Baptisms are always one of our favorite reasons to celebrate here at ICC! This past Saturday morning, we packed out 3 large vans and mini-buses and 2 personal vehicles and headed out to a beach about an hour away from the church. Upon arriving, the sun was shining and the beach was only sparsely populated. We began with a time of singing followed by a reflection from the Bible on the significance of baptism. After that, we all moved down to the shoreline to begin the baptism of 17 people, ages 13 to 80.
The first person led out into the warm, Caribbean waters was an elderly gentleman suffering from Parkinson’s disease. He had been a proud military officer during the time of the infamous dictator Trujillo. After years of his wife and son sharing with him from the Bible and encouraging him to come to church, he finally listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit and decided to turn his life over to God. His son helped him out to where Jose and Robert were waiting in the water. This moment was the answer to years of prayer. His wife and her two sons were beaming with joy!
We love to see families and married couples take the step of baptism together. We were blessed to have a stepmother and her daughter and a single mom and her 13 year old son make this decision this weekend, as well as a married couple. This couple came to the church as a result of some evangelistic members of ICC who have a business relationship with them. The wife has since become one of the regular cooks in our Hermanos de la Calle soup kitchen. They own a bus company, and the husband donated the services of one of their mini-buses to help us transport alot of our congregation to the event.
The last individual to be baptized was a personal trainer from our New Creation Gym. While we were driving to the beach, he mentioned that he was disappointed that no one from his family was able to come to be with him during this important moment in his life. Although we shared his disappointment, we assured him that he would be surrounded by his church family. As this young man was heading back in to the beach after being baptized, a shout of celebration went out and a group of our teenage boys who regularly work out with him at the gym, began rushing towards him. They literally pounced on him before he could get out of the water and gave him a group hug in the ocean, followed, of course, by tossing him back into the water and splashing everyone within reach.
Even though we experienced some rain showers during the event, we are overflowing with joy over what God has been doing in these lives and the chance to celebrate Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection on Saturday. It was truly a day of rejoicing!
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