Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Laptism...
It was my privilege to perform 5 baptisms at our service this past Sunday. It is always a joyful experience and one filled with nervous expectation on the part of the baptism candidates. Of course, showing up to find the baptism tank nearly empty doesn't help at all.
The janitors filled up the tank during their Thursday night shift and circulated hot water through it until Sunday morning. However, it turns out there was a crack in the bottom step of the tank, and almost all of the water escaped over the weekend. So early Sunday morning, they did a makeshift patch job on the step and were filling the tank with a garden hose when I arrived. It seemed to be working fine, except that the water was quite frigid! After the hot water tank was drained from the main building, we took 5 gallon buckets and filled them with hot water from the activity centre building across the parking lot. After about 75 gallons of hot water, the tank was at least tepid and somewhat bearable. We turned off the hose when the water level reached near capacity, and hoped for the best. The service was to start in 10 minutes, and the plan was to do the baptism ceremony after the worship time (about 30 minutes after the start of the service).
In about 2 minutes I noticed a distinct lowering of the waterline. The patch job was not holding the water. We threw some more buckets of hot water into the tank up until the beginning of the service, but we couldn't keep up with the leak. Rub-a-dub-dub, everybody into the tub!
We sang one song then filed people into the tank one at a time for the baptisms. I was fortunate to have a big strong guy helping me throughout the ceremony because we needed to plunge people low in order for the water to create a wave that would lap against the side of the tank and wash back over them in order to get them wet! It was pretty crazy but it worked - just in time to be standing in a puddle after the service. Drying off, I realized I was only wet up to my knees when I am normally soaked up to my belly button.
Later that afternoon, on the way to a wedding reception downtown Vancouver, we saw a frogman. He was wearing a full wetsuit from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, running up Denman from the ocean. That was weird.
Or maybe it was perfectly normal for that kind of day....
The janitors filled up the tank during their Thursday night shift and circulated hot water through it until Sunday morning. However, it turns out there was a crack in the bottom step of the tank, and almost all of the water escaped over the weekend. So early Sunday morning, they did a makeshift patch job on the step and were filling the tank with a garden hose when I arrived. It seemed to be working fine, except that the water was quite frigid! After the hot water tank was drained from the main building, we took 5 gallon buckets and filled them with hot water from the activity centre building across the parking lot. After about 75 gallons of hot water, the tank was at least tepid and somewhat bearable. We turned off the hose when the water level reached near capacity, and hoped for the best. The service was to start in 10 minutes, and the plan was to do the baptism ceremony after the worship time (about 30 minutes after the start of the service).
In about 2 minutes I noticed a distinct lowering of the waterline. The patch job was not holding the water. We threw some more buckets of hot water into the tank up until the beginning of the service, but we couldn't keep up with the leak. Rub-a-dub-dub, everybody into the tub!
We sang one song then filed people into the tank one at a time for the baptisms. I was fortunate to have a big strong guy helping me throughout the ceremony because we needed to plunge people low in order for the water to create a wave that would lap against the side of the tank and wash back over them in order to get them wet! It was pretty crazy but it worked - just in time to be standing in a puddle after the service. Drying off, I realized I was only wet up to my knees when I am normally soaked up to my belly button.
Later that afternoon, on the way to a wedding reception downtown Vancouver, we saw a frogman. He was wearing a full wetsuit from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, running up Denman from the ocean. That was weird.
Or maybe it was perfectly normal for that kind of day....
