My life and my thoughts - on faith, culture, politics, whatever comes to my mind

Monday, April 18, 2005

Let’s have the godparents over for coffee

Yesterday my beloved and me visited my best friend Steffi and her family in Wuppertal. That’s about an hour and a half by train from Bonn and it’s directly south of the Ruhr area with all the heavy industry. The city is not very pretty. I’m sure Steffi could have imagined lots of nicer places to move to. They just moved to Wuppertal the beginning of April. Her husband is a pastor and now an assistant at the theological university there where he pursues a doctorate in New Testament Research.
It was fun visiting them. It’s great if you can talk with your best friend, see your godchild and have a look at their new apartment – all in one afternoon :). Their first daughter is my godchild. She is almost fifteen months old now, walks or better: runs most of the time and has the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on a child. She’s just adorable! She was baptized last year in the Easter sunrise service. So it’s been a year. And her parents want us godparents to especially remember her baptism day every year instead of her birthday. I think that’s a good idea! I personally lean strongly towards baptism of adults, but if you baptize a child, it’s great to have a remembrance “party” every year. Of course now she is far to young to talk about it or anything like it. But we enjoyed the coffee and the time together. It is very special to be a godmother. And quite a responsibility too. It’s wonderful that her parents really want us to be part of her spiritual upbringing and not just people who give extra presents. (Although I love buying her presents...)
I’m really looking forward to her growing older so we can have talks as well and not “just” cuddling and fun (that's a great part though).