Baptism

Today will be filled with hope and prayer. Wouter Smeekens will be baptized. He has been an investigator for about 10 years. He has been living with a woman for a long time and they have 2 children together. She never wanted to marry and in Belgium that is almost the norm. When Wouter decided that he wanted to be baptized he knew he would have to marry, but could not bring that about. For the last couple of years they have been "separated" as a couple but he still lived in a small cellar room of their house by himself. He could not move out because of financial reasons. In the meantime he met a Nun in India and they fell in love. She left the order of Nuns she belonged to and is investigating the church. They plan on getting married as soon as finances allow. He is a marvelous man with a strong testimony and will be very happy in the church. The ward has been very supportive of him and I'm sure many people will show up today. Wouters cousin from Spain will be coming to baptize him.

Now the real praying comes into play. Sarah, who I have talked about before has agreed to let Shawn and Ashley be baptized today. She has changed her mind several times in the last couple of days and we really don't know what will happen. The children are very eager to be baptized but with Sarah as unstable mentally as she is, it may not happen. They may not show up. We just wish they could live in a stable family. They have a long hard road ahead of them.

I will have to let you know what happened today. We have done all we could so far and now we are totally leaving this whole mess in the Lord's hands.