Got dunked!

Getting dunked {on Saturday} was pretty cool. I liked being baptized. "Spirit," Bruce said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And I held my nose, went under, and came up.

Originally Bruce said I would be baptized between 1 and 4, but we got the morning part of the meeting done early, so Bruce proposed we do the baptism before lunch. It was about 20 minutes to 12 when we sat down in the living room and he introduced me and my story. Then I told my conversion story, and explained about the bottle. Bruce said he wanted to do the bottle-breaking first - death before new life.

Then everyone gathered out by the pool, and Bruce and I changed clothes. We went poolside. I showed everyone the bottle before placing it in a paper bag, and that in a Hefty plastic bag. I squeezed some of the air out, found the bottle by feel, and tapped it with the hammer a couple times so I wouldn't miss when I hit it for real. Tap, tap, smash. A good hit. The bottle broke. The wine bottle from my initiation was no more.

Then Bruce said a prayer over me. He mentioned something about being released from any vows I had taken, and coming against any demonic influence. He said more, but that's all I can remember.

After the prayer, we went into the pool. He told me to hold my nose. He said the invocation and dunked me. As I came up people applauded, and again as I climbed out of the pool. I had given Amber my camera and she took pictures of me, as I took pictures of Joanne at her baptism in the Merced River.

Then I changed clothes into my swimming apparel - a t-shirt and shorts. (My baptism clothing was the pink dress my sister had handmade for me.) Pretty soon lunch was served, then everyone played volleyball, lounged in the sun, or just hung out.

I was the first to break this by going into the pool - by the diving board. Pretty soon others joined in. Amber made a joke about going off the diving board of grace into the swimming pool of eternal salvation.

Somehow Bruce started teaching me how to dive, and I did okay. I was doing things that actually resembled dives, and a few were what I might classify as "pretty good" - clean entry and such. I practiced for quite a while and eventually stopped holding my nose, diving in with both arms in front of me.

Too soon it was dinner time. Then we had our evening meeting where we talked about the details of student outreach, I was being handed fliers just like everyone else, and participating in the discussion like everyone else. I was being expected to get involved, and I was talking as if I was going to. Somewhere in the midst of all this it hit me: I was one of them! I am an accepted part of this group. I belong to InterVarsity. I belong. It was a revelation. The walls that had been slowly dissolving suddenly fell away. I was no longer on the outside looking in. I was in.