Throughout my years at camp I have experienced just about every circumstance. I have had some really lousy camps. The ones where there’s some bad attitudes and really bad pranks. And then again I’ve had some wonderful camps. Those camps where your best friend at the time was baptized. Or the one where the kid in your cabin is baptized. I thought I had experienced it all. Until now. There was one thing that I hadn’t done. This year I did that one thing.
Waylon is a friend of mine. I’ve known him for years. But I hadn’t really become friends with him until last year at camp. He was a camper in my cabin. We seemed to hit it off. This year Waylon was back. And he was spiritually motivated. He kept mentioning to me that he was concerned that he wasn’t baptized. I studied with him and on Tuesday night I baptized him into Christ.
Friends, it doesn’t get any better than that. I’ve pretty much reached the zenith. The apex if you will. I never thought I’d be doing that. It’s very heartwarming. You really feel like you have made a difference.
Yet I need to remember that it wasn’t me. His parents may have planted the seed. I may have watered. But God gave the increase. This is God working. I can’t be bold and say Jeff Whittle converted Waylon. Because it didn’t happen that way. Waylon showed up at camp knowing what he needed to do to gain salvation. I just played a minor role in it. Mine will be the asterix at the bottom of the page of his spiritual life. Something to say “Oh, by the way Jeff baptized him.” Yet I feel like screaming out to people, “Hey I baptized a friend!” But that would be boasting. And none of that had to do with me. It was between Waylon and God.
And I was pretty nervous when I knew I’d need to get together some scripture to study with him. It was around midnight on Monday night when I started to try to find scripture references on salvation. I knew if I didn’t find them, or if I showed him the wrong ones he could be warped spiritually. Isn’t there a verse in the bible about teachers being judged tougher than regular people? If I didn’t ask the right questions and show him the right verses did it mean that I was responsible for him not knowing the right things before being baptized? I couldn’t sleep that night because of that fear.
Yet, the Bible study itself was quite easy. It is easy to talk to friends about God, especially when your friend already believes what you believe. And I did have a backup plan. I had our camp director study with him as a follow up. His study was pretty much a carbon copy of mine. So no worries.
Then when he asked me to baptize him, I was somewhat expecting it. He isn’t close to many of the other adults at the camp. It could have been the camp director to do it, or anyone else more qualified. I guess he thought enough of me to ask me to baptize him.
Throughout the day while we waited for his dad to arrive that evening I was nervous about baptizing him. He weighs more than I do. Could I possibly pull him up out of the water?
But it was easy. Ironically baptistries are made to easily baptize someone. There are probably plenty of preachers that are the same build as me who are doing plenty of baptisms. If they could do it, surely I could do it. I did get plenty wet during the whole process. Matt, one of the other campers present, joked that I baptized myself in the process.
And I didn’t have to do it in front of so many people. Waylon was kinda shy about being the center of attention. So only a handful of people were invited, which was fine by me. I probably would have choked in front of so many people.
I’ll take this experience to the grave with me. Apart from being baptized yourself, baptizing someone, especially a friend, is pretty much the ultimate experience. I feel so good about it.