What a Blessed Day!

Sunday, February 22, 2009 was a blessed day! Dara had told us about a month ago that she wanted to be baptized. After talking with her about it and realizing that she understood what that meant, we decided to go ahead with it. Since my parents were already going to be up here on the 20th and 21st, we chose the 22nd as the day since they could just stay one more night. Chad had already decided that he wanted to baptize Dara.

After attending the Pastor's conference earlier this month, Chad realized that he was being called to preach and talked to our pastor about going about doing that. Well, our pastor decided to license Chad to preach before the baptism. Chad didn't know that this was happening and I had to keep it a secret from the Wednesday before (I had to know because I am the "clerk" for the church and had to sign the license). It was hard to keep the secret and didn't even tell my parents or his. Everyone was greatly surprised!

Once Chad was licensed, he not only baptized Dara, but another lady from our church. And at the end of services, a family that has been regularly attending for over a year officially joined the church. It was a great day! We celebrated everything with a meal after the church. I had made a 20 lb turkey, sage potatoes and green beans as well as a cake. Chad's mom surprised me by bringing a jello salad and deviled eggs and we put out the leftovers in the church refrigerator from the previous week's meal. We invited everyone who was at church to stay for the celebration.