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Baptism

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Meet Dilcia…

Meet Dilcia. I just met her about three months ago when she first visited our services with Nuris Reyes. (You may remember reading about Nuris’ conversion here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/crazy-happy.) Dilcia attended, first, on a Wednesday night with Nuris, with Nuris’ kids and with her own three children, ages 1-4. Her children loved their classes and Dilcia was surrounded quickly by Christians who welcomed her. Thankfully, one of them, Kendra, was a Spanish teacher, so she was translating for us all. That very night, Dilcia agreed to study the Bible with me. What a great privilege for me! Kendra agreed to translate and, within a week, Nathan and Ellen invited Dilcia’s sweet family into their home for a meal. (I know that was a fun time with seven children playing together in two languages.) Dilcia attended faithfully and our studies progressed. 

On May 26th, as we were studying the cleansing of baptism, I asked Dilcia if she would like to be baptized to access the blood of Jesus. She read, among lots of other verses, from her Spanish Bible from Romans 6: “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ, were baptized into his death?” We’d spent two weeks on repentance. We’d spent some time delving into Acts and examples of conversion prior to this question. I’ll never forget Dilcia’s answer when asked if she wanted to be baptized. 

“I sat in my car the other day and just prayed, ‘Please help me God, to know how I can be forgiven for all the shameful sins that I have done….Yes. I want to be baptized.’” 

We talked a bit more about how different the church of Jesus is from her background of Catholicism. She got it. She understood how that babies do not have the ability to believe and repent prior to baptism as the Bible directs. She understood the egregious departure from Scripture of the entire papal system. Dilcia wanted to be just a Christian. 

It is with DIlcia’s permission that I tell of her rejoicing with you. She came from those waters rejoicing. That afternoon, after her baptism, I took Dilcia to the home of Nathan and Ellen again for lunch and to spend the afternoon with some Spanish-speaking brethren from a nearby church. A few days later, another precious family helped Dilcia to get the transportation she needed. We have a wonderful family in Him. 

Dilcia’s daughter, Christina and Brianna, Kendra’s daughter

I know there are some of you who’d like to encourage Dilcia. She has expressed to me how very encouraged she is when she receives mail from her new family. You can reach her here: 

Dilcia Benhumea

℅ West Huntsville church

1509 Monrovia Road NW

Huntsville, AL 35806

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The New Younger Brother!

Sometimes there’s something you can’t wait to write down. This is one of those times. 

Just rejoice in the long-suffering of God. He IS long-suffering, not willing that any should perish! Jesse Partridge and his son, Jesse Neal, were baptized into Jesus last night. Jesse has been coming to West Huntsville for many, many years. If you know the people at West Huntsville, you know that many have encouraged him through those years to become a New Testament Christian. Now Jesse is 93 and pretty ill. He is in remission from cancer. Remission from cancer, for Him, was a chance for the other, better remission— of sins. The second kind of remission is infinitely more valuable than even the first. But it took the first kind of remission to give him another chance for the most important second kind.  We are so very joyful. Our new younger brother is 93

Jesse’s son, Neal, is suffering with stage four lung cancer. He’s been watching the livestream with his parents, now, for some time and he has been a great, great influencer of his dad. He determined that they both needed to become Christians and he did not stop discussing this with his father.  Jesse, Sr.’s family had been very instrumental many years ago in beginning a congregation of a denomination, donating the land and the cemetery to this group in the state of Mississippi. It was very hard for Jesse, though he could see truth, to step away from that family involvement. He waited. And he kept hearing gospel preaching. God was waiting, too. I’m so thankful for his mercy. 

Finally, last night, around 8:15, we all met at the building, along with Paul and Tami Owen, the Barber family, Tony Anderson, and a few relatives of the Partridges. Paul and Tami worked hard boiling huge pans of water (because our baptistry water was frigid. Got to get that fixed post haste!)  while Glenn discussed the power of the burial in that increasingly warm (but still cold water. Within a few minutes, father and son became brothers. These baptisms were labored. There was a wheelchair at the top of the steps and a chair placed in the water. Three men were in the water with both of these men. It took more than one attempt to fully immerse them, but they were determined  to be saved and God was providing a way. Ali’i Barber led our little crew in some songs beginning with “I have Decided to Follow Jesus.”  Their decisions were firm and their lives have been changed. I have never seen anyone any happier standing beside the waters of baptism than Jeanette Partridge It was a relatively quiet little singing, but we could hear with faith the rejoicing angels. On nights like this one, I always come home with renewed zeal and deep gratitude to our God, who is “long-suffering, not willing that any should perish.” In the days of Jesse, God waited.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

She Washed her Robe!

