Bapitismy Aty Lakey Tekapoy

"This is the way we go to church,
Go to church,
Go to church.

This is the way we go to church,
Every Sunday Morning..." (to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus)

So yea...the bus trip to Lake Tekapo was horrendously long and boring, though not nearly as bad as the bus trip to Dunedin.

Anways, there were a great many snow capped mountains flanking the green of the Canterbury Plains on the way to the lake. There were a wide range of trees, some green, some orange, some yellow and orange. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

Lake Tekapo itself was a beautiful shimmering lake surrounded by low mountains powdered with snow. The weather was perfect-not too much sun, not cold and not windy. The perfect day for baptism.

Yup, baptism.

Apparently someone in the church refused to be baptised unless it was at Lake Tekapo. So the pastor said "Ok. You said it yourself. We are going to go to Lake Tekapo so you could be baptised." Everyone probably thought they were joking. Apparently not.

We bumped along to the side of the lake, collapsed out the bus and crowded around on the sandy lakeside. We formed a cresent shape around the four who are to be baptised and they sang songs and prayed. After the singing and praying, the pastor asked each of the to be baptised two female and two male whether they believed with all their heart that Jesus is the Lord and Saviour etc, to which they answered with "I do"--which appeared to me like a marriage--Will you take Blah as your wedded wife etc...

The actual baptism was amusing too. They waded into the lake and were made to lean back into and under the water. The throng of onlookers must've been like WTF, cause I know I would've.

The best part of the trip was skipping stones. I had great fun skipping stones for about a quarter of an hour. I think my stones bounced a max of 9 or 10 times. I was mightily pleased with meself XD.

Oh yea, the scenery was quite good. It was a rather large silvery-blue lake with two snow mountains sprawled out across the horizon. Rows of green, red and orange hugged the mountain sides, and to the right of where we were was a small stone church that resembled a cute country cottage.

On this particular outing, we also had to watch some video of a random Reverend delivering a sermon/seminar/whatever. I was, well, terribly bored by it.

The highlight of the return trip was, well, the return. Or maybe the beautiful sunset that was occassionally visible through the shadows of the the trees surrounding acres and acres of farmland in the country. During which the clouds, now dark because the sun was behind it, was lined with orange and radiated with gold. The whole landscape seemed to be enveloped in its warm, golden blanket.

The it got dark.

And then we got back to Christchurch.
It was Saturday.
The 11th.
Of April.