him. Being baptized here is a major thing for Catholics. It essentially means leaving the Catholic faith and that holds a huge weight. After he told his family his brother beat him up a bit and they had to call the police. He is going to wait a bit before he's baptized since they have threatened to kick him out if he goes through with it. Please pray for Bojan, that he would get the courage to be baptized and that God would soften the hearts of his family.

Also Deon has had a burden for his village for a while and recently we decided to start another work this one being in his Gypsy village. Now working with the Croats is difficult sometimes but a Gypsy work is a totally differnt type of work. The Devil has such a strong hold of these villages that he fights tooth and nail to keep them under his control. So anyhow, we found a man out there willing to rent us two rooms in his house to start a work and then eventually a church. We were due to start next week and several men in the village found benches for the building and made a pulpit and a platform for the main room. Sadly a few days ago the man with the rooms called and said he didn't want to rent to us any more. So we're checking out some other opportunities in the same village. Please pray for this work, it's hard an many times the conditions are almost unbearable but God loves the folks. He died for them, please pray that we could get in there and snatch as man souls as we can from a future in a burning hell.

Anyhow, we still have our work with the Gypsy children that I could spend another 20 minutes telling you about but I can't. I have laundry to do and the house is a mess. Kids are fighting at the kitchen table when they should be doing their school work so I guess I better go moderate.

Thanks for all the prayers for our work His work. God is so good to let us have even the smallest part in His big plan.