Baptism

This past Sunday, Quest had the privilege of dedicating and baptizing several infants, children and adult believers at all three services. For those of you that weren't able to be there (and even for those that were!) we'd like to share the testimonies of two Questers who were baptized at the 5pm service, Rosalind Sciammas and Sarah Ryer. We hope it will bless you as it has richly blessed us!

Rosalind Sciammas

Generations of Faith & Salvation

"The Lord said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household
and go to the land I will show you.
'I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.'
So Abram left, as the Lord had told him..." Genesis 12:1-4

     It feels like my faith journey began before I was born. I guess that’s why my testimony might feel more like a history lesson than a story about God’s grace, but the fact that I’ve made it here is almost testament enough.
     I am a Karaite Jew; a sect of Jews that has been around since God passed down his laws to Moses. Originating in Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris-Euphrates river system (present day Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc.), only 30,000 of us remain in the world today, 4,000 of which reside in the U.S.
     My parents were born in Egypt and, like many of the Karaite Jews, were also imprisoned, and then expelled, during the 1967 six day war between Egypt and Israel. In the middle of the night, my father was taken to a prisoner of war camp (similar to U.S. Japanese internment camps during WWII). At 37, he, my mom and two brothers were forced to start over, having lost everything (home, business, money, dignity), they began a second life in Italy as Jewish refugees. It’s a miracle that my father escaped the two-years of imprisonment sustained by two of my uncles and several other Jews. It’s a miracle that I was born to them in SF, CA, in 1972.
     So begins my story of Christ’s protection, guidance and salvation.

Judaism is the Foundation of My Faith
     In Hebrew, Karaite means “Followers of Scripture.” According to some Jewish scholars, the Karaite are referred to in the Bible as “the righteous,” because they believed in keeping the Torah’s commandments with no additions. [Now I understand why I always HAVE TO be right.?]
     They broke away from Rabbinical Judaism (today’s mainstream Jews), who added an interpretation of scripture known as the Oral Law – the Talmud. The Karaite movement can be compared to the Protestant Reformation, because the Karaite vowed to follow the word of God over the opinions of Rabbis.

“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.” Deuteronomy 4:2

Grace Several Years in the Making
     I am a Jewish Believer, Follower of Christ and have been since sometime before my 7th grade teacher at West Portal Lutheran School told my classmates that she felt sorry for me, because I was going to hell. When I approached her, hoping she’d clear up what must have been a rumor; Mrs. VanBlarcom confirmed that she had indeed said this, insisting it was nothing personal. Jews don’t believe in Christ, so you’re going to hell – “no offense,” she reassured me.
     Thankfully, my brother had taken me to my first (and only) Young Life meeting in 4th grade. I had also been attending Lutheran school since age 5 and Chapel every Wednesday. All of this prep helped me believe that Christ’s teachings offered more hope than Mrs. VB knew how to share. So, I decided to take this up with my pastor, Pastor Keyne. When asked if I would go to hell, because I’m Jewish, Pastor Keyne showed me the grace I needed. “I can’t tell you the answer. God is the final judge.”
     As an 11-year-old, this was reassuring. Also as an 11-year-old, I vowed never to assimilate as a Christian. Christians, after all, seemed was often more divisive than unifying. I decided that I would always, privately, be a Follower of Christ, never losing my Jewish identity. 

Departure from Tradition
     Not unlike my ancestors, today I stand before you prepared to profess my faith as a Jewish believer. No, the Karaite don’t believe that the Messiah has risen, but the tenants of this faith planted the seeds I needed to begin following Christ at an early age. How? Karaism teaches that:

1. It is more important to do the right and moral thing than to do the same thing as everyone else.
2. It is up to the individual to take personal responsibility for interpreting Scripture, basing his understanding on the merits and logic of a given interpretation.

     Luke 7:6 – 8 gives me the courage to let go of tradition and join a small sect of Karaite Jewish believers. So far, I think this sect is only comprised of me and my brother Clement, but I have to admit that even as an adult I have continued to be very private about my walk with Christ. That is until today.

“Jesus replied. “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
        ‘These people hone me with their lips,
        but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain;
        their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
You have let go of the commandments of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

     Using the empowerment bestowed upon me by the Karaite, I have taken personal responsibility for interpreting scripture and leaving the traditions of men. Finally, I am choosing to be washed by the water of Christ’s amazing grace. Like my father who started anew at age 37, today, also at age 37, I ask Pastor Eugene to help me begin my public life in Christ.
     Church, will you promise me one thing? If I do this, promise me you will never tell anyone they are going to hell. Amen.

