Sunday, August 25, 2013

Funniest Water Baptism I Ever Participated In

So about 3 years ago I saw a water baptism in southern Taiwan where a young man was not put all the way under the water when he was baptized. So after he had dried off a discussion unfolded...and the leaders decided to call the boy back up and re baptize him! So I made it my aim to always put someone all the way under the water. Sure enough in 2012 I did a baptism for my Chinese teacher. She did not tell me she was concerned about getting her hair wet. I was concerned about making sure it was wet. So when I baptized her she kept her forehead out of the water. Instant concern swept across my heart and I reached up and put my hand across her forehead and pushed her whole head under the water. Later she said to me, "I thought 'what is Pastor Dave doing?'" So I explained everything. We now laugh about it quite often. .. But I continue to try to make sure everyone goes all the way under. A Taiwanese missionary who has come back from Africa to serve in Taipei was helping me baptize a 17 year old young man today. His name is Moses. As we were baptizing Moses I noticed his hands were trembling and he seemed nervous. Plus he was not exactly a little boy....so I determined to give him a strong pull back into the water. Well the lady missionary who was on the other side of me had no idea I was going to do that because I didn't think to tell her. So as Moses fell backwards to be baptized, I gave Moses a big pull down into the water to make sure he went all the way under. The speed of Moses' plunge into the water caught my poor friend off guard. Before I realized what was happening she went completely under the water along with Moses....head and all. I held my breath in horror as she came up for air. Then she and everyone else broke out in laughter. I wonder if Moses knew why at first. I guess that baptism was what we call a 2 for 1 deal.

1 comment:

  1. A Kingdom lesson here: Tell your assistants what changes you make to the plans BEFORE you start executing!

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