Baptism

This Wednesday, we had our first baptism since I arrived in Kiari.
There were eight folks baptized -- 1) Bandi, a teen boy who is also a
2nd grader in our school; 2) Lynn, a teen girl who is a 4th grader in
our school, in my Sunday School class, and in my discipleship class;
3) Ellie, another teen girl who is also in my Sunday school and
discipleship classes; 4) Aira, a young man who is married with a
couple children; 5) Eileen, Aira's wife; 6) Tu, a young man who is
married with one child; and 7) Winu, who is the second wife of an
unsaved man. For the actual baptism, we hiked about 30 minutes away to
a fairly large, fast-flowing river. The men had gone down earlier and
dammed it up to form a baptismal pool, then the children had thrown
flower petals into the water, so it was very pretty. Each baptismal
candidate gave their testimony of salvation, then they were each
baptized. As each went into the water, a choir of national Christians
sang a verse of a hymn. It was a real blessing. Please pray for the
spiritual growth of these believers and for the testimony of the
service to the unsaved that witnessed it.

In other news, Paul, the man from America who has been helping with
the airstrip work will be leaving at the end of this week. Immediately
after his departure, two guys from a supporting church in Greenville,
South Carolina will be coming to continue the work. The airstrip is
getting closer to completion, but there's still a lot to be done. It
needs to be 400 meters long, so they are now in the process of carving
away the mountain at the end of the strip to get the last 16 meters
that they need. Please pray for strength for the workers and for the
bulldozer to operate without further breakdowns.