Every now and then, I receive word that someone has decided to become a part of the kingdom of Christ, having been baptized to wash away her sins, as a result of having been a part of a Digging Deep group and learning the gospel there. If I only had heard this once in all my years of Digging, it would be a hundred-fold worth every bit of time and effort that all diggers have expended  in Digging Deep…and so much more. One soul is worth more than the whole world (Mark 8:36).

This week was one of those blessed times. Sandi Coccari, a woman who has done much good in her life and is, as the women in her group characterize her “just the sweetest thing,”  looked seriously at the study of the “grace space” and decided that she needed to ask some questions about her own baptism. She studied baptism with Cindy Street and her husband Jay. Cindy is the humble but deep Bible student who had invited her to the Northeast Mississippi study facilitated by Sami Nicholas. (I think Song Nicholas is also probably a pretty big help in this group meeting.) On Saturday July 22, she was baptized, by Cindy’s husband, Jay Street. I know Cindy, Sami and Song and all the ladies in that group rejoice with the angels and we all rejoice from afar. If you want to send a card and rejoice more “in-person” send me (Cindy Colley) a FB message and I will shoot you her address. I know that would be a great source of encouragement to her as she begins a new walk.

In any case, I hope you will be inviting your friends to dig with you beginning September 1st as we begin a brand new year of Digging Deep. This is a good evangelistic tool. This year of study will be our 13th. It will not be an unlucky 13. It will not be a lucky 13, either. It will be a blessed year 13 of Digging Deep. The reveal of the topic, about which I am so excited, will happen on August 19 at approximately 1:00 pm. EST. Women who are at PTP will hear it live in the “Sandwich Session” that day. It begins at 12:30.  In that session, those finishers of the “Comfort” study will be recognized and the new study will be introduced.

Those who are watching from home will get your own reveal video broadcast to you on the Digging Deep FB page simultaneously with the PTP reveal. Then the PTP session recognizing the finishers will also be available to you a little later. We hope this works for everyone. We’re trying hard with limited bandwidth in our convention center to get the word out in one traditionally fun moment.

It’s surely one highlight of my year. I hope the new study is, for you, as enriching as the writing has been for me. I always leave so much for myself–to dig and find later. I will be digging right along with you!

 

 

 

 

 

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Rev. 7:14

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #60–Third World Missions

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 57  of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

 

Now I know, that taking your teen on a mission trip in a third world country seems to be a bigger deal than just a practical suggestion to help your children develop their “servant potential.”  But if you have teens who are living in affluent middle-class America, a third-world mission trip can be the game-changer that keeps them from trying to be in love with “things” and God at the same time. We cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).

I remember well, coming home from a very poverty ridden part of a Carribbean country with my fifteen-year-old and that first time she fell down on her bed in our home and said “Why me? Why has God given me all of this and there are eight people living in a space the size of this room, where I was two days ago? How can this be? I never knew. I just never knew.”  And her heart was given to mission work from that moment on.

The trip was a big investment of time and of the money of other Christians who supported her. But she walked side by side on dusty roads and uphill trails beside some amazing missionaries who made sure she was learning to do one-on-one Bible studies and learning to teach children while their parents were studying.

And God made sure she watched the first person she had personally taught on that field be immersed into Christ before we came home. Her name was Princess and she became one that day, She was one of those living at the top of a “rabbit trail” with those eight people in a tiny space. Princess’ grandmother was out in the yard grinding spices to sell for their meager existence. We will never forget.

I’m so thankful I got to do that trip with my teenager. And the investment was nothing when you consider the return.

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Tiny Little Things

It could have been anybody. This is not about the fact that I was the person who handed Charles a card asking him to study. I did nothing brave at all. We just got stuck in a line with a long wait and started talking about how this particular WalMart is our favorite Walmart, despite the long wait that day. When I handed the real person who was checking me out (That’s why I sometimes still like to actually go through a check-out line) a card inviting her to study the Bible, I just turned around and said “Here’s one for you, too.” It was nothing hard or heroic at all about me. (And I certainly did not intend for Glenn to mention my name as he talked from the baptistry.)

But Charles is just about the most excited new Christian I’ve ever seen. At the lunch table at Nothing but Noodles yesterday, I watched him nearly glowing with the joy that is evident when someone knows he is now part of a family headed for heaven. 

