Baptism

All those who were baptized, plus the three pastors. I couldn't get them all in one picture!

Our table: David, Cynthia, Tanya, Nikolai, Donnie, Blythe, and Katya
Today our church had a baptism on the Kuban River. It was the first church function I have gone to this whole year. It was wonderful. I think there were 13 people baptized. It started out as it would in America. We sang a couple of songs and then the pastor explained the meaning of baptism. Then the pastors got in the water followed by those getting baptized. They all dressed in white and went down into the river in threes. The three pastors where in the river and they would take turns baptizing. After the actual baptism we sat around seven small tables for a picnic lunch. Each table had at least one of the newly baptized people at it. At our table was Nikolai. It was nice to get to talk to him and here his story. Each table was also asked to do a different creative thing to present as a congratulations to the one baptized. Nikolai had it bad because our table only had two native Russian speakers besides himself. Our task was to write a poem in Russian! Thankfully we enlisted some help and then Blythe bravely read the poem in front of the crowd. Russians are so creative. It was interesting to see what everyone came up with.
I felt like after a year of going to this church I was finally able to meet some people. It was such a blessing. Hopefully it will make church feel like more of a church home to me.