One of our first days in Bol, Croatia we took a prayer walk around the town to see where God might lead us in ministry this month. For our time in Croatia, we were not with a set host or location, but were able to ask the Lord to lead us to new opportunities to serve and love. As we finished our prayer walk, and headed back home for lunch, we stopped at a fruit stand. That’s where we met Tomi.
My teammate had purchased too many bananas (not realizing a kilo is a whole heck of a lot) and was trying to give some back, but the owner did not speak English very well. So, he brought over his son Tomi. We spent a few minutes chatting with Tomi and when he found out we were Christian he got very excited and said “me too”! About a year and half ago a man had shared his testimony of how Jesus changed his life and Tomi decided he too wanted to give his life to Jesus. He also said how it was difficult because he hasn’t had a Christian community around him, so he was very excited to speak with us. Before we left I asked if we could pray with him. I thanked God for meeting Tomi and for the encouragement that he had been to us. When we were leaving, Tomi was beaming and of course we planned to visit him the next day.
Our team had been talking about having a bible study for this last week in Croatia and we were all in agreement that we should invite Tomi. Tomi and his brother were at the produce stand that day and we invited both to come to dinner and bible study at our Airbnb when they got off of work. They asked for American food, so Harmony, my teammate, took the lead making fried chicken, mashed potatoes and a massive salad (to balance it all out, of course).
Well, we ended up studying very little of the bible, but hearing so many ways that God had brought Tomi and his family through struggles and blessed their business and family. Tomi shared again that it was difficult not having family or others around who believed the same as he did, but our time together made him very happy. We got to talking about baptism and Tomi said he had never been baptized since becoming a Christian. We each shared how he didn’t need a special invitation or training to be baptized, that he could do it anytime. We even offered to baptize him, and to our pleasant surprise, he said yes. Since it was getting late (and cold), it would probably be best to pray about it that night and decide who he would like to baptize him.
He came by early the next morning, super excited, saying he hadn’t slept that night, and asked if I would baptize him. The first day we met him and I had been led to pray for him on the street was very meaningful to him and he felt seen. I was both humbled and nervous. I had never baptized anyone and didn’t want to mess it up. The thing is, God took my nerves and allowed me to press closer to Him and Tomi and I went deeper into the water. Tomi was baptized off the coast of Bol, Croatia on a beach he had grown up going to. This is a moment my new friend I will never forget.
Before we got to Bol, we were semi-freaking out because we had booked this Airbnb outside of tourist season and were worried there wouldn’t be enough people to meet. However, we met some of the best local people, by trusting and abiding in the Lord. On the race it’s not about how many people we touch, but the impact we leave on “the ones” we were meant to meet.
