I have written this letter now 10 times it keeps disappearing. So I
assume it is important to someone…
Now I dont even recall how it started except that  it related to
water baptism.
The year I was water baptized  I was 13/14  years old. I was going
thru a really bad time in my life. My parents had announced their
divorce at Valentine’s Day.  By Easter I had a new ‘mama” by 4th of
July  , I had a newer one. I also had been introduced to the first of
a few new “dads.”
By the time in June, when I stepped foot on that plane in San
Francisco I was  pretty much suicidally depressed. I had been flying
for  many many years every summer alone. That one trip, the American
Airlines Stew sat with me on take -off and on seeing , what I guess
was my despair, she took off her own silver stewardess wings and
pinned them on me. She my silent tears and told me the LORD KNEW me
and was going to help me…………I still have those silver wings
with me in Mexico.
When I arrived at Memphis International, my grandmother and granddaddy
on my mom’s side picked me up. I felt loved but still very lost.
What I recall most of that fateful summer was that every day that
there was a Meeting of the Church,Uncle Richard and Aunt Pamela came
to get me.  Even then, I knew it was a sacrifice for them to spend on
gas to get me to church. I remember lil Eowyn standing on the back
seat of the Rambler with skinny arms wrapped around her Daddy’s neck o
ethe highway tween Tunica and and Walls and me standing too, watching
Aunt Pamela lay hands on the dashboard and ask Jesus to give us gas to
get to church meetings.
We never missed one not ever.
I had turned 14  the day before I got baptized in the Holy Ghost. I
growing up in a house where no Bibles were ALLOWED WAS LIKE THAT GUY
IN ACTS……………..:I didn’t even know ther WAS a Holy Ghost!”
But be danged if I didn’t get Him. And He never left me.
I think  partially due to the dramatic infilling I received, the next
Sunday was Water Baptism.
And I was READY! There were quite a few of us that got ready that
Sunday morning, black and white together eager to get the old
woman/man buried, and it was a turning point in my life. See I had
things that if I was to live I needed them to be  put away or I’d
never survive. I went from  a girl who’d done unmentionable  things to
a new creation . See, Jesus had already recognized that, but for  me
going under the water well it  washed ME in my own eyes. That lost
party girl who’d done so many things I fear even now to tell you   I
‘d  had an abortion……….. MURDERED an innocent
child,…………..I was so old in sin before my years….and thank
you Jesus it changed my life.
Not immediately (which that  idea messes lots of folks up) but as
time went on I was cleansed  in my own eyes. And  what folks thought
of me really no longer mattered as the Lord took me and enfolded me in
his Loving arms and loved me even more if that is possible that is
what I felt.
I encourage you not to take it  as some “ticket to heaven” that  gives
you a  right not ever to attend church again but to really understand
what you are embarking upon..Water Baptism  started the renewal of my
mind……………so I encourage you to  see it for  the NEW BIRTH
that it is, and was, for me………it’s a new start…. a public
notice that you now belong to Jesus Christ, that YOU ARE NEW, REBORN
and also and most importantly I think , as a promise to yourself to
never ever forget what our Lord Jesus did for us.

It has been a lot of doubt  and tears revealing myself, but I pray it
will touch who it supposed to touch………..

We , here in Baja Mexico , love ya’ll so much. We appreciate your
faithfulness and look forward to news of your baptisms………….
Sister Detra and Pastor Frank

>
> Ro 6:4  therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death,
> so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father,
> so we too might walk in *newness of life.*
>
> Col 2:12  having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also
> raised up with him *through faith in the working of god, who raised him
> from the dead.*
>
> 1Pe 3:21  corresponding to that, baptism now saves you–not the removal of
> dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to god for *a good conscience*–through
> the resurrection of Jesus Christ,