10/27/20 FAVORITE BAPTISM MEMORIES #2 — A few weeks later a second person became a new believer; so we scheduled his baptism for the next Sunday morning. When I arrived a few minutes before Sunday School, my two deacons came to warn me, “Pastor, there’s something dead floating in the water. YOU need to get it out!” “What makes you think that’s MY job?” I argued, to no avail.

I found and bent a coat-hanger and climbed onto the edge of the baptismal pool. There was a bright green (from the chlorine!?) dead rat, about a foot long, floating on the surface! Well, I fished the carcass out of there and tried not to lose my breakfast. Anyway, with all the chlorine in the water, I figured it was still safe. So we went ahead with the baptism—no one else even knew about it until much later! (In the midst of the Covid-19 mess, lots of you are probably thinking I was foolish. Oh, well, probably not the first or the last time!)