It was the day before our Easter Baptism Party. For two weeks we had been praying, sowing, talking to our friends, and building excitement and anticipation for what God was going to do on that day. For the past several months, many of our Asian friends had joined the family, but only a handful had actually made the decision to get baptised. Our team leader Sonny felt that God wanted to do something special on Easter Sunday, that He was preparing many of our friends to get baptised on that day!
As of Saturday morning, seven people had said they wanted to get baptised the next day. But as the day went on, certain obstacles began to creep up for many of our friends. One guy B began to experience doubt and uncertainty while another girl , K, had been pretty sick in the days leading up to Easter and wasn’t sure if she would make it. In addition to this, Sonny’s back and sciatic nerve had been in excruciating pain since Friday morning and it wasn’t even clear if he would be able to attend. Through it all we yarped and continued to trust God. On Saturday night as I was preparing for my part of the service I was listening to the “Magnificent Seven” theme song as a more amusing act of faith that God was going to bring all seven people to our baptizing Party on Sunday.
Sunday morning arrived and as we walked over to the house where we would be baptizing our friends, our numbers were already down to five-one guy, L, who had been experiencing doubts and uncertainty decided he wanted to help his friend make a move that morning, and another girl M suddenly got called into class by her teacher and wasn’t sure when or if she would be back.
We continued to trust and pray.
After a few minutes of being in the apartment, Sonny told us his back and leg started feeling remarkably better; the pain that had kept him from sitting down or even thinking clearly for days had vanished! As Sonny and I began to prepare our friends to get baptised, another girl who had recently joined the family but had seemed uncertain of her new decision came into the room and said she was ready to be baptised too! After doing the quickest explanation of baptizing I have done in any language, she changed her clothes and joined the others-we were back up to six! By the end of the baptizing Party, the guy L who left to make the movie and the girl M who left for class also returned, and both were ready to take this step of obedience! Wow!! We were up to EIGHT!
Watching our friends follow God in this way made this one of the most special Easter’s I have every experienced. I had the privileged of baptising one of the girls who had been coming to our Saturday fellowship for months and seeing her come out of the water excited, tears streaming down her face, and on fire for God is what makes the sacrifices and the difficulties of living here worth it!