From Baths to Baptisms

I am an idea guy. I am fairly creative, which I think comes from the arts/history side of my brain. I'm sure I have a math/science side, but so far a doctor's have failed to locate it.

I like coming up with solutions. As a kid I wanted to be an inventor, and to this day I still enjoy watching fabrication shows on The Learning Channel. As an adult many of my friends have partaken in my edible creations such as Jonwiches, and Chaijon (I always put my name in the title).

A few months back I was presented with a new challenge. One of our youth had decided she would like to be baptized. The issue at hand was that our church is a small apartment church in Budapest. It occurred to me that we didn't have a set up for baptisms. She had asked to be baptized, and our field was desirous that it be done in front of our congregation. But how?

We talked about options. Everything from spray bottles to dunking in the Danube (which is not blue by the way), but in the Winter time, hyperthermia isn't a good idea. The other issue you must deal with is that Hungary has 1000 years of Catholicism. If you get too creative you run the risk of scaring people, even those comfortable with attending church in an apartment as opposed to the big Cathedral at the corner.

Almost every day I take a prayer walk. I walk to our missionaries homes and pray in front of them. I usually listen to some music, or an audio tape while I walk, sometimes a sermon podcast. This particular day I was praying for guidance.

As I approached a missionary home I observed a deep bathtub sitting out next to the fence. I had helped pick up a new shower for their neighbors and I knew they were doing a bathroom remodel. A thought struck me. I asked our fellow workers to approach the neighbor, who actually attend our church, about the bathtub. Long story short, we bought a bathtub for a good price, and they appreciated the financial help.

So when my parents visited over the Holidays, I grabbed my dad and began plotting and planning what we wanted to make. We made multiple runs to OBI (think home depot with a creepy voice hissing 'welcome to OBI' over the intercom every 90 seconds.) We sawed, we hammered, we got yelled at by the neighbors for making too much noise. Dad and I engineered a draining and filling system, and in the end, we converted a bath tub into our very own baptismal.

This month we will finally baptize not only one, but at least three people, possibly more. There has even been a suggestion of the former bath tub owner being baptized in this group. God has a sense of humor. Regardless, praise God for his creativity and provision. We will be videotaping the baptism and will post video links as soon as we can.

Jonathan for the Longs