chickintheham

Another Genie example

a lady comes in, asks me if I'm "so and so." I am not "so and so". Then she looks at the person next to me, are "you so and so?" No, she is not. She looks back at me, "Well perhaps you can help me anyway.

She starts to go into a spiel sort of like the one I posted before. In the midst of it all, I hear XX church records. I stop her and say where is XX church located because I know for a fact that at least 3 churches exist in Alabama with that name. She tells me and I find the records for that church on Microfilm. These records date back to 1851.

I put the film on the reader printer and sit her down in front of the reader machine. She asks, "how do I find XX church?" I tell her, "It's right here." She begins to scroll through the film, "Yes," she says, "But I need the records for XX church." I again reply, "This is the records for the church." I can ascertain, this lady is not Baptist and I think she is just a little confused about what sort of records are in a church record. So, I continue, "The records for what each church has in the Baptist world varies. There is no set standard for records." So she says, "I need the records for XX church." So, I point out the top of the screen of film where it says 'XX church 1856" and she says, "Oh!"

Then she says, "now where are the birth records for the church." I explain, "Birth records are never included in Baptist church records." "Oh," she says, "Well baby baptisms should work, where are they?" I explain that in the Baptist denomination, we do not practice infant baptism. So she says, "at what age is a person baptized?" I answer, "It varies. People are baptized once they become believers and want to join the church." She says, "At what age is that?" Again I say, "A person is baptized after they have made the decision to follow Christ" "Ohhhhh," she says and then asks, "Well what happens to the babies?" I tell her nothing happens to the babies. So she asks, "At what age will the baby be baptized. My great-grandmother was very religious, she must have been baptised when she was very young." So I explain again, "once the baby has grown up and made the decision that they believe then they are baptised." She says, "Ohhhhhh. Well in general, what age are people when they are baptized." And again, I explain that the age varies because it is when the person has made a decision and that happens at all ages. And then she said.... but Baptists grew out of the Presbyterian faith." I said "I don't know about that but the Baptist faith dates back at least 400 years." She said, "Yes. it does." And then she said, "Well these records won't help me."

Seriously... that conversation happened today. It went on for an hour. .... At no time, did I exagerate.... I'm not even kidding a little.