Missionaries face challenges of all kinds. Culture shock, sickness, threats of violence, pervasive witchcraft, contextualization difficulties, apostasy, ethical problems like bribery—the list goes on. Some challenges are things you might never think of, like too little water in the baptismal tank.
Our project’s third baptism last February was shaping up to be a bit of an embarrassment for me. The joy of seeing 12 precious souls publicly give their lives to Jesus Christ through baptism was mixed with concern about the quantity of water available.
As Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we follow the Bible’s example of baptism by immersion. John 3:23 says, “And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there.” Unfortunately, we had only about six inches of water in our baptismal tank, and no effective way to add to it. How could we be faithful to the New-Testament teaching with so little water?
Another concern was the spiritual implication of baptism as conveyed in Romans 6:4: “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” I attach great importance to the symbol of burying the old man of sin, and our resurrection to a new life in Christ, and I didn’t want this to be lost on our new members. But, despite our best efforts to obtain enough water, we were unable to do so.
We had conducted our previous two baptisms about six miles out of town at the river dam in waist-deep water, watching out for the crocodiles that inhabit the area. But this year the crocodiles had grown and multiplied, and so had the danger. There were reports of crocodiles attacking people near the water, so the dam was no longer a safe venue to assemble a crowd for a baptism.
For a baptismal tank, all we could find was a public school’s rainwater cistern. Despite the very low water level, God blessed, and the baptism service went fine.
Thanks for your prayers and support. They have made a great difference for our converts, who have traded lives of misery and confusion for abundant life in Christ. God bless you for being part of our team.
