Our Christmas and Samuel's Baptism

Hi all!

We hoped to settle into our Christmas season with a little sense of normalcy. Unfortunately,

it was not to be so.

Days before Christmas, Indiana experienced a serious cold snap that lasted a couple of days. The temperature dropping below zero, the weather wreaked havoc on an ill-prepared populace, including us. Water pipes burst in several apartments in our complex. Fortunately, our pipes were spared, but not our living room.

I (Jeff) was at home, with the kids and Tracy's parents. We noticed that water was soaking into our carpet, and we investigated. I couldn't find a source for the water in our apartment, so I knocked on the apartment next door. No one answered, but when I put my ear to the door, I could hear the water gushing. We moved our possessions to higher ground; nothing was lost. We were also the only ones home to inform the apartment office of what was happening in the apartments near us, which by this point had waterfalls pouring from their second floors. We feel quite fortunate and feel for our neighbors, who experienced far worse hardship this Christmas.

But we couldn't stay in our apartment while the professional restorers dried out our carpet. So we stayed in a hotel room from December 22nd through Christmas.

In fact, one night Tracy and I didn't even have the comfort of a hotel room. On the 23rd, Tracy was working late to prepare for Christmas Eve services, and I drove to Muncie to help her. But when we prepared to leave the church later that evening, the roads were so coated with slick, shiny ice that we couldn't drive our car up the shallow incline that took us to the main road. After slipping and sliding back into the church's parking lot, Tracy and I decided we had to spend the night in her office. We made the most of it. I happened to have an air mattress in the car, as well as a movie we could play on my computer, and we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation while stringing jingle bells for the kids at church to ring the next day. For all our distress, we insisted on having a happy Christmas. We spent Christmas morning in the lobby of the hotel, where they were happy to let us use their tree.

Our happiest moment of the Christmas season occurred on Sunday, December 28th. Samuel Peter Sitota Johannes was baptized and welcomed into the family of Christ. Tracy conducted Samuel's baptism, just as she had done for Shahra. Samuel is fortunate to have four sponsors for his baptism: Andy and Amy Nyren and Kelli and Dustan Smith. Andy and Amy are parents of Ella and fellow Ethiopian adoptive parents whom we met at Luther Seminary. Kelli and Dustan are good friends of ours in our church; their daughter Autumn is close to Shahra's age and their son Micah is close to Samuel's age.

As Samuel's baptismal candle, we used the candle that Samuel's birth mother passed to us when we met her. Below is the portion of the service we wrote ourselves to introduce Samuel's baptismal candle, which was read by Elisabeth Malzahn, a friend of ours and Pastor John's daughter:

Samuel. In a room in Hosanna, Ethiopia, your birth mother stood among other birth parents. Across from her, among other adoptive families, stood your forever parents. Your birth mother lit this candle as she and other birth parents said a prayer in Amharic: “Through God's divine plan our roads have crossed and these children have created a bond between us. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for your willingness to share our burden […] we are the birth parents but from now on the children are yours […] May the good Lord bless all your family.” Your birth mother stepped forward and embraced your forever mother and your forever father, passing to them this candle, as a blessing to you, Samuel, and your forever parents, who have devoted themselves to your care. Your forever parents replied, “Through God’s divine plan, our journeys have crossed and these your children have created a sacred bond between us […] May
God make us worthy to the measure of the gift that your children are for us. May the good Lord bless all your family.”

Today, we present this candle, a symbol of both passing parentage and indelible bonds, as your baptismal candle. We do this to remember that, even as your forever mother and forever father have chosen you for their own, they share their responsibility as parents with the Eternal Father, who chose you as a beloved child of God, and with this church community, who will help them raise you in the light of Christ. We light this candle, saying to you, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”