Baptisms and Memories...

I've always been told I became a Christian when I was four. I don't really remember it, but I never questioned it. When I was 8, we went to a typical Baptist church, and some of my friends had decided to get baptized. In light of the up-coming baptism, many of the sermons began to center on verses about baptism, and I began to feel guilty and pressured to be baptized. After all, I was a Christian, so I should be baptized, right? I finally asked Daddy to take me to see the pastor so that I could get into the pre-baptism class/study that was required. But then I chickened out. Looking back, I'm glad I did.

March 24, 2003, I heard a radio program that finally struck home. The pastor's point was that if you claim to be a Christian, but still haven't surrendered your life to Christ, then you probably aren't really a Christian. And that you were particularly in trouble if you didn't remember becoming a Christian. He recommended that if you didn't remember it, that you rededicate your life to Christ and then write the date down, so that when the Devil gave you doubts you could come back with that date. I got the feeling that he was talking directly to me. I'm still not sure if I really was a Christian before then or not, but my official date is March 24, 2003, and that's when my life changed.

That summer, we joined the Christian Community Summer Club for the first time, and started going to a "house" group that met at the pool. At one of the August meetings, the pastor announced that his daughter Kara had asked to be baptized and that a baptism would be held at the pool in two weeks. I instantly knew I wanted to be baptized as well, and that it was right this time. Exactly five months after I finalized my faith, on August 24, 2003, I was baptized by Coach Matt and my daddy, along with 4 others, Kara, Matt, Sean and Kyle. It was so much more special to be baptized in an informal setting by my daddy and another man I respected, instead of a Baptist pastor that I didn't even really know.

This past Wednesday, July 22, 2009, I got to watch as all 3 of my siblings were baptized by our daddy, our Coach, and the two other men in our fellowship group, Mr. M and Mr. J. Along with my siblings, there were the rest of Kara's siblings, Rachel, Trissa and Torin, the one who asked for the baptism, Hannah J. and her sister, Rachel, and Chandler M. It was so exciting for me to see all my siblings publicly confess their faith in Christ, and so sweet to see all 9 of those children and young adults baptized. We had a meal together beforehand, and played in the pool and celebrated with dessert afterward.

Here are some pictures from the baptism 6 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!) and some from last Wednesday.




Me, Kara and Sean... we look so young!

Praying for me to grow in the spirit and walk with God the rest of my life... along with other things. =)

With my daddy! And you thought I was short NOW...

Sean, Matt, Kara and me... I don't remember what Coach was saying. And too bad Kyle isn't in this picture. I think he was on the other side of Sean.


Pre-baptism talk... missing Rachel J. I ALMOST got everyone. :\

I'm only putting pictures of my siblings because there would be way too many pictures if I put all of them...






Praying for them...




~Lizzie

Healthy??

Manfred Muller, a homeopathic nutritionalist, visited our Radical Wednesday group tonight. This is the second time he's visited, and it's always very interesting. This time, he mentioned quite a bit about how cell phone, microwaves, nuclear plants and mercury are so hard to avoid and so harmful. I always thought we were pretty healthy. As I was sitting here eating my extra-large helping of dessert (that didn't get served at the meeting because it went too late) I was thinking how it's entirely organic. It has lots of sugar, but it's organic, evaporated cane juice. We use healthy toothpaste, shampoo, lotion and gum. But we can't avoid the mercury and all the other toxins in the air. And, on top of that, Mr. Muller reminded us that even organic foods can get pesticides and other harmful things from run-off, and mercury in the rain.

It seems that it's completely impossible to avoid harmful things. Sometimes it makes me want to give up entirely and just eat whatever I want. I like soft drinks (with carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and "natural flavoring" -- which is supposedly MSG), and tons of other things that are so laden with toxic substance that you just kinda want to NEVER eat any food again. But if I'm constantly breathing mercury and many other horrible things, why shouldn't I just go into denial, eat what I want and have a pleasant short life, instead of a long, paranoid and yucky-tasting one?

What really bothers me is that if I really want to be healthy, the first thing I should probably do is stop saturating myself with chlorine for 2 - 2 1/2 hours 3 times a week. That can't be good. But I love swimming, and it's such a nice way to keep in shape.

*sigh* I was happy eating organic foods... wasn't it good enough that we hardly ever went out to eat? Now we'll probably never eat out again. I don't know if I'd even want to. The thought makes me sick. But I recovered quickly enough from the last health-oriented Wednesday meeting. Much more quickly than I should have...

~Lizzie

Caroling and Cold Cider

Despite my visions of shotguns and dogs that merit more than a "beware of dog" sign, I actually set off caroling with our group with high spirits. Yes, it felt like summer, and it felt kinda strange, like maybe we were over-obsessed Christmas-in-July carolers. But it was fun, and there were no shotguns, although there were people peeking out windows and then ignoring us. For them we have an altered version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".....

It was great fun until it began to rain. It sprinkled, and then when we started singing it would pour, and then we would head back to the clubhouse, so it would go back to just a mist, and then we would decide to keep going since it stopped raining and then it would start pouring again. We finally gave up and went back to the clubhouse very damp. We were hoping for some hot cider, but we didn't spend enough time caroling, so it was in the crock-pot, not-so-warm.

We had some dessert and barely warm cider, prayed a few minutes and then went home to get into dry clothes. It really was fun, and I hope we'll do it again next week... hopefully without rain.

The games yesterday were really fun, all the way in Greensboro. We spent about 4 hours driving. And we have to go almost all the way back for the games Friday...

Tomorrow is our swim meet with NRCA, Cary Christian and Grace Christian. And Sarah's band concert. It's going to be crazy, and I just hope that the meet is over soon enough that we'll see some of the concert. I'm terrified that we're going to miss the whole thing, and I so want to see it.

~Lizzie

Radical Wednesday

We had a nice prayer meeting, with only a few interruptions.... David fell out of his chair, (read more about that here) some mature people over the age of 10 were playing with.... shoes. Someone had an unfortunate case of the hic-ups, a stack of boxes were almost knocked over by someone, and another someone tried to steal someone else's keys. All during prayer.

I really enjoyed the meeting though, after we stopped talking about all the disturbing things going on in America, even more so than usual because Mr. M was there and brought his guitar so we got to sing. The M's don't come very often.

Then after the meeting, we were all standing in the parking lot talking (pretending to leave) and two of the *respectable* older boys found... a squished snake. Yep. And then? They picked it up. Yes, with their bare hands. Boys are so weird. And THEN..... the older one (you'd think he'd know better... being 19, right? No.) takes it over to his sister and wiggles it by her shoulder. She and I thought it was fake at first. *I* didn't believe that they were crazy enough to TOUCH it if it was real. So then we realized it was real and freaked out. AND THEY WERE STILL HOLDING IT. *shudders* That is soooo much worse than the typical chase-girl-with-a-frog trick..... UGH!

*shudders again*

~Lizzie