A man has been baptised on a flooded roundabout amid baffled motorists after more heavy rain lashed the country.
Video footage shows the man standing up to his knees in rainwater before being dunked under at the
flooded underpass in Bristol.
Another man then placed his hand onto his forehead during the religious ceremony which took place at the Hartcliffe Way roundabout on Sunday.
The unconventional baptism was filmed by BJ Walsh who set up the Set Free ministry in the River of Life Christian Centre last November.
He told Bristol Live : "It was freezing cold that water but, if the puddle is deep enough, you can be baptised anywhere. The setting doesn’t matter."
Mr Walsh believes the ceremony was "meant to be" under "God's will" after heavy rainfall hit the area last weekend.
“Last week on my 40th birthday, my wife put up a banner on those railings you can see in the background," he explained.
"When I went up there, I saw the water down in the roundabout and said ‘that would be a great place to baptise someone’.
“Then last week, I picked up my mate and we were driving around the roundabout and he looked down at the water and said ‘I want to be baptised there’.
"So it was God’s will, really. He puts all the pieces in place."
In the video, the man is seen having a full immersion baptism with Mr Walsh praying for him at his right hand side.
Thousands of people have since got in touch about the baptism after the clip went viral on Facebook.
Mr Walsh said: “I’ve had messages from all over the world. People as far away as San Francisco saying they have been encouraged by the video, so that is to the glory of God."
Mr Walsh, from Hartcliffe, is well known in Bristol and the West Country as a street preacher.
He has been known to climb onto parked cars, post boxes and a step ladder in Morrisons to preach.
After being introduced to drugs at a young age, he turned to religion aged 34 and transformed his life.
“I was on drugs from the age of 11. It started off with cannabis and then ecstasy," he said.
“When I was 16 I tried cocaine, then I couldn’t stop doing this stuff.
“A lot of my friends were smoking crack and heroin at a very young age. I always said ‘I will never end up like them’ but my cocaine addiction got worse.
“One night, I was out drinking and sniffing cocaine and ended up in a crack den - the place I said I’ll never go.
"I always said I wouldn’t end up like them, but that’s exactly what happened. I ended up smoking a pipe and then couldn’t put that down for many years."
It was not until Mr Walsh was 34 that he stopped taking drugs and became a Christian in October 2016.
“Deep, deep inside I never wanted to do anything - no drugs, no drink - but I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t stop,” he said.
“It came to the point where it was making me depressed and suicidal, not wanting to live. I didn’t feel good when I took them anymore, I just lost the power of choice.
“The day came when I nearly took my own life and that was the day a friend put a message on Facebook.
"Now I know that God was putting his hand out and said ‘follow me'."
Mr Walsh said he attended a 12-step fellowship, and was baptised after a year of being clean from drugs.
He attended church and began his own ministry last November called Set Free.
The group, which meets every Tuesday evening, is taking off with a large group gathering to watch Sunday’s baptism.
“People have messaged me to say that we shouldn’t have done it there because rats live there," he said.
"But when we were kids we’d go swimming in the river at Saltford, and that wasn’t exactly great either.
"If we’d have gone swimming in the water there then people would have been laughing, but it was a serious thing, a baptism."
Sarah Classick, of Bristol City Council (BCC), said she had been calling on officers to improve the drainage at the roundabout for months.
The Lib Dem councillor added: “I've repeatedly asked BCC to clear that underpass including reporting to officers and asking at members' forum.
“It can't be the most sanitary place to hold a baptism."
