Baptism, Reclaiming Texas

Mama and I were baptized as Independent Fundamental Baptists on Sunday morning. It was an easy thing to do and I am trusting it was necessary but I will have to do far more study and praying to confirm it in my own mind. I do not really have to know as long as I am willing to obey. I got wet in the right frame of mind, the right attitude of heart and the right water. Once and done. I will leave the rest to God.


It was a small exercise of faith to be a part of the church we are now yoked up with. It is the most prayerful body of believers I have ever seen. And they are really fun to be around. For Seth this has been one of the missing elements of his spiritual walk. The pastor has taken a real liking to Seth and has helped him more in two weeks than years spent with his former pastor. Since we had him with us in New Jersey and he was pulled away far too early, he has been looking for a man of God to look up to. It is an answer to our prayers.

Mama and I were up early today wanting to get an early start on registering the van here in Texas. We have been hearing horror stories about the time involved in the process so we were prepared to spend all day on the task. In Texas to register a new vehicle you first get insurance, then you need a state inspection. After these are done you have to go and register the vehicle at the county courthouse. That takes a great deal of paperwork all of which I had tried to guard for that purpose alone.

To that point the effort was pretty painless even though it took over forty minutes for the insurance, thirty minutes for the inspection and another forty minutes at the courthouse. All those papers in hand we went to the licensing bureau, the Department of Public Safety of the State of Texas.

I let Mama out to get in line and as I entered the building I was wished “Good Luck!” by two people who were leaving the building. Mama was already in line with three people behind her but there were only about twenty people total in line. As we were beginning our painfully slow movement forward a woman at the help desk came and began to talk to us. It turns out she was impressed by the handful of papers I had with me. She took our applications when we explained that we had Texas licenses less than ten years ago.

She brought the applications back in a few minutes and told us we would get the same license numbers we had years ago. It only took an hour from that time to wait through the five people in line ahead of us to get our chance to submit our impressive paperwork. All the paperwork took about twenty minutes for each of us. It took almost that long for the woman helping us to warm up to us – but Mama finally won her over. So in just short of three hours and we were competely done.

Not much of a horror story for us but we won’t correct any expectations of those who have their own stories to tell.