Baptism Sunday

This Sunday we had the privilege to see Carmen and Noel baptized.

Carmen is a direct result of our church's missions trip. Carmen was befriended by Bernadette, one of the ladies who came. Bernadette encouraged Carmen to follow the Lord with all of her heart. Carmen told us just after the group left that she wanted to get baptized. We had scheduled the last baptism service with her in mind, but she was not able to get baptized on that day because of some health issues. This week, though, everything worked out perfectly. We had a great service and Carmen was so happy to be able to take this step of obedience.

Noel is the son of Juanita, the lady with Elephanitis. He has been coming off and on for several months. For the past two months Jason and Ernesto have had a great burden for Noel and have put a lot of emphasis on getting him to return. He has been coming faithfully for three weeks now. Last Saturday he went with Jason to Bible Institute to see how it is run and to decide if he would like to enroll next term. They were talking about Biblical fellowship and somehow, someone raised a question about baptism. Noel asked Jason after that if he could be baptized the next time we had baptisms. Jason told him that tomorrow was the next service. He then told him not to tell Ernesto (who has been praying that Noel would get baptized) so they could surprise him. Ernesto had been praying that Noel would come to us without us having to talk to him about taking this step. Ernesto was so surprised when he saw Noel get into the water. He told us as he got out of the car at his house that he still can't believe it. The devil has really been working hard trying to discourage all of us.

Ernesto and Nelly have been plagued with many health problems. Nelly has such problems with her back at this time that she has had to miss services for the past two weeks.

The devil is trying to discourage us through a new church that is starting up in Ojojona. Baptist Medical and Dental Mission used to be a part of BIMI, but decided to form their own group many years ago. They have a habit of coming into towns where there is already a good Baptist church and stealing all of the members to form their church. They are very pentecostal in their teachings and are at the other end of Ojojona, but a few months ago they started a "house church" next door to the church. It is really frustrating to us as we have seen this happen so many times before. Please pray for us that we won't get discouraged and that God will keep moving in the people of Ojojona. On the heels of a great victory is when we are the most easily discouraged.