I love it when our church does baptisms. The very idea of someone going public, driving a stake in the ground and saying to the world “I follow Jesus, He is my savior” is incredible. A few weeks ago I witnessed some baptisms unlike any I have witnessed before. I was touring our communities in Kenya and was spending a couple days in a very remote area north of Nairobi called Segera. The area around Segera is largely unreached with the Gospel. Most of the population in that area is comprised of many different tribes that speak many different languages and believe many different things about God.
We do all of our work in this area through the Segera Mission, which is managed by a devoted group of Kenyan believers. The mission staff often hold open air evangelism meetings and plant churches and train up pastors to help spread the Word. Our teams from the U.S. often join their efforts to reach that area with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In mid July, a team from Brazos Pointe Fellowship in Texas was in Segera and participated in one of these outreach efforts. God, as he often does, showed up in an incredible way and many people, most of who were hearing the Gospel for the first time responded and put their faith in Jesus.
A few days later, a group of the new believers, the team from Brazos Pointe Fellowship, and the mission staff gathered together in the river behind the mission for baptisms. Without hesitation these new followers of Jesus waded into the river to publicly confess their lord and savior Jesus Christ. It was amazing. The joy on their faces and the hope in their voices as they danced and sang for each one being baptized was a true celebration. Now, life will not all of a sudden get easier for them, many of them will still struggle to find food, take care of their children, and may even be persecuted for their new faith. At least one thing though will be different however; they now have assurance of an eternity with Jesus, and the hope that only comes through a relationship with Jesus. They now have something to celebrate, something to sing and dance about, something to live for.
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