I have just been water baptised, and it feels great! Well, a very mild great. I suppose the magnitude of what I had gone through has not yet sank it.
It was about 14:30 or something that I got baptised. The water was freaking hot! It was full immersion, by the way, not just some sprinkling of water which some churches practise.
The baptism included a public sharing of testimony so I was REALLY terrified. I am VERY afraid of standing before a bunch of people and speaking to them (doesn't matter if they're not listening to me anyway).
Yeah, so I was really anxious and nervous and I could feel my heart thumping against my ribcage really quickly. I was very tense as well and as well aware as I was of that fact I couldn't relax at all. It was a VERY important point of my life and I couldn't even enjoy it!
So when my name was called (pronounced wrongly too, I might add) I walked up to the podium at the front of the stage, literally clutching my printed testimony in my hands. I laid it on the stand and picked up the mike (I'M ACTUALLY HOLDING A MIKE! [I feel so deprived...]). I started by introducing myself:
I'm Rachelle (pronounced CORRECTLY) and I'm from Upper Sec.
And then I launched into my testimony very nervously, although I suppose my voice sounded too calm to be true. I wasn't even thinking then. I was just reading off the paper like a robot with perfect pronounciation (ego...).
Anyway, when I was finished (and very relieved) I turned to Pastor Andy (who was calling our names) and either put the mike down or gave it to him (I can't remember). Pastor Andy started speaking and I thought I had to remain for a while, but he gestured for me to go, I didn't get the message, so I left only after a very noticable hesitation.
I was SO embarrassed.
When I walked toward the baptism pool in the middle of the stage (when did that get there?) this guy signalled for me to hand him my spectacles. As all of you know I'm very much blind without my glasses (900 degrees each eye, which means I can only see vague shapes), so when the guy gestured as someone else when I passed him my printed testimony (you can't be expecting me to bring it into the pool...) I was pretty much lost, until a few seconds later (which must look very stupid to everyone since they don't know about my terrible eyesight).
I entered the pool, very shocked at the high temperature (even though one of my church friend who has already been baptised last year told me that the pool was warm [warm my foot...it was freaking hot!]), and looked to Pastor Darrick for further instructions. He told me to face the other way, so I did and he ended up on my left. He then told me to pinch my nose and place my free hand on my other elbow.
He prayed for me, and in the middle of it I felt like crying (it is a sign of the touch of the holy spirit, not one of absolute terror and cowardice). I actually did, but it wasn't very obvious. Before it did become obvious I was asked if I would...something. I forgot. I think it was 'covenant' something or something else along those lines.
I answered 'yes' in a very hushed voice (I was crying, remember?) and the pastor said something else and let me fall backward into the pool before pulling me back up. I felt like falling (well duh, that's what it was). I don't remember much, but when I came back up I wiped my face with my hands and Pastor Darrick told me to look into the camera.
Seeing as I was really blind I stared at the wrong camera until the pastor told me to look elsewhere. I couldn't see the camera, but I could make out a vaguely human shape so I looked there (although it took me a while to identify it as human/the camerawoman). I smiled really big (or what I think is really big) and the camera flashed.
Then I got out of the pool and someone handed me the big green IKEA towel I passed to one of the people earlier. Gee, I'm not sure how to explain all this to you guys. I expected to be really cold out of the water but I remained fairly warm. It was quite surprising, considering how cold the temperature was inside the L4 Chapel.
I went to change immediately. You can't expect me to be wandering around like a walking rain cloud, can you? After changing I met my mother outside the toilet. My mother was carrying a camera pouch (there was a camera inside, of course). She said to go home.
I was panicking, somehow, because I think there'll be a reception later where the water baptism candidates will pick up their certificates, so I told her that the people told us to stay until the end, which they did. So we stayed till the end. Oh, before we returned to the Chapel somebody came up to us to ask if we had a spare towel since one girl didn't bring hers. My mother passed the dry towel.
The towel was returned via the same person with a message of thanks mid-way through the rest of the baptism service. Once every water baptism candidate has been baptised, Pastor Andy informed the congregation to go to the reception at L4 Summit. My mother said that she'd buy me something from Funky B (a Christian bookshop at L1) to commemorate my baptism.
My mother and I were the first few people to arrive at the Summit so we ate first. Gosh, the cream puff was fantastic (even though it was kinda small)! There was so much powered sugar on the surface and the cream inside was DELICIOUS! What a sweet treat!
Since was came first we also decided to leave first (in case Funky B closed). On our way out I saw Pastor Darrick (District pastor) passing a water baptism candidate his certificate, so I waited until the candidate received his to ask for mine from Pastor Darrick. I was carrying a ton of stuff so when he offered so shake my hand after passing me my certificate I couldn't do anything! So he grabbed the hand that was carrying one huge plastic bag (of wet clothes and towels) and one metal bottle and shook it.
Lol. =D
We went down to Funky B and to our great happiness, it was open. We entered and looked around. Funky B sold shirts, you see, and when I saw one of the designs I immediately knew it was what I wanted. It was SO COOL!
