Baptism Celebration Week
What an incredible week at my church. A few weeks ago, my pastor made an announcement that we would be having a Baptism Celebration. He challenged all the believers in our church to follow Jesus’ example of water baptism. 704 people took the challenge and over the next 4 days, we will be baptizing everyone. We got some serious revival going on in Gaithersburg, Maryland!!
We only have one baptistry so we had to rent 3 addtional ones. It was so awesome tonight. We had about 180 registered for tonight and it went much faster than I thought it would. The presence of God permeated every inch of our church and you couldn’t help but feel the excitement in the air. I had people who I have never met hug me and thank me and tell me how blessed they were by this celebration. I did not get to watch it because I was handing out the certificates and I can’t wait to find out how many people raised their hand for the altar call to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Baptisms are an awesome time for non-believers to come and watch their friends or family get baptized so we usually have a lot of salvations.
It was hard to come home. I felt like I wanted everyone to hang out and break bread together like they did in the Old Testament. How cool would that have been!
I hope it doesn’t end after this weekend. I hope that everyone will continue in their obedience to the Lord and that they have a deeper hunger to want to know Christ more and more.
I can’t wait to hear all the incredible testimonies that will happen because of this.
We would never have been able to pull this off without our awesome volunteers who gave of their time and talents. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
8 weeks post op
It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 weeks since my knee surgery. The recovery is such a slow process and I have to remind myself that my surgeon told me it would take 6 months to fully recover. I can definitely feel a difference and the pain I had before surgery is gone although I am still having surgical pain. I have been back to work for 2 weeks now and it is going well. My physical therapist has been getting very aggressive with my exercises so I may have to back off them a little. I could barely walk yesterday at work and missed church last night, which is frustrating. I can’t wait to get my life back. I have been thinking about hiking in the woods and up the mountains and can’t wait until I can do it.
I am feeling hopeful about a full recovery and for the first time in years, I am encouraged and believe that God will heal me.
On a different note, work has been quite busy with our Bible studies getting ready to begin in a few weeks and our massive Baptism celebration. A few weeks ago, Pastor Dale challenged our members to be baptized in obedience to Christ, if they had not already been and as of today, we have 605 people registered!! We will take 4 services to get everyone baptized and 3 pastors will be doing them at the same time. We have been busy planning and trying to sort out all the details. It’s an incredibly exciting time at our church. Revival time!
I recieved my books from school and classes start shortly. I am looking forward to them although it always take a lot of discipline!
6 weeks post op
This afternnon I go for my 6 week check up for my knee. My physical therapist measured how much my knee is now bending and I am at 105 degrees. I can’t wait to get all the mobility back. This has been such a long process that I have been feeling very discouraged lately. I tried to go back to work this week and it was very difficult. To work all day then go to physical therapy was brutal. I want to not have to take any pain meds so I am going to ask the doctor today if I should still be having pain. I am having a difficult time sleeping all through the night as well. I wake up several times with my knee bended and when I try to straighten it, it feels like I have a permanent charley horse. I took Tylenol PM a few nights and that seemd to help but I hate taking pills!! I will see what the doc says.
I am excited about my decision to continue on in Bible college. God has been so good to me. I have prayed and gone back and forth for the last 6 months about whether or not to continue. There is a program where I can earn my associates and bachelors at the same time and I thought the window had closed for that but I called my educational advisor and he told me that I was still able to enroll in that program. Instead of having to take 15 more courses, I will only have to take 10 more so praise God for that!
