After Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s GIVING TUESDAY!

How will you give today? Would you consider helping support my mission in Croatia? Or maybe you would like to help me complete my house construction fund. I am getting close to my goal. Only $6,000 left to raise. You can help put me over the top today.

You can give online here.

Or, send a physical check to my sponsoring church at:

Pond Springs Church
Steve Taliaferro Mission Fund
c/o Jan Swinney
621 S Baker Cr
Leander, TX 78641

Thank you!

The last few weeks have been quite busy among the evangelical community in Zagreb. There have been several events, in churches and in public forums, surrounding the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Europe. Everything culminated in an event that was held in the Croatian National Theater in October 31. All protestant churches were represented, including our congregation, and the Bible Institute. There was special music, and among the presentations were speeches by the president of the Croatian Protestant Evangelical Council, and the mayor of the city of Zagreb.

Welcome to my new ministry website! Setting up this site was my project this weekend. It was also a big learning experience for me. This website will take the place of my old Blogger blog, “Croatia Connection.” In fact, I have already re-directed the Blogger blog to this website. I have a little more work to do in cleaning up some of the archived blog posts from the old blog, but it is all transferred over to this new site and is all functional. This website is intended as a main means of communication with supporters of me and my work in Croatia, as well as other interested people. I hope you will enjoy coming back here often and reading about my life, and the work God is doing through me in Croatia.

As usual, this last summer was full of camps, with which I was involved; as leader, co-leader, and youth leader.

In June, we marked the seventh year of our Champs Camp, a day camp for elementary school aged children. This camp is held at both our church/institute building, and at the large park at Jarun Lake. This summer we served around 100 children and their families over two weeks of the camp. We also had a great group of volunteers from the Southside Church of Christ in Lexington, Kentucky. This ministry continues to bring us families who are interested in knowing more about Jesus. Pray for this ongoing outreach to our community.

In July, we marked the third year of the youth Bible camp that is annually organized by churches in Zagreb and Varaždin. I am thankful for my co-leader for this camp, Mateja Stolnik. Mateja works with the church in Varaždin and also just finished her education at the Bible Institute.

Then in August, was the annual family Bible camp, conducted on the island of Ugljan by Churches of Christ in Croatia. Jordan Hubbard, my friend, and pulpit minister for the Crestview Church of Christ, in Waco, Texas, was our guest speaker for the camp. Jordan also brought his daughter, Jenae, along on his trip. We again had families represented at the camp who have come to know us through participation in the other camps.

The mission of the European Evangelical Accrediting Association (EEAA) is the accreditation of evangelical theological education in Europe. We at the Zagreb Bible Institute have been working for over a year now toward accreditation from this quality assurance organization. In late 2015, we became a member of EEAA, as well as a candidate for accreditation. In the spring of last year we received a preliminary evaluation visit.

After the entire faculty and staff worked throughout the summer and fall to produce our Self Evaluation Report (about a two-inch thick document), we were ready for the accreditation visit, which finally happened last week, March 6-8. Based on their visit with us, the visiting team has recommended us for accreditation! The final decision on our accreditation will be made at the EEAA council meeting in April.

The EEAA is a charter member of the International Council for Theological Education (ICETE), a full member of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), and an affiliate of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). Accreditation by this body is a significant goal in itself, as well as a step toward pursuing our local accreditation with the Croatian Ministry of Education.

 

I looked at the blog today and I can hardly believe it has been almost two months since I wrote anything here. I have simply been working so much (10-12 hour days and many weekends) that I haven’t gotten to an update here. It has been a very busy fall. Most of my time this fall has been spent on behalf of the Institute. We started a new academic year at Biblijski institut, new Bible certificate programs, and a new extension program in the city of Rijeka. We moved another of our extension programs to the church in Varaždin where we now have a dedicated classroom for the Institute. I have been working on getting video teleconferencing set up in our main classroom in Zagreb and in the remote sites in both Rijeka and Varaždin. I have also helped to start the program in Rijeka. The last two weeks we have had a visiting professor from the USA, a Christian psychologist, offering a special seminar class on “Addiction and the Human Spirit.” We also have another important guest from the USA here for two months. He is a possible successor to our director of the school. At the end of this month, we will have here a new fundraiser who has been hired by our US based board, as well as the board chairman. We are also deep into preparing for an accreditation visit in March from the European Evangelical Accrediting Association. Between our regular students, new certificate programs, the extension programs, and Biblical Hebrew and Greek classes, we have all together around 60 students that we are currently regularly reaching, not to mention the 15 or so we hosted for the special seminar class over the last two weeks. In addition to all of my work for the Institute, I have been preaching about once every three weeks, leading my small group of young people, and mentoring a couple of young men in the church. I have also been trying to get my house plan finished with the architect.

