The Waters of Baptism

Last Sunday, we were totally blessed to watch our daughter, Rebekah, be baptised.  She had made the decision to be obedient to the call of baptism when they announced the upcoming baptism service in November.  We believe that baptism is a public confession of faith. We use full immersion in water to signify death to our old selves (being put under the water, or the "grave") and coming up into new life in Jesus. He has made us a new creation. Just as Jesus went to the grave after He died for our sins, then He was raised back up to life.  We do not believe baptism offers any salvation, that only comes through faith in Jesus, but we do this as a public declaration that we have believed in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation.

“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.” Romans 6:4-5

Rebekah asked me and our youth pastor to speak on her behalf. That was hard for me. I almost lost it a couple times, but I did manage to keep the tears at bay. Well, only until I looked over at her a short while after she was baptised and she was positively glowing! I started to struggle very hard with the tears then.

My mom was able to come all the way out from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was so nice to have her here.

Here are some pictures from the service;

Pastor Matt challenging Rebekah to keep walking with the Lord. Larry helped with the dunking part. (And he was not as successful as me at keeping the tears away:)

I LOVE this picture! Look at how happy Rebekah is.

Afterward

We all had fun with my mom while she was here too;

It was a great weekend! One that we will always remember.

Our Holidays

I just wanted to share some pictures of how we spent our holidays.  We had so many happenings this Christmas. It was so fun! Our kids put on a play for us with the kids from another family, Rebekah was in choir again and had beautiful performances, Jacob was in the Kid's Program at church.  We were supposed to be singing Christmas Carols and handing out sugar cookies at the elderly care home on Christmas morning, but Ben caught chickenpox from our friends  and, of course, they wouldn't let even some of us go. He was so happy to have chickenpox! Because we were going to get him vaccinated this year and he does not like vaccinations.  He didn't complain once or even scratch once, so luckily, he must have had a mild case. Christmas day was the first day he felt a little better.  We spent Christmas day with just us. It was nice.

We had a HUGE bon fire on New Years Eve. We burnt all the trees Larry had pushed down on our property the first year we moved here.  A couple of families from the neighbourhood stopped by.



The boys in the play they did with their friends.  It was really cool.

First thing Christmas morning. I'm hiding my face. Too early.

Ben bought this pool table for Jacob for Christmas. This year we all had to buy our presents for each other at the thrift store or garage sales with a $10 budget. We all got some pretty amazing gifts and it was fun looking throughout the year for just the right thing.

This is what Larry bought with his Christmas money from his parents. It's some kind of roller thing for going under cars.

On December 27th, Larry's sister and her husband came up for a visit. We were so happy!!! They were the only family we saw over the holidays.

Getting the bon fire going on New Year's.

The holidays are over and we are back into school and trying to get everything back to normal around here. Although, we have one more distraction for the next 4 days, my mom is coming all the way from Vancouver Island, British Columbia for a visit. We couldn't be more excited!

God bless.