Baptisms... Again!

Today I had the privilege to go to another baptism at a different church; this time I watched 4 young men testify publicly to their faith. This was my 3rd time watching baptisms here in Buenos Aires and every one has something different about it. But today's was special. Especially different, in a way I couldn't wait to get home and write about to you.

Here in Argentina, they normally save all the baptisms until the end of the year. It's not like other places where when someone wants to be dunked, they do it in weeks there after. Here, you have to let the church know months, months, in advanced so that you can do a course ahead of time. For one church it was 6 classes, for example. I can't say this is across the board at churches here, but from the people I've talked to, it's what I've gathered.

For example, today one of the boys that was baptized was my friend's younger brother. He was saved years ago when he was a youth, but did not follow with baptism, from what I understood. Then, at the end of last year he decided to be baptized but had to wait for 2014 to take this course.

Here's the especially cool part.

When each of the 4 people came out, the pastor opened the floor up to have people in the church read verses or passages of Scripture that had been placed on their hearts for that person. I'd never seen that before, but I just thought it was the neatest thing! For each person, 2 microphones were passed around the church and at least 7-10 were reading verses of encouragement, saying, "Fulana, the Lord says to you ...."

Can you imagine your baptism day if you had had brothers and sisters in the faith do that?

There are so many things that I often think that if I went back to the states and started a church, I would take away SO much from the Latin American church. But, that's a whole other post for another night. :)