We are the Scott Holcomb Family, missionaries to Croatia. We will be taking furlough at the end of 2012. At that time we will need to raise additional support and our oldest son, Matthew, will starting Bible college. He plans to attend West Coast Baptist College.
Our First Term
We have spent our first term in Croatia doing what most new missionaries do. We are learning the language, becoming acclimated with the culture, meeting new people,learning the language, handing out tracts, preaching with a translator….did I mention learning the language??

I have been busy helping in 2 works here in the Northern part of Croatia. The first church Stablo Zivota, was started by missionary Johnny Leslie and is now in the hands of a National Pastor. Here I helped in whatever capacity was needed. I taught a Sunday School class to the teenagers, I have led singing, driven church vans, filled the pulpit and tried to be an encouragement to Bro. Ric ( the Pastor). We have a kids meeting every Sunday afternoon and we bus in children from the Gypsy Village. Here they play games, sing songs, learn verses and hear the Word of God every single week. We have different special events through the year to keep them excited and bringing friends. This past June we had a VBS and it averaged around 60 children everyday!

The second work Bro. Johnny started was fairly new when our family arrived on the field. I jumped right into responsibilities in this church. I have been preaching every other week , leading the singing, soul-winning, passing out tracts..etc. During this time we moved to a bigger building and did a lot of work to get it ready for our first service, I was responsible for leading the church while Bro. Johnny was on furlough for a year. In this time we had different outreaches to the community trying to get them into church. We started our Christmas in Croatia project which the Lord has blessed tremendously for the last 2 years, in which we collected money to supply food baskets (and gifts) for the needy at Christmas time. (You can read more about that here, if you'd like www.christmasincroatia.org ).

The Lord has blessed abundantly during this first term. It has been a privilege to work with and learn from Bro. Leslie for this time. 

Future plans

Upon returning to Croatia at the end of 2013 we will be moving to the Capital city, Zagreb, and beginning a brand new work there. Zagreb is the largest city in Croatia. The population for the entire Zagreb metropolitan area is over 1 million souls. There is no Independent Baptist Church here, obviously, and is in desperate need of the Savior! We have sown the seed numerous times in this thriving city and praying the Lord of the harvest would begin, even now, softening the hearts of these precious people.
We are praying the Lord would have us a house in close walking distance to the city center, which on any given day, resembles New York City. Multitudes and multitudes of people, running to and fro, lost and on their way to hell, is all I see.

Please take a minute to view our "Highlights" video and prayerfully consider allowing us to present our field.

About Me:

Please let me introduce the Holcomb Family. I am Scott Holcomb and I am a graduate of Norris Bible Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas.
I received Christ as my personal Saviour at the age of twenty-three. Our church has a heart for missions, and the Lord began to burden me for missions about a year after I was saved. I surrendered my life and prepared for Bible college soon after.

A few weeks prior to graduation, a missionary shared with me his burden for Croatia and the great need for the True Gospel Light there. After much prayer and seeking of God’s will, the Lord gave me a burden for the people of Croatia, and a peace in my heart about surrendering my life to go to that country in Eastern Europe. We are being sent by Faith Baptist Church in Aransas Pass, Texas, where John Hinton is pastor.

We ask that you prayerfully consider letting us share our burden for the field of Croatia and become part of your missionary family.
Philippians 4:17 “Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.”




Philosophy of Missions:I believe that God is interested in reaching people with the salvation message throughout the world. Matthew 28:18-20.

I believe that this same power that Christ gave to His disciples is available to us as Christians to go and spread the gospel to all nations. Acts 1:8.
I believe that this verse is a clear command from Scripture to share our faith with those around us, in Texas and around the world. In addition, we also believe that God calls faithful believers out of local churches, as He did with Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13, to serve as missionaries and go "to the uttermost part of the earth" and preach the gospel.

My Goal is to preach the Gospel to a country blinded by Catholicism, see them saved, baptized, grounded in sound doctrine, train nationals and start indigenous Baptist churches. Just to the south and east of Croatia are three countries (Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro) that all speak Croatian, but they have no independent Baptist churches. My aim is to see some Croatians surrender, and go into those countries and spread the Gospel of Christ.

About Croatia:GeographyThe Republic of Croatia is bordered by Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Its long Adriatic coastline has over a thousand islands and islets - some of the larger islands are Brac, Krk, Cres, Hvar, Korcula and Mljet. Croatia is about the size of West Virginia.

Zagreb is Croatia's capital city.

The Croatian landscape includes mountains and highlands, areas of karst (limestone), plains, rugged coastline and islands. Croatia has hot summers and cold winters. In winter it is milder along the Adriatic coast, particularly on the island of Hvar, known for its good weather.

Environment
Croatia has a beautiful rugged terrain. Fields of lavender, vines, olive trees, peach trees, laurel and cypresses are all part of Croatia's landscape.

Wildlife found in Croatia includes bats, foxes, deer, lynx, wild sheep and bears. The country's coastal waters are inhabited by a variety of fish, dolphins and other sea creatures.

Population
The population of Croatia was estimated at 4,494,749 in 2006. Most of the people are Croats with minorities of Serbs, Slovenians, Bosniaks, Hungarians and Czechs.

LanguagesCroatian is the official language.

FoodCroatian cuisine includes seafoods from the coastal waters and meat dishes such as cevapcici (sausage-shaped minced meat), raznijici (grilled meat on skewers), sarma (minced rice and meat rolled in cabbage leaves) and djuvec (stew).

ReligionOver eighty-seven percent of the people are Roman Catholic and more than four percent are members of the Orthodox Church.

During the past several years, the religious situation in Croatia has changed considerably. During the long years of the Communist regime that began after World War II, all religious groups, large or small, were oppressed. Some were able to maintain their activities, under tight controls; others were simply forbidden. The Communist goverment strictly supervised all religious groups, through the government’s Committees for Relations with Religious Communities, backed up by the police and secret services. Today democracy has returned to Croatia, and freedoms have been restored.
For now, at least, freedom has meant a surge in religious activity. Groups which operated for so long under such strict control now find that they have ready access to social institutions. They are free to exploit the mass media, or even to open their own media outlets, if they have the financial resources necessary to sustain such an effort. In fact many new groups have chosen that route, and the airwaves are cluttered with appeals by astrologists, faith healers, and a variety of other New Age practitioners.
We need to reach them now with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is only one Independent Baptist Church in Croatia but with your help and support we hope to start new churches all over Croatia!