Baptismal Plumbing

Today I spent a few hours at the Vida Victoriosa garage sale. I enjoy hanging out at V.V. because it is so, well, uncomplicated. What you see when you get there is what you get while you are there. Nobody gets paid for what they do; they do it because they want to.

Today Martin asked Michael Samuelson and me to look at the baptistry because he has some of his church people asking about being baptized and he would love to baptize them in the church where they were saved. I know a little history about that baptistry because when the building where Vida Victoriosa meets was occupied by Inner-City church I learned that the baptistry has a leak, but they didn't know where or how bad it was. They covered the baptistry with plywood and used that area for their drums. We removed the plywood cover from the baptistry and found that the tub itself is in very good shape. That was good, because if it was cracked, repairs would have been really difficult. Michael found the access panel, and an excursion under the platform revealed a poorly done attempt at soldering a joint which should not be soldered. It appeared that all pieces of the circulating system were present and connected, so the next step was to fill the baptistry with water and see where the leak was. We also needed to determine if the circulating system would work. When the tub had water in it, we found the leak right where we expected to find it. It was leaking at the joint with the bad repair attempt. The pump circulated water, but we didn't get to run it long enough to determine if the heater was working.

The next step will be to remove the circulating system and see if it can be dismantled without destroying it. A closer look at the unassembled leaky joint will determine if it can be made to seal. Most likely it is cracked, meaning that the whole circulating system will have to be replaced. A quick search on the internet revealed that a replacement system will cost $600-$900 depending on which one fits. Of course, Vida Victoriosa doesn't have near that much money, so we will have to figure out something. I'll know a lot more after I remove the old system.

I'll keep you posted