Batem’ (Baptism)

All week long Pastor Francois, Madam, the workers, and the children have been painting, cleaning, sewing decorations and cooking for Batem’ day. Once a year, for the past 32 years, Pastor has hosted a baptism ceremony and party. This is a BIG DEAL in Pignon! It’s almost on par with the Easter celebration Esther, Mark and I got to experience. (See April 2012 for Easter.) and Denny’s experience (See April 2013-Easter)

Madam sewed hundreds of yards of brown and white cloth to stream through the church, and at all its windows. Huge white paper snowflakes hung from the cathedral ceiling. Boys crawled and climbed all over the inside and outside of the church, looking like insects, freshening the whitewashed stone and brown lettering. Other children happily weeded the flower beds and swept the dirt courtyard. (I’ve noticed that about the children –they’re usually singing or laughing with each while they work-and always when I greet them, they respond with a big grin.)

The seating in the church building had been rearranged so when I got there I needed to find another seat than my regular in front. I liked being in the last row this time – I had a bird’s eye view of everything that was going on.

The pews kept filling and filling, even an hour into the service. 6 or so other church choirs, wearing matching outfits and hats, arrived late–probably after they sang at their own church first? The visiting choirs filled benches reserved for them at front, in a semi circle around two benches of young adults–12 young men and women dressed in plain clothes, the women wearing shower caps.

There were lots of songs and prayers while the church continued to fill. (I started off on the far right of the pew, and ended up with 4 people to my left, and 6-8 on my right.

My pew partner on my left, a little boy I didn’t know, kept touching my cheap plastic watch and asking if he could have it. (He’d point at the watch and then at himself with a “souple.” He asked about 20 times, interspersed with the universal sign for “Gum, please” – (chomp, chomp, pleading face.) He didn’t seem to understand the Angle’ word and head shake for “No.” 

Another young timoun was being held in front of me and she had a hard time concentrating on the service – she stared at me with wonder. I probably didn’t help the situation by maintaining eye contact and trying to make her smile.

After a couple hours I noticed the congregants were yelling “Wi!” to Pastor’s questions. I saw that he was booming out one of the would-be-baptized’s names and that person would stand up. The Christian community in attendance was asked, “Do you witness that Brother Emil shows a testimony in his life of loving God?” (Pastor explained to me earlier that it’s not enough to say you believe in God—you need to prove it through your life testimony.) So each candidate stood, Pastor asked the question, and the congregants yelled out, “Wi!” Some got more energetic “Wi’s” yelled for them; nonetheless, all 12 were approved.

(The other prerequisites for baptism in Pignon are: you need to be at least 18 years old so you’re done with your “major changing”; you need to complete a course of study with your pastor, to learn and be able to answer basic questions about the faith– one young man failed his first attempt and BEGGED Pastor for another chance – he crammed and squeezed through; and if living in a relationship with someone, you must be married—there was a wedding in the sewing center the night before, to meet this requirement.)

The 12 would-be’s all stood together and walked to the baptismal font in front of the church. I couldn’t see what happened next, but there were a lot of “alleluias” and “amens” above the steady stream of hymns. (I peeked at the immersion area later.)

After another hour, the ceremony was concluded. I had taken little La’be (read her truly miraculous story at April 2012- “2lb Baby” — she is now almost 2 years old and 22 pounds.) on a walk to calm her crying, so I missed the ending. But when I looked out the dining hall window, the courtyard was packed with partiers—music was blasting, food and drink laid out, everyone in their fanciest Sunday best, and lots of laughter for a couple hours.

I regret I never left the dining hall as I was SPEAKING ENGLISH with Bill and Jennifer, and also two beautiful young women in their 20’s, from Iowa, who live a few houses over in Pignon at the American doctors’ community. I plan to visit them and hear more about their story. What I know is that separately they each decided God wanted them to serve Haiti. So they come for 3 month stints (visa requirements) to teach English to the hospital workers in the mornings, and working with some of the poorest village children in the afternoons. Sweethearts!

One thing we discussed was what a big deal the poor make about baptisms, Easter, even Sunday services.

We agreed there’s two ways to look at this:

“the poor cling to Faith because they have nothing else in life.”

or perhaps a truer perspective could be:

“the well-off cling to their possessions, and clamor for more, as a replacement for Faith.”