A while ago, I was driving around with my ex-girlfriend.

    I've wanted to be a God-person for a long time. I'd read through Revelation a couple of times. :) I wish sometimes that I was one of those people that was raised in church. I wasn't really, though.

    So, I was driving around.

    There's a church right down the block from my mom's house. It's a Pentecost church. Our neighbors, Tim and LaRhonda go there. He's one of the best people I know, hands down. He manages to be absolutely nice, strong, and likeable at the same time. I can't believe how neat a person he is.

    It was a Tuesday night. Not much to do; school was going on, but I didn't have any classes on Tuesdays, so I'd been home all day. We were pretty broke; she was 16, I was 19.

    I looked over at her. Her hair had been dyed so many times that it stood out from her head in a blurry bush-like helmet. The actual cut was a nice one, but her hair frizzed it a little too much. Her skin was pale; I had a thing for pale skin. I think I still do, really.

    I looked past her through the car window at the church parking lot. I was curious about this church; my only experience of it was once in vacation bible school when my brother and I went. I remember it being kind of dark inside, and for some reason there's a strangeness attached to my memory of it. I sure can't remember what it was, though.

    The parking lot was full of cars.

    I wanted to find out what this was. I KNEW that the church didn't have any kind of services going on on Tuesday, and I wondered what else would have the parking lot full. I'd been wanting to just walk into a church, find the pastor there, and start asking him questions. I figured that could be the best way to find answers without dealing with any fakeness or anything. I was afraid of services, performances that would attempt to placate me and steal my soul.

    I parked the car at my house, just on the other end of the block. Arika asked me, "What are you doing?"

    "I'm going to see what they're doing." (Or something. I still can't remember what I said.)

    She argued with me, just a little. I'd actually expected more out of her, especially with something like this. I remember saying something that quieted her (that shouldn't have) and I started out.

    Something was. I was walking and I felt good.

    I reached the church steps and climbed them at a run. I looked through the glass doors into the body of the church, past the foyer. I couldn't see anyone sitting in the pews. I should've been able to see someone.

    I pulled the door open and walked into the foyer. I stood there a minute, afraid. I didn't want to walk into the church. I still didn't know what was going on. I decided I'd wait until someone came out that I could ask. I knew that the basement steps were to my right from the foyer. I listened, but I couldn't hear any large group of people making noise like I half-expected to.

    A little boy walked into the foyer. I tried to say something, but he walked past me to the bathroom on my right.

    I waited a minute or so more, expecting to catch him on the way out. Another boy walked in from the church. "What's going on?" I asked.

    "It's a prayer meeting."

    "What's that?"

    "We just get together every Tuesday and pray. You should.." etc. I don't remember what he said.

    This.. I wondered. I wondered whether a church that was fake would show up just to pray. The whole lot was full. Why would people who didn't believe in what they were doing do something like this? It was just too much to fake. So my heart was glad; maybe this wasn't a fake one.

    I opened one of the foyer doors and walked in. I sat down at the aisle edge of one of the back pews. I bowed my head and tried to start praying.

    As I'd walked in, I saw the pastor walking at the front of the church. I hadn't seen him before, when I stood in the foyer. I wondered where he'd been then.

    I had that feeling that you get in school where you know that the teacher's walking up your row and you're not going to look. For some reason, I had that, but there was no fear attached; I wanted him to come talk to me. I expected it, but I was okay with it. I was really all right.

    He didn't sit down next to me. He sat in the pew directly in front of me and turned around over the back of it. "How are you doing, man?"

    "I don't know." He didn't start off with "Jesus something". That took me a little.

    He talked to me a minute. He asked if I was in school, and I told him I went to SEMO (a college 30 min. away.) It took him several minutes to get to the point, and I swear he didn't say, "Have you found JEEEE-SUSSS?"

    I went to the front of the church. It wasn't a service, and I felt like all the people there completely wanted me and were behind me. I prayed to be saved..and I can't remember some specifics. Everyone there interrupted the prayer meeting for me, to pray with me.

    Why was I so important? Look at me; I hadn't taken a shower, my hair was completely greasy and long, I was wearing an old pair of pants and a hooded sweatshirt with enough years on it to have small holes.

    I was sitting in one of the front pews when the pastor asked me if I wanted to be baptised. I said, "Yeah, I think so."

    They went to run the water while a couple men talked to me. One was holding my hand. They were talking to me about what I was doing.

    I went towards the front and right, going to a bathroom to change out of my clothes into a blue baptism robe. I folded up my clothes in the bathroom.

    I wondered what I was doing then. I was afraid of something. I didn't want to fall into fakeness, not when I really wanted to be really saved and everything.

    I got dressed and went to a small room that connected to the baptismal. The pastor and another man were there. They asked me if I was ready, but I wasn't, really. I needed to ask something.

    "This is right, isn't it? I mean, it's.. "

    "Oh, yes."

    "Could you show me like in the Bible where it says it?"

    So they showed me, and I couldn't despute it. I hadn't read that part. It was in the new testament, several places where people were baptised. They showed me in Acts where Paul told the people that they should repent and be baptised to be saved. It was right there, and it said the same thing over and over again.

    So I stepped into the baptismal. The people in the church had gathered into a loose semicircle around the platform. Maybe they were standing up there, but I don't think so. There was a cluster of several children right up at the edge of the baptismal, though. They were interested in what was going on! One even asked me if the water was cold. It really wasn't, at all. It wasn't warm, either.

    The children being up there really did something to me. It made me think of things. I felt good that they were there. They weren't being snide or bored or tired; they were interested.

    I was baptised. I was shy about it..

    So that's it. There's so much more I want to tell you. I'm still deeply in love with the God that made it happen. That alone, if nothing else at all, is proof that God is not dead, that He's very much alive and cares about more poeple than we can imagine.

    God has stayed with me this entire time. I have had to deal with a couple hardships, but they've been my own fault.

    Thank you for listening to me.

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