We didn't see any of the design on the rack so my mother suggested we ask the counter guy. We didn't do that until a while later though, when we had browsed through the fairly small shop. The guy said that there was stock (THANK GOD!) and brough out a size S which was supposed to be able to fit women. We bought that one.
I'm not going to disclose the design. It's a SECRET.
The shirt is the first shirt I own that declares that I'm a Christian, so if you see me wearing a shirt that just screams "CHRISTIAN!" you know that's the one I bought. =)
Now looking back I suppose I could have used a different testimony, since the one I had wasn't exactly spectacular (but what I felt was most appropriate in addressing the hesitance of people in applying for water baptism). Many of the other candidates talked about their exams...
The one I used was how God gave me the courage (that I had lost since graduating Primary school) to be brave enough to apply for baptism even though I know I have to share a testimony to a crowd. As I stated before at the beginning, I ABSOLUTELY FEAR speaking to crowds.
I have 2 other ideas for testimonies though, but one of them is pretty spontaneous.
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1. During the 2009 December holidays my family went on a trip to Europe. Nearing the end of the trip Eurostar, the major transport between European countries, broke down. We were in Paris and needed to get to London to catch our flight from London to Singapore in 2 days. We had a fairly blur tour guide so I was quite worried that we might be unable to get home before Christmas.
I prayed to God the night when we had to stay back in Paris for another day, and God answered my prayers by giving us an alternative route: the sea. Our very blur tour guide got a refund for our Eurostar tickets and bought us cruise tickets to London instead.
There was also another problem. It snowed a lot in Europe and some airports had to close down and many flights cancelled or delayed. I was afraid that OUR flight might get cancelled/delayed, but that didn't happen. We were right on schedule and returned home safe and sound with me vowing never to complain about the heat of Singapore ever again.
2. Today my father has to leave for a meeting which begins at 15:00 (3 p.m.) and since my name began with the letter 'R' I was worried that he might have to leave before my turn since the service begins and 14:00 (2 p.m.) and 'R' was fairly near the end of the alphabet. I wanted him to be there to witness this important point in my life.
I was very relieved, however, when I found out that I would be the 5th to be baptised which would mean it was highly likely that I would be baptised before he had to leave at around 14:30 (2.30 p.m.). It turned out that he was able to, and right now he's over there *points to father and smiles*.
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How were they?
I guess God has done a lot of wonders in my life recently, and to God be all the glory for giving me the courage to overcome this fear of mine.
Praise the Lord!
Would you like a brief summary of my Saturday?
I woke up at about 07:15 and my mother sent me to AMK MRT station where I took the MRT (duh) to Woodlands MRT Station where I met up with Chun Hui. The rest of the SL group came later. We're taking over Project Grease, by the way.
Moira was really late so we headed for wherever we're supposed to head to first. There was nobody. The Masiling Sec students were a little late, but I guess that was okay since they had a lot of people and had to bring a lot of things (not to mention more than half of them were guys...*shiver*...I haven't been in the same room with so many guys in close proximity in...2-3 years...).
So we officially started knocking on doors and asking for participants at 09:15. Mel and I were with a Malay guy called 'Iskandar' or something and another Chinese girl (Iskandar's such a cool name! It sounds like something from Lord of the Rings!). We were supposed to be observing them, but I took some stats about who agreed to participate in Project Grease as active contributors of used cooking oil.
You know, when Mel and the Chinese girl from Marsiling spoke in Chinese addressing the issue of used cooking oil, they used the cheem words for it so no one understood. I butted in saying '用过的油' which the people understood and Mel turned to me and said, "Wah, your Chinese very good ar!"
I was like..."-.- "It's not good, it's just very simple. Every one understands simple language, and only knowing how to speak simple language isn't actually very good..." Every chuckled a bit, even the guy (who was the poor thing carrying the oil collection container which became very heavy later on when one household filled it to the brim when adding their oil to the previous collections which totalled half a bottle).
Lol.
After the whole collection was over and done with we took a group photo with the Marsiling students and then a group photo of our SL group (which includes Chun Hui, Moira, Mel, 2 Rachels, and 1 me). We headed for Causeway Point since some people wanted to have lunch there and for others it was near the MRT station. For me...well, I just wanted to shop for AY's birthday present.
I found the Comics Connection (or something) that Rachel 1 told me about earlier. I spent 15-30 min just searching for a Gokudera something! I mean, there must have been about 50 Hibari items and only 2 Gokudera ones! Talk about imbalance!
After finding her gift I left for home, although I must have looked a bit weird, wearing a the RGS130 shirt into a comic shop...lol.
I had lunch at home, then a few hours of rest before leaving for...something I can't tell you about.
I left early from that event I can't tell you about and returned home to prepare for ballet (I can practically feel your skeptical gazes...) and then left for ballet class which ended at 21:30.
What a day...
I didn't get to sleep in a single day in...2 weeks!
But the water baptism made up for that... =D
