Galatians 5:22-23
“The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things there is no law.” I love that this part of the Bible is called “keep in step with the spirit”!
Remain in me, and you will bear much fruit. YOU WILL. God didn’t say maybe; He said that if we remain in him, we will bear fruit- much fruit!
As we started teaching English camp today to local Dominican kids in Moca, I am blown away by God continuing on the theme of fruit in my life! The theme of the camp is the fruits of the spirit! Can you imagine my joy as I get to plan and teach all about what God has taught me about fruit!? We have a choreographed dance, verse, and of course… GAMES! I’m so, SO breath taken that God established this long before all he showed me this past semester about bearing good fruit! To have an opportunity to share that all with these people here in the Dominican- I am speechlessly thankful for Gods faithfulness!!
In our new location, Moca, we seem to have nothing around us except wifi which has been a huge treat. When we found out about the change of plans a few days back, I was really sad and confused. “God, I have so much to offer to the feeding program in Sin Fuego! Why are you pulling me off to isolated Mocha where besides the English camp, all we have to help with is construction of a house?!”
Our team quickly became aware of how God is pulling us each out of areas we felt equipped and strong in, and having us rely on Him completely in a place where we all feel inadequate. No one here speaks English, so they needed Ashley from our team to come as a translator. Ashley translated all last week at the teen camp, and is exhausted. But even in the first day, to watch how God has used Ashley’s voice, Andrew and Jacies insane ability to teach, Kayla’s lighthearted joy, Troys teachings through devo, Miranda’s stable mother hen spirit, and my hmmm dancing and games (? :p) to love the kids at this camp has been awesome! And definitely ALL The Lord just shining through what we thought were holes in us.
Our home here is open walled and made of concrete center blocks. Our own little concrete jungle. This house is a perfect picture of what God is showing me. That even with concrete walls all around us, the house is completely open. That when we put up walls of concrete thinking we are blocking people out, we really aren’t- there’s no doors on the door ways. There’s no shutters on the windows. It’s all open, as it should be, regardless of the concrete surrounding us! Something I’m quickly coming to love about this culture is how friendly they are! It’s so different from American culture. During our few hour break mid-day, Jacie and I were hammocking in our “living room”/porch and we were quickly surrounded by a handful of small kids and some of the older ones as well! They just followed us off to the house and crawled in our hammocks with us! It seems annoying at first, but we quickly realized that in the American culture it is so easy to be naturally isolated and defensive! We tend to tell ourselves that we don’t need anyone. That we’d rather be alone. That people need to mind their own business and let us do our own thing. But I’ve grown so curious- why?
In cultures like this- what’s mine is yours. Including space. Everyone is welcoming and therefore wants you to feel loved and NEVER will they let you feel alone. But this is exactly how Jesus is! We may even find it annoying at first, when He speaks to us, guides us, and tries to help us and spend time with us. But the thing is- He knows. He knows we need him, need direction, need help and don’t actually want to be alone. And our pride doesn’t distract Him just like it doesn’t distract the Dominican people! He approaches us anyway; He pursues us anyway.
That is the hope I want to bring to others! That the God who created us, pursues each of our hearts. Every set of eyes I look into, I want my love to scream to them in their language that this is true. Because like Galatians 5:13 says, we were called to freedom! Not as an opportunity for the flesh, but to serve one another through love! What a beautiful freedom we are offered 🙂
I thought it would be cool to do a high and low of each week, so here is for last week!
High and low of Lajas the first week:
Low- hand washing the same clothes three times in a row because I packed them wet, then washed them with chlorine instead of detergent.
High- planting the avocado seeds from home with Margarita, and walking through her fruit orchard with her!
