ZAGREB, Croatia (BNc) — Damir was baptized into Christ on Thursday, Jan. 22.
His three teenage children found the church several years ago and were enthusiastic. Their parents, Damir and Adrijana, became regular participants in church retreats and camps. From time to time they would attend worship services on Sunday.
Their interest grew to the point that the whole family started attending services regularly and they opened their home for a Bible study in the fall of 2008. Every Wednesday the Word was studied until late in the night.
In January, Damir made the ultimate decision of his life, to wash away his sins by the blood of his Savior and begin a new life with Christ (see Acts 22:16). This was a joyful moment for the Kuslanova congregation.
Damir is a director of a trading company in Zagreb.
He was baptized by Mladen Dominic, an evangelist at Varazdin in northern Croatia. Ten years ago he and his wife were sent by the Zagreb church to their native town to establish a congregation. Mladen was an engineer before he started preaching.
The baptistry in the photo is a replica of an early 9th century baptistry found in Nin near Zadar in the Croatian region of Dalmatia. (Titus went to Dalmatia – 2 Tim. 4:10.) The original was carved from one block of stone. The replica, the same size, is made of concrete with metal on the outside.
Mladen Jovanovic who preaches for the Kuslanova congregation explains that the baptistry shows that centuries ago baptism was by immersion in Croatia.
Croatia, across the Adriatic from Italy, has a population of four and a half million. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion with 30% of the population attending mass regularly (90% Catholic, 5% non-Catholic Christian, 1.5% Muslim).
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