“If You Won’t Accept the Baptist Baptism, Then Go Be a Methodist”
The year was 1921. The place was the interior of Brazil in a place that is now only a few hours drive from Londrina, Brazil where S. David & Geri Smith work as church planting missionaries. One of their members, a 90 year old grandmother named Luigi, recently told David this true story that happened when she was only 10 years of age.
In the early 1920's the Baptist church came to Luigi’s catholic town, started winning people to the Lord, and marked the first Baptist Baptism in that region.
They marked the baptism in a creek a few miles outside of town and invited the town people to attend. No one had elver seen a Baptist baptism where people were going to be immersed (dunked) in a lake. So, curiosity got the best of the people and basically the whole town showed up for the baptism.
After the baptism was over and people were getting back to their vehicles to go home, an elderly lady remembered that she had left her purse at the creek about a 1/4 of a mile away.
As the driver got back down closer to the creek he heard some fussing and fighting going on in the middle of the creek.. Because of the bushes, he could not see what was happening, but it sounded like an awful fight going on. As he got closer he realized that another baptism was being held, but he still could not see due to the undergrowth.
He heard: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” Splashing, hissing, yelping, barking and a lot of yelling was coming out of that Baptist Baptismal hole. Then all of a sudden, he heard a teenage boy yell: “ If you won’t accept the Baptist Baptism, then go be a Methodist!” Meow....Splash. Then he turned the corner.
There in the middle of the creek stood a 15 year old boy with his face, arms and chest all scratched up and bleeding. The boy looked frustrated. “What in the world are you going son?” asked the driver.
“ Mister, I liked the Baptist Baptism so much that I ran home and got all of my sister’s puppies and kittens and brought them back to baptize them. I baptized all the puppies and they accepted the Baptist Baptism. Then I tried to Baptize these three month old kittens, and they just wouldn’t stand for any of that. I told that last kitten, as I threw him back up towards the shore, : If you won’t accept the Baptist baptism, then go be a Methodist!” Thus ended the first and second baptisms in the town of Presidente Prudente., São Paulo, Brazil.
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S. David & Geri Smith are church planting missionaries serving with Baptist Mid Missions. They have been in Brazil for the past 20 years. During their next term of service, they plan on starting their fourth church in Brazil while they minister primarily at their third work. It is their goal to take the third church up to the two to three hundred attendance level. Please pray for the Smiths as they are on furlough raising the support needed to do the type of church planting work that they are doing in Brazil.