Saturday we had a day off from ministry so we decided to venture out to Swaziland’s largest waterfall. In addition to simply checking it out, one of my dear friends, Brooke, wanted to rededicate her life to Christ and be baptized at the bottom of the fall. We set out for what we were told to be a 3 hour hike, in the Malalocha reserve park. 2 and a half hours in, we were in the middle of the beautiful mountains on a path leading us to no where.
We stopped by a small creek and asked some other travelers for help with directions and they were as confused as we were. The map was old and some of the paths were no longer there or would end with no destination in sight. Another hour went by and still no waterfall. We started to get nervous, time was running out and our taxi would be ready for us within the hour. Exhausted we took a break by the same creek we had carelessly passed multiple times. Two large beautiful mountains meet at this small insignificant creek.
As we sat chatting about where we should go or what we should do, one of the girls we were with pointed to the little creek we sat by and asked “why don’t we just do it here?” I caught myself almost rolling my eyes. Why would we baptize her in this pathetic creek when we could baptize her in a big beautiful waterfall? We stood thinking about it for a little while and then Brooke smiled and said this is great. Immediately I was convicted. How did I miss this parallel to Christ? When Jesus did anything while he was on earth, it was never flashy. He was an everyday normal looking guy one that you would easily walk by without thinking anything extraordinary, just like this creek. This little creek was perfect. Nothing flashy about it. It was full of untouched water that was pure enough to drink. We played music, read scripture and dipped my beloved friend into the water symbolizing that she is now dead to her old ways and born again, pure in Gods sight. We never found the waterfall. It could have been just on the other side of one of the mountains that met at the creek, but I don’t care. This little creek became one of the most beautiful places I had yet to see in Swaziland.
