"Hey,
we should do that baptism thing" said one of the 15 year old boys as
the group walked by the stream at the bottom of the valley. The
dark-haired teenager was still buzzing from his new-found faith, having
decided to follow Jesus the night before.
As they began
to wade into the water, their leader Stu, told them to just hang on for
a minute and he quickly scaled the hill to get some phone range and
called me - he asked me what I thought. I told him I'd ring him back,
and then sent their youth pastor down to chat to them.
24
hours later (including 2 hours of discussion with the boys and five
phone conversations with parents), that same youth pastor stood in the
freezing cold water of the campsite's dam, and immersed 5 young men.
I'm not sure what the most exciting part is:
- that this bold declaration of faith was entirely initiated by the boys themselves?
- that the one who first suggested the idea had no church background at all?
- that three parents drove two hours south of Perth at the last minute to witness this baptism?
- that one of those parents who came carries no faith background at all?
-
that the other set of parents not only got to see their own son
baptised, but also his friend whom they had financially sponsored to be
there?
I've walked away from this camp struggling to
process the volume of life-change stories - and the way in which God is
so clearly multiplying His movement among this generation of young
people ...
... I'm still scratching my head over the
irony that IMMERSE WEST ended yesterday in a far more literal manner
than what I ever could have anticipated.
