a new thing

We had a baptism at camp recently (during a church retreat), and these are a few pics of some new life in our block 10 community. Luis came to camp as a volunteer this past winter and has been loving the youth bible study that has been continuing these last number of months. He came to the beach this day decided that he would declare his allegiance to Jesus, who, he explained, had replaced his sadness with joy. His mom, Carmen has been a believer among us for a few years now, and she was beaming. 

Alex made his decision a bit more spontaneously, and after watching Luis's conviction and decided-ness, told Luke he was sure he wanted to be baptized too. He and his three siblings have come out to youth group in block 10 for years, and after serving as volunteers during camp, they like Luis also continue in the youth discipleship bible study and keenly gather with us when we are together as a church family in block 10.

A bunch of youth came to camp for the retreat, and as you can see, there were lots of love and hugs from the block 10 crew....to warm him up.

 As we watched Alex out in the water, Carmen leaned into me and said "when i decide to be baptized Janna, will you baptize me?" And I said, "of course i would love to Carmen" (I had already told her this in previous conversations when she had expressed interest, but hesitation). "I want to go now then" she said. And I smiled and said "that's why i put my shorts on before we came down to the beach... just in case." She told the crowd, through tears, that God loves her, and forgives her, and that is why she wants to follow Him.

Following... walking in Christ's footsteps, behind Him, walking into death, and walking into life...

...into life. 

"I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no Savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed, I and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses", delcares the LORD, "that I am God... Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past, See I am doing a new thing!" Isaiah 43