Baptism

In the “land of the yeti,” where perpetual snow covers some of the highest peaks on Earth, we had the opportunity to serve as a medical missionary family. Our mission was about twenty-four miles (thirty-nine kilometers) from Kathmandu, the capital city of the Kingdom of Nepal. There, our boys received kindergarten and first-grade instruction from Mrs. Iris Adderton, a retired teacher from Australia.

With other students, they studied in a single classroom.

Our boys grew up playing with the local children —running, jumping, and climbing barefoot, as did the goats and their kids along the rice and wheat terraces surrounding our house. As Christians, we always had our family worship service each evening, followed by stories from the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Through them and other books, our boys learned positive values and ethics for life. Like Jesus in His boyhood, they grew in “wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52, NKJV). My husband and I, both musicians, organized a children’s church choir, and I started giving piano lessons to my boys.

Soon they were playing hymns for various services at church. In such a lovely environment, it was not difficult for our youngest son to decide he would like to be baptized in the same fashion as was our Lord Jesus Christ.

While his brother was abroad due to health reasons, we received a visit from Pastor Stefano Tsukamoto, who arrived with fifty young relief volunteers to help us at our mission station. On a sunny Sabbath afternoon by the Sunkosi River, before a small group of believers, our son was submerged into those cold, rapidly flowing waters to seal his commitment to Jesus, who was also baptized in a river —the Jordan in Palestine. When the little blond head of our son went under the water and resurfaced, tears of joy and gratitude flowed down my face. Meanwhile, my eldest son was also baptized —by his grandfather— in a beautiful church halfway around the globe.

Oh, what joy for us mothers to prepare our young ones for eternity and watch as they grow and give their little hearts to the Lord! One day, standing before our Savior, we mothers of all generations will be able to present ourselves along with our loved ones and say: “Here I am and the children You have given me.” May this be our goal and desire. God bless you!

Marli Elizete Ritter-Hein