Terry's Baptism

     Amid the clamor of 3,000 responses to the first gospel sermon (Acts 2), some man, or woman, became the first person there to “go down into the water” (Acts 8:38). Being “first” is unimportant, but being that single human soul coming out of the water as a new creature in Christ was momentous. It still is.
     Terry Herrera grew up in Judsonia and Searcy. Her parents divorced when she was five. When her father remarried, she became one of 12 children, with parents who were not Christians. The children rode church buses a few times for special events—the extent of Terry’s religious experience.
     As an adult she raised six children from two marriages, working when she could. During those years, she would get this feeling, “like God talking to you.” She tried various churches, including ours, but couldn’t stick with any. That voice never stopped, though. In 2025 she began volunteering at His House.
     That’s where Alan & Deb Hardison met Terry, folding clothes. They noticed her doing little extra things for clients, like watching their kids while they shopped: “I know how they feel,” Terry says, “because I came from that. There were times in my life when we had nothing.”
     Terry also came to Caring and Sharing, where she heard Alan lead devotionals. On March 26th of this year, while at His House, she asked him for a Bible study, because “he was a friendly man.”
     Joined by Deb, they went to the church building that day. The Hardisons talked about what sin is and what it does to us. They talked about Jesus as the Son of God, and about obeying the gospel.
     Terry said, “I need to be baptized.”
     With office staff as witnesses, Alan took Terry’s confession and baptized her. “It felt strange,” she says of the immersion; “like I was cleansed.” Afterwards there were hugs. “You are a new person in Christ,” Deb said. Alan asked her how she felt; Terry answered, “Happy!”
     Five months later the Hardisons and Terry still meet for a weekly study when possible. Terry attends worship and the Faith’s Foundation Bible class with her former husband, Ricardo. “People are nice, not stuck up.” She still works at His House, and, with Ricardo, also helps at several other food banks. Knowing the road may be rough, she says, “I don’t take life for granted anymore.”
     Someday, when we meet our Discipling3000 goal, Terry may be counted among that massive number. We know, however, that a “rejoicing in heaven” (Luke 15:7) will have greeted each baptism of each repentant soul along the way. Such is God’s measure of the worth of an individual life.