Baptizing Davis

For the last several months we've been planning the where and the who and the how of getting Davis baptized. Daryl and I met as children at the First UMC in Seffner and it is where we both received our calls into ministry, were married and had Parker and Wesley baptized. Since our parents still attend there, it was the natural choice. The who was an easy decision as well. The Rev. R. Phillips Short was the pastor at Seffner from 1992-1997, during a very pivotal time in both mine and Daryl's lives. Phillip came back to Seffner for our wedding and also to baptize the two big boys, and he stood up for Daryl and I both at our ordinations. The only real question was the how - Phillip is a pastor at Stuart in south Florida, so he can't just run over real quick when we happen to be visiting Seffner. Since all the pastors were in Lakeland last weekend for Annual Conference, we asked Phillip to meet us at the Seffner church after conference ended on Saturday afternoon, so that we could meet with family and friends to celebrate Davis' baptism. Thankfully, that worked out well. 

Davis at Grandmommy and Granddaddy's house for a pre-baptism photo shoot. We ordered his outfit online from Sears - there aren't too many places that make baptism outfits for 3 year olds! 

The Baptism of Davis Warren Allen 

What happens when you baptize a 3 year old who can talk and ask questions? Well he says things like "Are we done yet?" during one of the prayers and after the water, "Hey my hair is wet!" 

Phillip signing the baptismal certificate - we used water in the font that Daryl and I collected from the Jordan River in 2009 during our visit there. Both Parker and Wesley were also baptized with Jordan River water (for them we used water my aunt Susie collected on her trip to Israel). 

All of the family present for the baptism - in front are Grannie and Grandma. The next row from left to right is Wesley, Parker, Davis with Grandmommy, Aunt Barbara, Uncle Nam, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Sparky. Finally, there's Daryl, me, Uncle David, Granddaddy and Uncle Kelly. 

There were some other folks present at the baptism as well. The back row is is BJ and Russ Herig - BJ used to work with Grandmommy for many years. The front row here is Rev. Ed McWilliams (the pastor now at Seffner) and his wife Ann and Ed's sister Nan. 

We were so glad to see the Black family again and to meet miss Vivi. Tim is one of the pastors at the Presbyterian church where Grandmommy works; he and his wife Kelly brought their boys to Davis' welcome home party last year. They adopted Miss Vivi from China last December. She and Davis looked so cute together! 

It really was a tremendous blessing to be able to celebrate God's grace present in Davis' life as we celebrated his baptism with family and church friends.