'Poignant and delightful baptism'

Minister Brian Davison shares news of another baptism at Lockwood Baptist Church in Huddersfield

It was a delight on Sunday 5 March to baptise the fifth of our Iranian baptismal candidates.

Having been detained for removal to Germany, Abbas was unable to be baptised with the others on 5 February. However, he was released at the end of February, after much prayer for him, and returned to Lockwood, where the baptistery had been kept open as we prayerfully awaited his return. He was thrilled to be able to be baptised at LBC, whom he considers to be his new family.

The service was al the more poignant and delightful because the church had prayed and fought (legally) for him to be allowed to be baptised here, among his Christian family.

He told in his testimony how it was the character of those he later discovered to be Christian that had led him to find out more in Iran, and how delighted he was with the love and care he found here.

Jesus had enabled him to forgive and to love those who had persecuted him.

The sermon focused on how God had been with him through all of this, and how God had used him in the detention centre, to minister to others in distress, despite his own distress at being removed from his friends.

We gave thanks for answered prayer, and as we were getting changed he told us that he had been only seven steps from the plane door when the news came he was being released to come to Lockwood.

Thanks be to God for what he has done in this young man's life, and continues to do in his church.