Prayer, Christmas, and Baptisms

The time here at Coffee Bay has been flying by, and though there are a million things to write about I’ll just try to stick to the highlights.

Last Friday night we began a 24 hour prayer session in the Yoga room at Bomvu. We had been feeling the effects of the spiritual warfare in this place and decided to dedicate this time to prayer for the land, the people, our contact, and our community. We all gathered together at 5pm Saturday night to finish up the final hour with worship. Because we decided to celebrate Christmas on Sunday we sang Christmas worship songs. The Spirit was really moving. Why did we decide to celebrate Christmas in July? Well, we realized that when we get back to the states we’ll be going separate ways for the holiday and this would be as good a chance as any to celebrate Jesus’ birth with our World Race family. What a great Christmas it was! Complete with a White Elephant gift exchange, song/skit performances by each team, and a tree decorating competition. However, the best part had to be the smores we made after dinner…treats like that are few and far between on the Race. If there is a better way to start of a week of ministry than celebrating Christmas, I don’t know what it could be.

We continued our surf and soccer ministry Monday through Wednesday this week, sharing the gospel each afternoon and offering the children the invitation to accept Jesus into their hearts. We then set up time Thursday and Friday afternoon at 3:30pm for those who had accepted Jesus to be baptized on the beach. I was astonished with the response! Seventeen children trickled down to the beach on Thursday afternoon to be baptized! We explained the meaning of baptism and what it meant for them to be taking this action in their faith prior to beginning just to make sure there was a solid understanding, and then we got started. I helped write their names down and give them certificates to take home. All the children were young boys between the ages of 10 and 16… it was beautiful. Friday eleven more boys came and we repeated the process. They are all so precious and sincere. It didn’t matter that the water was cold and they came back to the beach shivering. They would wait eagerly for their personal certificate and smile widely for every picture.

(Children holding up their baptism certificates)
Each child was prayed over by members of our team and will have someone with them on Sunday morning to take them to church. Our goal from this point on is to get them connected with a church, a community of christian mentors and friends, and foster the growth of their relationship with our contact Mandy. It’s so encouraging to see some of the fruit from our labor here. God is passionately pursuing the people of Coffee Bay and it’s a blessing to be around to see them begin to respond.