On July 15th, 2011, I had the opportunity to be baptized. For the first 5 weeks of the summer, I was serving as a lifeguard at Camp Kahquah in Magnetawan, ON. During the 2nd week of kids camp, a pastor named Ray K was preaching. Not only did he impact the lives of the children in a great deal that week but effected the lives of most of the staff tremendously. When the idea of a baptism was brought up by one of the councilors, Nate, I went and talked to my Brothers about this. Now this was something we had been talking about for the last year, being baptized together at camp but we knew it would be tough getting parents up to camp and we had no idea who was going to baptize us. Camp was a place where we had all come to know Christ as our saviour. After speaking with all 3 of them, we had decided this was something we wanted to do. Ray had told us all that were being baptized to contact parents and relatives about our baptism incase they wanted to come up. I had texted my mom that day thinking she was in Ottawa for the week and wouldn’t be able to make it. To tell you the truth, at the time I was fine with that as my faith was something I did not openly discuss at home, living in a non-christian home. Now on the day of the Baptism, I was walking back to my cabin and as I was passed the parking lot, Matt had yelled to me “Brendan, your mom is here!” and I was like “no way, she’s in Ottawa” and little did I know, she had actually made the trip up to Kahquah with both of Matt and Matt’s mother. At this point, I started to become a bit nervous and “iffy” as if I really wanted to do this anymore? during supper, I couldn’t stop thinking about the thought that I was gonna be sharing my testimony infront of my mother, so what did I do? what God told me to do. Go to my brother and talk to him about it. Quinn and I left the dinning hall and went outside and talked about it, we then prayed, asking that God give us a sign if he really wants us to do this. After that, I told Quinn I was gonna go for a walk. I then headed down to the beach and sat on the picnik table. As I was praying, the verse “Hebrews 4:7” came into my mind. I had never read or heard this verse before..so I opened up my bible to this; “God again set a certain day, calling it “Today” This he did when a long time later he through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” and at that very moment, I knew this is what I wanted to do. While sitting there, shedding a few tears, I told God this was my next step in faith, comitting my life to him. As the 11 of us who were getting baptized sat in the underground awaiting to share our testimonys to the entire camp of campers, fellow staff, family and friends, my mother came and asked me to talk. she asked me “Are you sure this is what you really want to do?” I replied “yes, 120%” she said “Alright, I’m only here to support you” and at that moment, I was a little reassured that I could do this. Sitting next to my bros, we all listened to 13 testimonys that night, hearing what God had/has been doing and will do in the lives of all of us. As you can see in the picture, it was a perfect sunset, God once again showed us his true beauty. Being dunked under and having it all washed away was possibly the best moment of my life. I have shivers down my back just thinking about this again. After everyone had been baptized, I ran up to my mother and gave her the biggest hug, and as we were hugging she told me this “You know, if this is what you want to do, I’m here for you and will support you in it” and I knew God had spoken to her about my worries and what was on my heart. I will never forget that night, absolutely incredible!