I am close to completing a project (actually the beginning of an ongoing project) we started in the spring. This year Biblijski institut was given three sets of high end video teleconferencing equipment. We are working on a permanent installation in our main classroom in Zagreb, and mobile installations in churches in the coastal city of Rijeka and the northern city of Varaždin. Yesterday myself and Milan (our IT person at Biblijski institut) were in Rijeka to complete the installation there. The photos below show us with the setup in Rijeka, with one of our professors in the classroom in Zagreb on the screen. We are hoping this equipment will help us expand the reach of the Institute, as well as better serve the churches.

Last Thursday and Friday we had an off-site retreat for all of the faculty and staff of Biblijski institut. We spent the two days getting back in touch with each other after the August break, as well as continuing our work on our self-evaluation report that is part of our documentation for our accreditation visit early next year from the European Evangelical Accrediting Association. We also spent time in worship, and in prayer over our hopes for the new school year. Hopes for the institute, for ourselves, for the churches, and for God’s Kingdom in Croatia. All of this happened at a fabulous nearby castle that has been converted into a kind of retreat center.

August 9-16 found us once again on the Croatian island of Ugljan, for our annual family church camp at Činta. This was a very special time for me personally, as my cousin, Allen Ritchie, came to be our guest speaker for the camp! His theme was, “Turn and Come,” teaching out of the book of Mark. We enjoyed a week of great teaching by Allen, good fellowship, and a beautiful spot on a nice little cove where the camp is located. Allen and I also worked together with the youth group at the camp and that was a special blessing as well. As usual, we also had a few baptisms. Please pray with us for these precious hearts and their new lives with Jesus. We also had a few families at camp who have been involved in our Champs Camp ministry, and it was encouraging to see that interest.

After camp was over I was able to show Allen the beauty of the Istrian Peninsula, which is one of my favorite parts of Croatia (think vineyards, olive groves, medieval hilltop towns, seaside fishing towns, and Roman ruins). It was a great time spent with Allen, and another blessed week of camp. Since then, I have enjoyed a couple much needed weeks of vacation, which I have spent resting, working on my property, and finishing the plans for my house. Tomorrow it is back to the office to begin preparing for a new academic year at Biblijski institut.

On July 13-16 we held our second annual Christian youth camp for some of the teens from our churches, as well as other contacts. This year we were at the mountain house at Kalnik, between Zagreb and the northern Croatian city of Varaždin. This year I had a lot of help (actually she organized and led most of the camp, with coaching and counsel from me) from Mateja Stolnik, who is a member of the Church of Christ in Varaždin. Thanks so much Mateja! 

In additional to all the fun of camp (games, hiking, talent show, campfire, etc.), for these four days the teens heard Bible lessons on the theme of, “Stand Up and Go!” We encouraged and challenged them to decide to stand up for Jesus and then go and follow him, leaving behind all that has kept them from doing so. We used examples of the responses of the disciples when called to follow Jesus, as well as the man at the pool of Bethesda, and the story of Peter getting out of the boat and walking on the water to Jesus. An important part of the camp was the discussion groups the teens met with twice each day. Some of the other adults from our churches were there to lead these groups. Another special part of the camp was hearing the testimonies of these adult volunteers about how they decided to follow Jesus. Overall, the camp was a success. Pray for these Jesus seeds to grow in the hearts of our youth. Pray also for Mateja and I as we continue to develop this important ministry to our youth.