The day we became Lutheran

This morning Gianna Mai was baptized at the local English speaking Lutheran church. We have been attending this church since Lent and decided a few weeks ago to contact the pastor about having Gianna baptized sometime this summer. He was happy to receive us into the church, but he is moving to Nairobi next weekend. So there have been a series of shotgun baptisms every week leading up to his departure. This morning it was Gianna and a tiny infant named Theresa in the limelight. The godparents are our good friends from New York, Donnell and Nicole. Gianna was her usual squirmy self during the service, but when up front at the baptismal, she was well behaved and didn't fuss or cry at all. Afterwards, we celebrated with lunch at the Long Island Summer Lounge, a roof-top restaurant with a pool, palm trees, and waitstaff dressed up as sailors. They even had a playground where she could get her christening dress all dirty.

We come from a long line of Mennonites where infant baptism is not performed, so they will probably give us a good shunning for this one. I could write a novel about the personal choice to have Gianna baptized at a Lutheran church in Germany and raise her with Christian values and traditions...you can email me if you want the unabridged version! She was one child among a quarter million orphans in Vietnam and now she is our daughter. I hesitate to call her an angel since she is in full-tilt terrible two stage, but I sincerely want God and His angels to continue watching over our precious child as they did when she was living in Vietnam. She really is a wonderful gift from God and I am so happy to see her blessed and baptized today.

The money shot of the actual blessing.

Gianna with her new Godparents, Nicole and Donnell.

Time to play after a long morning of church stuff.