I just want to list a few reasons why we hesitate to do tiny little things that might lead to a knowledge of salvation in someone who crosses our path. (I know these things because I am so very guilty. I am certainly, in no sense, enough. I am, in every sense, inadequate and struggling as I try to tell the good news.) 

  1. I am not good at keeping those cards in my purse. They are always in the car. 
  2. It’s just easier on a bad day when I have so much on my mind, to stay in my shell and speak only when spoken to. 
  3. I am in a big hurry. There’s a filthy house at home waiting. There’s company coming this weekend. My cabin needs cleaning. I have to speak this weekend. There’s Digging Deep. 
  4. I am embarrassed to be viewed as one of those fanatics. 
  5. This is a man. He might be dangerous. He could stalk me. 
  6. This person looks like he is going to ask me for money instead of a Bible study. (Profiling the prospects—PTP!)
  7. I am serving in other ways that are more suited to me. (Digging Deep can be my excuse for not doing personal evangelism.) 
  8. Someone once was rude to me when I tried to hand her an invitation to worship.
  9. Most of the time people are just not interested, anyway. This is just not the best way to evangelize. 
  10. Even if the person responds and even if she is baptized, the majority of the people with whom I have studied have eventually fallen away. 

Now, one reason I have to keep telling myself that those little invitations need to keep happening. 

  1. There may be at least one soul around the throne who, because of the blood—the blood introduced through a little paper square (or other rectangle) with some personal contact info on it—received forgiveness of sin. 

That eternal difference, if even for one soul, is the magic eraser that just goes up and erases points one through ten in the above list. They matter none, if just one. They matter none, if just one. They are voided if one soul makes it to the throne through the outreach. I don’t know, for sure, that any soul with whom I have studied will be around the throne. But, I do know for sure that, without the study on my part or on someone’s part, they will NOT be there. That’s enough. 

But what’s really enough, is the grace that He has shown for my soul. How can I be oblivious to those around me who need it just as much as I do?

You can watch here: IMG_2910

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Family Bible Week–It’s about Eternity.

Family Bible Week at West Huntsville is this week! The Gospel Railroad. It’s at 6:30 through Wednesday night. Dr. Bible is there and there’s a candy bandit. (Right now, the candy jar has been stolen and we have NO idea where that bandit has stashed it!) The kids made FBW photos last night and frames for the fridge. They watched lively re-enactments of conversion examples. They sang their hearts out and they learned songs about what it takes to be saved. They entered contests and they rode a real train through the halls of the building. I heard the conductor asking them questions about the Bible as they rode along and waved at spectators in the hall. They watched a puppet show about forgiveness. This is what spiritually focused memories are made of.

On Sundays, for FBW month, the pulpit has been focused on these four examples of conversion that are the focus of this week. The children fill out sheets during the lessons in our worship that help them listen, too. The examples of obedience to the gospel that are the focus this month are the Ethiopian, the Philippian jailer, Cornelius and Saul. Did you know they all did exactly the same thing to get into Christ? There was a recognizable moment in each of these accounts from Acts when sins were washed away. The moment is described for Saul in Acts 22:16. The jailer went out, at the risk of his life in Acts 16, in the middle of the night, to accomplish this washing. The Ethiopian saw water and said “Why are we waiting? Here is water.” And Cornelius was a good man—a really good man—but still had to have the washing before he could be saved. (Notice verses 1-3 of Acts 10 and then look at verse 14 of chapter 11). While the whole world says baptism has nothing to do with salvation, we have to keep telling the whole world what Jesus said “Go into all the world and teach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” 

This week is about believing–building faith in little souls. The goal is for their hearts to know what to do about sin when it one day rears its ugly head in their lives. We all encounter and fall to sin at some point (for me, it’s lots of points), and all of us need the grace given in the waters of obedient faith. 

I hope you can take the time to listen to one of the following lessons from the book of Acts. I know most readers are secure in the knowledge of salvation and are busy telling others the gospel.  If you are not positive you’ve done what the Bible requires of you to have eternal salvation, this listen could be the most important 30 minutes of your life. Here are the lessons. If I can help you become a Christian-secure in salvation and headed for heaven—I’d love to do that. Let’s talk: cindycolley@gmail.com.

https://westhuntsville.org/sermons/the-conversions-of-lydia-and-the-jailer/

https://westhuntsville.org/sermons/cornelius-conversion/

https://westhuntsville.org/sermons/the-ethiopian-eunuchs-conversion/

Saul’s Conversion