Jessica walked with my teammate and me around our campus. Sophia joined us, and then we headed over to the stadium track near the basketball courts and pingpong tables. Even though it was about 7:30 in the evening and almost dark, waves and waves of people were walking laps around the track. The weather has recently become much nicer, so people have come out of their houses to enjoy some evening exercise. We slipped into the crowd and started to teach our friends about water baptism. “The Greek word itself simply means to go completely under the water…”
Round and round we went, lap after lap around the school’s track. My teammate and I bounced off each other as we explained the symbolic meaning of water baptism to our friends. “It’s a public commitment to your private decision to follow Jesus…”
The crowd moved us along at their pace around the track, and we held steady in our new discussion about water baptism, covering many points about the topic, including the importance of remembering to bring a change of clothes and a towel. We even stopped walking at one point and stepped to the side of the track to do a quick demonstration. I held my teammate’s head (she plugged her nose), and we showed how one goes totally under the water and then comes back up!
“I want to do it in the pool! Can we?” Jessica asked, her enthusiasm evident. We had finished teaching the lesson and started walking back to their dorm.
At this point we plan to hold a baptism service in another month or two before our team returns to America, but we haven’t settled on a location yet. While it is commonly done in a bathtub, some people have suggested a river, and Jessica is, of course, trying to persuade people to do it in the pool!