The Mighty Power of a River

Some of you are familiar with one of our special tracks at La Hacienda, the optional Christian Focus track. You also may remember Lee Roy from a previous post, he facilitates this group. Part of his job includes baptisms in the Guadalupe river. Below Lee Roy talks about the experience.

“As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn. “ —The promise from page 63 of The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Sound familiar?
To some it takes us back to Jesus talking to the big shot that visited Him at night because he didn’t want his peers to know he was talking to a strange prophet. Jesus simply told him “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3

To others it is the feeling of freedom from enslavement to a drug or king alcohol and knowing that God loves us and cares for us and is giving us mercy rather than punishment; that he loves us not because of what we have done, but in spite of our behavior. It is learning that we are, as they used to say, “sick not sorry”.

It is in that moment that many patients feel the urge to take Step Three to the next level and ask to be baptized. This year we did the first one on January 8 and a host of believers followed. I always tell them we can do this in a church, but they feel closer to reality by doing it in the river. In the rite of baptism we do here at La Ha, just as John the Baptist did, we go totally under the water, symbolic of the old person dying, then coming up again and, as Jesus said, being born again.

Ed Johnson and I have documented 32 baptisms this year and we count up 458 since starting in 2004. -Lee Roy Loeffler