Day 8 Feb 16, 2024

Last night we closed the shutters and at last did not wake up with the sun. Filled with leftover pizzas for breakfast, we explored our new town, starting with the castle. It looked formidable surrounded by 20+ foot high earthen mound and now emptied moat. The museum inside displayed weapons, clothes, paintings, ceramics, and furnitures from the 1500s to Baroque and Rococo periods. There was an interesting clock whose face moved down a sawtooth rail as it kept time.

After a little souvenir and grocery shopping, we were off to Restoran Cimplet. About 15 couples gathered for a delicious meal and music with Pastor Jonathan from Crkva Emanuel Varaždin (a Baptist church in the city) and Dalija, a local “star”. The guest speakers were an old married couple who adopted 5 kids and fostered 5 more on top of their own kids. They said that marriage was about showing love to your spouse, not what your spouse can give or focusing on imperfections. True love and perfection are only from God.

We were blessed with translation by Stiven and Tabita Bell, who like Ivan in Rijeka, also seemed to know everyone in all the churches mentioned. He was English, and she was Croat who grew up in Germany. They were involved in church plants in Albania, Kosovo and now Croatia. During communism he said, “Where two or three are gathered, there are also microphones.” They and Dalija encouraged us to consider a church tour on the Bible and science around the country because kids were getting mixed messages from the church and school.

After 4 hours, many pounds of eye-popping delicacies, and probing questions about our marriage, our new friends went home, looking forward to meeting again soon and vowing to fast the next day.