Of Water and Reunions

I am back from vacation. My family spent the week in Glorieta, NM at the Glorieta Conference Center. We had a family reunion scheduled for the last half of the week, so we went in a few days early and had some fun family time.

It was not overly restful. As most family reunions go, this one was packed with stuff and very little sleep. We came home from our vacation needing a vacation to recover. Such is life.

Ashley, my 13-yr old daughter, was baptized on Saturday, June 9, in Glorieta. We knew this was going to happen, but I did not contact the conference center until Friday night to find out about using their baptistery. Here's is the actual conversation as best I remember it...

"Hi, one of the people in our group would like to be baptized tomorrow and I need to see about using your baptistery. Who do I need to see about that?"

"I"m sorry sir, we don't have one."

"Excuse me?"

"We don't have a baptistery on campus."

*pause*

"You mean this is the largest Baptist encampment in the southwestern United States and you don't have a baptistery?"

"No sir..." pause... "I guess I ought to put that on the suggestion list."

"I would think so..."

So I spent Saturday morning driving around Glorieta and Pecos looking for a church that might be open and allow us to use their baptistery. We ended up just down the road at a little church building that seats about 100 if they all hold their breath, the Glorieta Baptist Church. The water was pumped in that afternoon at our request and was straight out of the mountain. It was so cold we walked in and lost our breath. Ashley will never forget her baptism. She came out white as snow and blue as ice.

Speaking of reunions, for those of you still reading, I have another one coming up soon. July 5-7 are the dates for Acafest 2007, the International Acappella Christian Music Festival. I will be teaching a few classes during this week. The event will culminate on Saturday evening with the 25th Anniversary Reunion Concert of the group Acappella.

For those of you unaware, Acappella is a singing group I used to travel with. For eleven years.

Anyway, I am not completely sure of the entire line-up, but I do know who I'll be singing with. Keith Lancaster and Rodney Britt will certainly sing together, and I will get to sing with my brothers, Wayburn Dean, George Pendergrass and Duane Adams. I'm looking forward to it, although at this point I have absolutely no idea what we are singing. That should be interesting...