Dedicated

So in the Mennonite faith we don't baptize children but we do dedicate them to God. We also dedicate ourselves as parents to raising our children to know about God, and asking the church to support us as we do this.

Today we dedicated Rachel. Our symbol for her was a small plant, a sign of how we hope to nuture her and see her grow into who she is. Rachel was quite talkative at the front of the church and showing off by grunting, clapping her hands and generally talking. She made us laugh.

It was neat to be able to dedicate Rachel along with Nathan, the son of our good friends, Karen and Andrew. Ella was also dedicated and it was neat because she was born at 25 weeks, and seems to be a healthy, happy baby today. Adeline was adopted at three days old and her parents only found out about her the day before. And Elyse is the daughter of our new youth and young adult minister, Ben and his wife, Kendall.

It was a great group of people to be committing our children to God with. And I look forward to getting to know them better as our kids grow up together.

And since I wasn't doing much blogging when Sam was little, here is a picture of him on his dedication day on July 12, 2009.