Baptisms

The day before I arrived in India, 1.29.09, twenty-one of our kids and ten village people were baptized in the river by pastor Brian from Immanuel Reform Church. They each received cross necklaces as a reminder to them of what they had done. They were all very proud and showed off their necklaces to me. The kids were baptized in the river in Thomas' village where his parents live. On the other side of the river is a cemetery. That was the last thing they saw before they went under the water and when they came up, they turned away from it. Thomas explained to them that the cemetery represented all of their past pain, hurt and sin and that now it has all been washed away. They no longer look back at that or live in it, but run hard after Jesus! What a beautiful real-life picture that was for them and a perfect representation of where they are in their lives. I'm so proud of these children.Before the kids were baptized, Thomas sent a note to all of the children's parents or relatives telling them of what was to happen. Even though hardly any of the families are Christians, no one here tries to hide anything. We are very transparent with what we do. Thomas invited the relatives to the baptism if they wanted to come. There was a grandmother (a Muslim) of one of our older girls, Mastani, who wholeheartidly objected to her granddaughter getting baptized. She quickly sent a woman to where the kids were being baptized to try and stop them. As soon as she sent the woman, the grandmother started getting very very sick in a short period of time. She developed a fever, shaking, lost her sight, etc. The lady called the grandmother once she had arrived to tell her that Mastani had just been baptized and it was too late. Immediately, the grandmother was healed of her sickness.
A few days later, Mastani's grandmother came here to the children's home to talk to Mastani. She told us the story and that God had punished her for trying to stop Mastani from being baptized. She said that she is thankful and glad that she did get baptized or else God would have continued punishing her. Although she is a Muslim, Mastani's grandmother told her that she believes that our God is real and is sorry for trying to stop the baptism. Wow.

It was so powerful to stand there and listen to this story and see this Muslim woman in full health telling us of what God had done and how only days earlier she had suffered all these ailments. The power of God is at work not only in these children, but all over this community as we step out in faith and are obedient to what God has for us.

Praise the Lord!