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You are here: Home > Off Grid, Spiritual Prep, The Homestead > A Baptism on the Off-Grid Homestead

A Baptism on the Off-Grid Homestead

Posted in Off Grid, Spiritual Prep, The Homestead | July 7th, 2012

A new stock tank with an unusual application

Last week Silver Oak built a permanent fence in front of our house to make a protected area for gardens and landscaping (safe from marauding goats!). It stretches from the big shed bordering the animals’ runway, to the fence on the northern border of our property about 150 feet away. It is mostly done, just needing to add the gates and stretch one section that is field fence. The part in front of the house is a board fence combined with 2×4 wire to keep critters out.

I like the board fence running along in front of our tiny house, making it look a little more civilized around here. There will be one big gate for driving the suburban into, and a small one for a footpath. At the north end there will be another large gate for truck access to our grow bed area.

The new board/wire fence on the right of the big shed matches the fence at the front of the animal runway to the left of the big shed. You also can see the front of our tiny green house and part of the new deck roof to the right of the big shed.

A view from the other direction. The big blue tarp is covering the big box with our solar panels that are still waiting to be installed.

This fence means now we can finally separate our overgrown kids from their mamas (goats!). The mamas stay inside their runway and paddocks, and the kids are out, but can’t get into our living area (hopefully). This will make do until more fencing is put up in the front part of the property and back in the paddock area to make separate grazing areas. We’ve been separating the kids at night by keeping them in the barn so we get all the milk from their mamas in the morning. Now we get the daytime milk as well!

Buttercup has been dry because she is expecting her calf. It should make its presence known any day now! Till then we are grateful for the extra goat milk.

Buttercup is in her last days of being "with calf"

We got the fence up and worked hard to clear the front yard of all construction materials that had accumulated the past few months. We had a very special event to prepare for, and we wanted it to be as nice as possible for the stage of development we are in. I’m always glad for a reason to give us a deadline to clean things up. Otherwise piles tend to just stay where they are as we busily work on more urgent things.

Some piles in front of our house were there (evolving) for months! They were constantly being added to or subracted from, but they were there just the same.

The very special event we were preparing for was…church! Last Sunday we hosted our home church fellowship for the first time in a few months. It has been so hot and we’ve been in the middle of building roofs and drilling wells and there was just not a practical way to host it here. But this time we weren’t going to just have church. We were going to have a baptism!

The deck (and air conditioned camper) are great for the fellowship meal after the morning service (notice...no piles of stuff)

Last year Little Bird, our seven year old, gave her heart to Jesus and has been asking ever since when she can be baptized. We are of the mind that since folks were usually baptized immediately upon confession of faith in the New Testament, there must be some benefits that we miss if baptism is put off for a long period of time until a formal event is planned. We really meant for it to happen way before this, but moving two times and being so busy setting up our new off-grid homstead…it just got put off.

When our church and fellowship meal were over, more friends and family joined us to celebrate the baptism. One of our new stock tanks had been set up in the front yard and worked perfectly. Silver Oak and my dad, a minister at our former church where I had grown up, performed the baptism. Little Bird briefly answered a few questions about her faith in Jesus and shared her desire to live for Him. She was so excited for this day, and took it very seriously.

Prayer with Little Bird before her baptism (the sun was kinda bright)

Getting ready

"...buried with Him by baptism into death..."

"...that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Rom. 6:4 KJV

Mr. Gopher Tortoise

After the baptism we sang a few praise songs as one of our friendly resident gopher tortoises made his way across the area beyond the fence. One of the songs sung, “I’m so Glad I’m a Part of the Family of God,” was quite significant, as my dad pointed out.

“From the door of an orphanage

To the house of the King,

No longer an outcast:

A new song I sing!”

Little Bird indeed came from the door of an orphanage in Kazakhstan at 10 months of age, and she is not only a part of our family, but also part of the family of the King of kings! What a blessing to see our children walk in Truth!

Enjoying fellowship in the family of God. We were privileged to have our former pastor and his wife join us, as well as a Haitian missionary pastor and his wife who were visiting the States

It was a very hot day and it wasn’t too cool in our tiny house with compromised air conditioning. After everyone left, our four youngest kiddos begged to jump into the baptismal stock tank to cool off. It did look inviting, so we agreed.