Sarah Ryer

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow – not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below – indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed through Jesus.” – Romans 8:35-39

     This is my story, as well as I can tell it. I am choosing for the first time to publicly proclaim my faith so that I may be baptised and the world will know of my inseparable Love for Jesus.
     God pursues us. I can see that from my childhood. Even though I grew up without Christianity and without the church my parents raised me with high morals and values. They taught me to care for others, be kind, accepting, patient, loving, etc. I guess I never really saw the need for church, nor did I harbor any understanding of it. God was near to my life all the way through school and on into college.
When I went to college I found myself free of my parents for the first time in my life. I was free to do whatever I wanted. I was a freshman at the University of Montana surrounded by all the temptations any freshmen faces, but not falling into it. I always wondered why the people I was most drawn to were not the partiers but in fact the Christians I met. I always admired these Christian people who upheld the same values as me. I always strove to be more like them, but I missed the fact that I needed Jesus to completely like them. I never understood this because I thought that believing in God was a cop-out, I was in control of my life. God was academic to me, not spiritual, and the concept of Jesus and his death might as well have been written in Russian for all I understood of it. I did think that I had an academic understanding of God, and often equated my understanding of him to metaphysics or the underlying theoretical principle of a subject or field of inquiry. I thought that God was a human invention we created to fill a void in our hearts. I clung to this because I understood it. Then my senior year came.
     I’d been studying Linguistics with the intention of teaching overseas, a dream I had had since I was 15 years old. I applied to the Peace Corps because I saw this as the only way to get out into the world. However, I was rejected from the Peace Corps. This broke my heart because it was all I had worked for, and dreamed of. When I told a professor about the rejection she suggested I apply to the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme. I did, but I didn’t think I would pass the first step of the application process. To my surprise, however, I was moved into the interview stage, and my interview was set for Spokane WA on February 16, 2006.
     My friend agreed to drive me to the interview from Missoula, about a 3.5 hour drive, but when we got up that morning, there was a winter storm warning. We told ourselves we’d be careful, and got in the car. An hour and half from our destination where the road seemed clear, we turned a corner going too fast and hit a patch of black ice, spinning off the road and down into a ditch. When we lost control of the car, we were facing forward, I can still remember seeing the trees rushing past the windows, and hear this horrible roaring noise that makes me shudder to remember. I shut my eyes and might have screamed I, don’t know. Then I felt the car turn, and a lightning pain in my mouth, and the car stopped. I opened my eyes, and somehow we had been turned around. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but I survived an accident that should have killed me. My friend was completely unharmed, while I had chipped my two front teeth—which was the lightning pain in my mouth—but was nothing compared with the fact I walked away with my life. All I could think of for a long time afterward was that I should have died. I should not have still been alive, but some how I was. That very afternoon I went to my JET interview with chipped teeth, and a month and half later was accepted into the JET Programme.
     In August of 2006 I moved to Japan as a JET Programme participant. My 7 year dream of teaching abroad came true, but at a price. I was lonely for the first time in my life. At school sometimes I would go for hours without anyone saying anything to me. I couldn’t read, or write, or understand the constant stream of Japanese that went on around me. I was alone at school, at home, when I went to the store, rode the train, and even when surrounded my other JET Programme participants. With them I found no one I really connected with, no one who valued the same things, or anyone who had a story beyond their drunken Saturday nights. It was a hard price to pay for my dream; loneliness. But it finally opened my ears and my heart to God’s voice.
     I thought I had to find people like me to counter my loneliness, not knowing it was God could help with that too. Thus I stumbled upon the JET Christian Fellowship and went to their fall retreat in October of 2006. I told myself I was going so that I could be around people like me as I had been in college. I know now that is was God calling me loud and for the first time in my life I was ready to listen. At the retreat I played along because I was afraid that everyone would think less of me or try to talk me into believing in God. The retreat however, was nothing like I expected. For one thing the speaker kept talking about Jesus, and I liked Jesus a lot. She also told us that in our loneliness we are brought closer to God, and how Jesus is always with us so we are never really alone. I like that idea that He was with me that He loved me, that He would care if I was sad, and He wanted to listen. This was huge for me. I remember during prayer time there was this spark in my heart. Like when I was at school and doing my linguistic theories, and suddenly it would make sense and a light would go off in my brain. It was the same thing, only in my heart. I knew Jesus then, I understood that God was not academic, not understandable, and I knew it with all my being. In tears I asked Jesus into my heart.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9