Two Sundays age we were able to celebrate the baptisms of some RHF family members. This is Kelly’s story:

Growing up, my mom was always interested in getting connected with a church. My mom is a postmodern pantheist who believes that all religions are just ways to connect with God, and that there is no one true religion that leads to Heaven. She believes very much in being a good person and doing good on this earth so that you won’t have to repeat your mistakes in another life. She visits psychics who try and predict her life, but then tells me to trust God with His plans. Why can’t she do that for herself? She believes that Jesus was a good teacher, but that the Bible was written by men who used it to further their agendas.

Okay, I say all this to give you a background on the kind of worldview that I grew up in. So my mom would take me to different churches just to help me become well rounded I guess. We went to a Unitarian church for a lot of the early years of my life. My mom still attends a Unitarian church to this day. We went to a Mormon church a few times and had the Mormon missionaries over to our house many times. Well, sophomore year of high school I had an incredible Spanish teacher that helped show me that the worldview that I knew was not the Truth that God came to this earth to share. This woman’s name was Alisa, but I called her Senora. She was a woman with so much spunk. She had an energy and pizzazz that made her stand out to me. I was sort of intimidated by her at first because she was so confident. Well, I got to know her better by getting help on homework after school and by just hanging out in her classroom after school. She was so fun, a lot of students enjoyed being around her. She was amazing because she would take the time to know me. She would ask me questions about myself and began a relationship with me. Our friendship really began while I was studying abroad in Spain. I kept up an email relationship with her while I was overseas and she was really sweet to care so much about my trip. After I returned from Spain, we continued our email relationship. Junior year I didn’t have her for Spanish anymore, but I would still spend time in her classroom after school and we would email back and forth as well during the school year. Senior year I became her T.A. and over this time I found out that she was Christian. I knew that Senora had something that I wanted. She had a unique confidence and energy about her. So I decided that if I wanted to get to know her better, that I would have to visit her church. So one Sunday in October I asked mom if we could visit her church. We did, and after the sermon the pastor was doing an alter call. In his alter call he was saying that if you are in church today and you feel as though you are missing something, that there are people in this world that have something that you want and you feel like there is a part of you that isn’t complete, to raise your hand. I was feeling that way, so I raised my hand. Then after that he said that if you raised your hand, he would like you to come up to the front. I was hesitant at first, but Senora encouraged me to go. So I went up to the front and the pastor prayed for me and the other people, and then he brought us into a room where I received a Bible and a pamphlet about my new life in Christ. After that, I remember driving home and seeing life more vibrantly. The trees and the river seemed so amazing to me; I was recognizing for the first time, that it is God’s creation. And that is the story of my salvation by the grace of the Father, the blood of Jesus Christ, and the intervening of the Holy Spirit.

This is a poem that I wrote to express the reasons as to why I decided to become baptized:

Why am I getting baptized?

-because this is a public expression of my faith
-because when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior six years ago, I was adopted into an eternal family united by    the blood of Christ.
-because the Holy Spirit dwells in me filling me with a joy and hope that is unending.
-because I have a commitment and devotion to serving my God out of the extreme amount of grace that I have  received.
-because I am a disciple for the one and only true God, Jesus Christ.
-because a life without Jesus is no life at all.
-and lastly, because I am denying myself, taking my cross, and following Him.

- Kelly Brazell