Two weeks ago I had the privileged of baptizing four young men. They wanted to publicly display their commitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This was a pretty special moment for me as I have walked with all of them in their spiritual journey. For three of them, I walked closely with them for three years, since their journey with Christ began.
I’ve never had the privilege to walk with young men like this before. Before coming to South Africa and had spent 7 to 8 years doing one to two year commitments in the Middle East, attending college, and working at home. These guys I have known since 2005 and have followed their lives up to this point. It has definitely been something special to see how God has been able to use me to help shape and encourage these young men.
Our group is made up of five with four of them baptized two weeks ago and the other to be baptized in the next month. They all live in the township of Soshanguve and very close to each other. They come from families that have very little financially, but God doesn’t them this way. He sees them as warriors for His Kingdom and His purposes. My journey with these guys starts back in January 2007 as I began mentoring one guy, Tshepo. Within a few weeks he had invited his friends and the group was formed.
In the first weeks, each guy came to me and shared how he had never thought reading the Bible and talking about God could be cool and how his life lives have changed drastically. Feelings of hate and anger were being replaced with love and joy. Instead of starting fights at school, new friendships were formed with classmates. Instead of ignoring God, looking for God became a habit. And so began their journey into the heart of God.
Over the past three years I’ve been able to walk with them through their struggles and joys, their wounds and triumphs. And it’s culminated in them being baptized.
The baptism was held at a camp where we had a men’s retreat. There was no body of water available for baptism, so I borrowed a small kid’s pool. But it still wasn’t big enough for them to be fully submerged so Johannes and I dunked their heads completely under one at a time. It was a moment they won’t forget as they moved forward in their walk with God.
