Caroline's First Worship (out of the womb)

We worship in two congregations here in our new city. But we haven't been to church since Caroline was born and the Sunday before Caroline was born we only made it to the first of the two services because Kevin had to work at noon (when service two begins) and we had a lot of home preparations to complete. We hope to attend Christmas Eve services at congregation number one, so this Sunday we headed to congregation number two. The volume of worship in congregation number two is much higher, clapping, drumming, amplified music and voices... she slept through much of the two hour plus service. And I recalled that she often was exceedingly still in my womb through these services as well. The volume seemed not to phase her. Katherine, Kevin, and I all took turns with her. I did my best to discretely feed her. But at some point during the sermon Katherine took her out to change her and I followed so to feed her more easily. She was greeted as a "new angel" in the congregation. Folks were respectful and not grabby. We saw folks from congregation number one before the noon service started and several folks brought us gifts they had been carrying around for weeks. Lorraine, you were right. We need only wait for church for cooing. People of all ages were delighted with her.

This coming Sunday, when she is but 23 days old, she will be baptized. Auntie Mieke is coming to officiate, both congregations will participate, and Caroline will meet both sets of grandparents and Uncle Daniel and some friends from the town where we served for the last six years who will be sharing the holiday with family in a suburb of our new city. Twill be a BIG weekend. Trying to get our house in better shape for all the company now.