This story of baptism comes from Andrew Kleissner, a British Baptist minister currently in Ipswich.
This took place in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, in around March 1981. The custom was for churches to hold baptismal services on Saturday during their annual “Bible weeks”, with newly-baptised believers taking Communion for the first time the following day.
The Evangelical church at Missira, a suburb of Bissau, was full of expectant people at 4pm. About 30 people from two churches, mostly young, all clad in white gowns, were ready to be baptised by immersion in the local river.
The congregation processed joyously for about a mile along the dirt road, past houses and down towards the river. The candidates walked quietly in single file, flanked by Christians singing loudly. Many onlookers joined in the procession so about 200 people eventually arrived at the river bank. Here we encountered two problems. One was that the water level, at the end of the dry season, was very low. The other was that a group of men were washing their lorry on the shore, just at the baptism site. Domingos Dias, the local evangelist, explained what we were about to do and they graciously agreed to stop – instead they stayed to watch the fun.
Domingos called the crowd to order and preached a short sermon explaining what was about to happy. Armando, an African pastor, and I waded out into the muddy water. Although we went quite a long way out, the water barely covered our knees! One by one, the candidates came to us and were asked if they believed in the Lord Jesus – I was grateful for Armando’s help at this point as some only spoke Balanta and I only knew Crioulo. Then they knelt on the river bed and were summarily “dunked” – doing it this way, we just about managed to get them underwater. When we had finished the baptisms, I got out of the water but Armando went for a brief swim – I wished I’d done the same on this hot afternoon!
And then it was back to the church, this time uphill. This time the singing was accompanied by exuberant dancing. The promised changing-hut had not materialised so I was soaking wet as we walked along; but the sun soon dried my clothes. There was a final prayer at the church and we were done. It was the most meaningful and joyful baptismal service – and the one with the most powerful testimony – that I have ever experienced.
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