Symbolism

We are at a time right now in ministry where we are between church plants. We transitioned out of leadership and then out of the church altogether just before Christmas. We had been at Christ the Victor Church since the first week we arrived in Wichita. Then, the church was only a few weeks old. We saw it change in so many ways. It was a part of us...our first church planting experience. It stretched us, molded our ideas on church in general, it was warm and a wonderful place for Ben to first learn about daddy "teaching the peoples."

You may remember me blogging about our church starting a community garden. If you know much about us, you know we have black thumbs. I've never kept anything but weeds alive (thriving even). We tried our hardest to make the garden work. We bought plants (not seeds so we might have a better chance) and we watered and watered and watered and watered. I took both boys at least every other day just after breakfast to water our garden. We didn't have water on the property so we had to drag a hose from the missionary's house across the street and fill a horse tank and then dip from that. There were weeks that I filled that horse tank every single time I went because it was so hot that we were all using too much water and the tank was always empty when I arrived. It was tiring! To fill the tank with both the boys was a lot of work. But, I was committed to seeing my plants grow.

Well, they didn't. Nothing grew but my weeds. I finally gave up. I think I was one of the last to give up!

A couple of weeks after transitioning out of the church, Christ the Victor Church baptized two people in THAT horse tank! That tank (that had become a thorn in my side, was always empty, but was supposed to promise life-giving water to my plants) was used to (symbolically) wash away the sins of these two people, publicly identifying them with Christ, and bringing new life, eternal life. What an amazing transformation for that horse tank.

 Although we no longer attend Christ the Victor Church, we felt great joy hearing about these two baptisms and pray that God continue to bring growth to that little church!