home | contact
Baptism for Jess

Splashed with water

For Jess Schmidt, Monday evenings often mean dinner with her dad Joe. One night she said simply, “Dad, I’ve been thinking about going to church.”

At 26, Jess (or Jessie) didn’t know much about church or faith. Her parents and grandparents hadn’t connected much with a church. She and her brother had found their way to a neighborhood Sunday School for awhile. In her high school years, a high-energy youth ministry drew her in. But Jess sized up the experience as inauthentic and hypocritical.

Now she wanted to go to church. First Jess researched denominational differences on the internet. She scanned an explosion of information on Lutheranism. There among the 163 Wikipedia footnotes and links to 26 varieties of Lutherans, something intrigued her. “It looked peaceful, content. You wouldn’t be punished for your sins. And besides, it was German,” sized up the young woman of 100% German descent. Something about God’s grace had grabbed her.

Jess remembered attending a funeral and a wedding at St. Paul Lutheran. She pulled out of her memory the West High Show Choir friends who had grown up here. This is where her search would begin — and where she stayed.

So on April 26, Jess found herself at the baptismal font — with Kevin, Pam, and Roger — other seeking adults she is not likely to forget. Leaning over the font, she was “splashed with that water. What hit me and fell back into the font also splashes babies and Roger and others. We’re all part of something important.”

In that splash of baptismal water, Jessie “knew this is the place for me to belong. I have the rest of my life to learn about this faith. I’m making my relationship with God and I’m working on my journey.”

Jessie’s baptism was a rare moment for the family. Gathered in a pew with Jess were her parents, divorced for 11 years, and her younger brother, a Jew by self-understanding.

Some sort of thirst brought Jessie here to the font of Godís love. Now she walks wet into the world, where she has an affinity for serving people in need. Her “audacious” and “spunky” spirit stand by her well.

During college years at Iowa State, Jess drove a big yellow school bus. The first and last person the children saw each school day, she knew all their names, asked about spelling tests, played word games, and celebrated “Funny Face Fridays.” That fierce love for people now translates into Davenport jobs with mentally ill adults and at-risk youth.

At Vera French Community Mental Health Center, Jess is a case monitor — something she calls a “glorified middleman and professional cheerleader.” She motivates, urges, encourages people struggling with mental illness. She listens carefully to clients, connects them to services, provides transportation. She loves these people into healthier circumstances.

In her second job at the youth shelter of Family Resources, Jess “pays attention” to youth who are in transition from foster homes or need a place to cool off. Much like the kids on the yellow bus, she knows their names and takes a keen interest in their lives.

As she crafts trusting relationships with people, Jess learns about a swath of neighbors who Jesus calls us to love. One guy hates Mountain Dew. Another hears voices and has no money — and keeps a Bible by her chair. Jess remembers with care the details of each convoluted storyline.

“It’s amazing the things you learn when you take the time to speak with people,” says Jess.

In much the same way, she nourishes this fresh relationship with God. “Oh, I do things that are wrong. I don’t think you go to church to get a clean spiritual bill of health for the week, but because it’s something you believe and you want that relationship. I’m always a work in progress. I don’t want to ever quit learning.”

  ::  

"Wonder promotes a searching attitude of simultaneously knowing and not knowing." ~Alfred Margulies