This past Lord’s Day, sixteen 6th graders from Anaheim and Orange were baptized. This wonderful event was the culmination of a year-long burden and preparation. At the beginning of the school year, the 6th graders began to cover lessons on “The Truth and Experience of God’s Salvation,” which covered God’s creation and man’s fall, the result of man’s fall (having the problems of sin and death), God’s salvation (the source of salvation being God’s love, the provision of Christ’s redeeming death on the cross, and the provision of Christ’s life-giving resurrection), how to be saved (from sin and from death), and how to contact the Lord (by calling on His name, by prayer and praise, by pray-reading the Word, and by reading the Bible).
On May 4-6, the 6th graders went up to the mountains for the Sixth Grade Conference. The burden of that conference was the question – “Where are you?” By the end of the weekend, all the 6th graders were able to respond, “Lord, here I am!” This was a glorious conference.
At 9:30 A.M. this past Lord’s Day, brother Rick Scatterday joined all the 6th graders at the youth center to speak to them a word wel¬coming them to the church in Anaheim and also to give them a sense of the importance and magnitude of their baptisms. At 10:20, all the 6th graders and their parents went across the street to the District 1 meeting to introduce themselves to the saints before going up to the third floor of the meeting hall. For the next hour and a half, the 6th graders were given a very clear and wonderful word from brothers Tim Graver and James Kuan on the need to be baptized – we need to be saved from this crooked generation, to be delivered out of Satan’s kingdom and transferred into God’s kingdom, and to terminate our old life and walk and begin a new life and walk.
After the meeting, each of the 6th graders was baptized before all the saints. It was a glorious time. Many of them prayed very strongly, thanking the Lord for saving them from sin and death and for transferring them out of Satan’s kingdom into God’s kingdom.
After the baptisms there was a lunch in the cafeteria for all the families and their newly baptized brothers and sisters. The 6th graders were each given a hymnal with their name on it. (J.M.)