These are busy weeks with three major things last week - a follow-up service a week after burial, a wedding, and an infant dedication. This week will be very busy too with special Christmas meals for the children of the church tomorrow, and for the adults/teenagers on Wednesday, and then our traditional Christmas service on Friday night.

My replacement as senior pastor: The leadership presented Kalow Palata as the choice to replace me as senior pastor. The choice was really quite clear. The leadership decided not to go outside of the churches for another candidate, and we had only three possible men. Two felt that they were too young and not ready for the position. Kalow is nearly 51, and his health has been a real limitation, but he is willing to accept the position, though he would have been quite content to have someone else take the responsibility.

I had wondered what I should do after turning over my position. Often in the USA, the senior pastor removes himself from the scene so that the new pastor can establish himself. I was quite willing to do so, but both Kalow and the rest of the leadership made it clear that they do not want me to really just pull out completely, but to slowly give increasing things over to Br. Kalow and the rest of the leaders. The Surinamers would view my sudden leaving to go to one of the other churches as if I was angry and abandoned them. Pray that I will have wisdom to know what to do, and what not to do. I don't want to interfere or dominate, but I do not want to neglect my duties as well. They made it clear too that although I am not the senior pastor, I remain the dominee (pastor) with overall responsibilities for all four churches.

Infant dedication: One young lady and a couple wanted to dedicate infants today. Kalow and I talked with the young lady last Sunday morning, and he went to talk with the couple himself the following day. He did just fine in the service today. I had written out promises for infant dedication a number of years ago, and he had that outline to follow.

Our infant dedication is a bit more vital than in the USA because of some of the Bush Negro culture. As I understand it, the family (or actually clan or extended family) actually includes the departed members. When a child is born, they have a ceremony about a week after birth called "poeroe da pikin na doro..." Bringing the child out. I have only seen this done once personally when I happened to arrive during the ceremony. The older members of the extended family met and some brought presents for the child. The child was then introduced to the entire family, including the departed spirits of the ancestors, who were called to come. There were some offerings (I believe liquor was poured out as a libation) to the dead during this time.

In addition to this ceremony, the child often is given a blue or black dot on the head to protect against the evil eye, and also various blue or black strings tied around the arms to protect against evil spirits. Combined with the fact that the woman has usually consulted with witchdoctors during the pregnancy, and may have also done ceremonies to help get pregnant, you can see that the infant is already "bound" into the system. When my son-in-law was at Bakoe, some of the adults told him: "The spirits have known us since birth." Quite so...

Thus when we dedicate the child, the parent or parents place the child in the hands of the Lord, figuratively speaking, and ask the Lord's help in raising the child in a Christian fashion. They promise to raise the child in the proper fashion and bring him/her regularly to church. But besides that, we pray to break any family "banti" (family spiritual binding) and announce publically that the child is not in the family of the devil but the family of God. The potential family binding is broken on both sides - the mother's and the father's side.

You ask: Why do you do that? Because in different places in the Old Testament, it indicates that the iniquity of the fathers can pass to the children till the third and fourth generations - and it is speaking in the context of idol worship. (See Exodus 20:3-5, repeated in Deut. 5:7-9; see also Numbers 14:18 in a different context, and also prayer for the sins of the fathers by Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel) I have seen books dismissing this as unimportant and denying family influence of evil spirits. However such authors seem to be working from their own theological assumptions and not as people with experience who have worked with persons bound by evil spirits. In third world countries like Suriname, we have to deal with confrontation with demonic oppression from time to time. So we take this opportunity at the infant dedication to make clear that this child is under the protection of the Lord. We as a church and as a community of believers witness to this fact and accept our responsibility to support the young people in properly rearing their children as Christians.

Of course, we also make it abundantly clear that this is no guarantee of salvation and no substitution for baptism. We state that the child will need to personally receive Christ later followed by believer's baptism by immersion. Unfortunately in Suriname, the two old-time Christian groups have taught baptismal regeneration and infant baptism, and we need to be very clear on the difference. It is always a joy to see young people bring their children to the Lord, and we pray that they will be serious in following the Lord.

The wedding was a couple from Sunny Point. I will give details and some cultural background in the following letter, as this is already long.

Kenneth Domini, pastor of Sunny Point, preached very well at the service held for the family of the man who was buried last week. Once again the gospel was very clearly presented. We continue to pray for those not saved. After the service, I was very pleased to see two family members talking with their middle-aged brother about getting saved.

Prayer requests:

1. Health and strength for the work
2. Our spiritual growth
3. Br. Kalow Palata's growth as the new senior pastor of the new church
4. Insight as to the best ways to make the necessary transition
5. Independence of the four churches
6. Continued work on teaching, especially the Bible Institutes. Now that we have a workable system for DVD productions, I am trying to slowly do the DVDs for the first year of the advanced Bible Institute.
7. A church building for the Sunny Point church. They have been in the lean-to structure for nearly seven years at the back of the home of a believer. It would be quite helpful to have their own building owned by the church and more adequate in facilties
8. The main church's parking space is landlocked with major parking problems as more people purchase cars. They are looking at buying property but costs are very high.