The fruit of the Spirit

"But the fruit of the Spirit is

love, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness

gentleness and self-control"

Galatians 5:22-23

The fruit of the Spirit is very important in a Christian's life. It is a display of the work of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's life. The of the Spirit demonstrates that we have accepted God into our lives and have a relationship with him. Which was only made possible through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit make it clear to others that we are Christians.

We often fail in displaying the fruit of the Spirit but stays with us even when we fall into sin. 

I want to reflect on each of the fruit of the Spirit. 

Love: Love is mentioned so many times in the Bible. We are commanded to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. It is important that we develop an intimate relationship with God and also show Christ's love to all man kind. 

Peace: We serve a God of peace, a God of Shalom. If we are filled with peace it should flow through all areas of our lives, what we do, our outlook on life, and how we treat others. Peace can also help us in times of suffering and struggling. 

Patience: When we are patient we are able to wait calmly and wait upon God's will for us. A patient person is willing to respond when and how the Lord desires. Sometimes it is after a time of patient prayer and waiting that we are able to discern but is best for ourselves and others. 

Kindness: Kindness really flows out of the love of others. It is when we become involved in meeting each others needs. Kindness is willingly and freely helping those who need a helping hand.

Goodness: Goodness is the desire to do what is right and just. Goodness also helps us with our natural desire to hurt those who hurt us and gives us the ability to forgive. 

Faithfulness: This is what inspires us to trust God even when we feel like he has abandoned us. 

Gentleness: Gentle people are careful not to hurt others, they respect other people opinion and beliefs and promote dialogue  without patronizing the other person.

Self-control: This is very important for the christian life. It helps us to set up boundaries and stay away from temptation. It helps us to fulfill our desires in the appropriate time and place. Self-control is something that can greatly aid us with temptation and not falling into sin. A person with self-control experience immense joy and happiness in fulfilling their desires because they are filling them in line with God's will. 

As a team it will be important for us to remember to display the fruit of the Spirit to each other even when we are tired and we don't want to show any love to each other. We also need to show the fruit to the Spirit to those we are serving. It is important for people to be able to see the Spirit working in us.  

Cameroon on youtube

So I was home for some of the week I decided to check out videos of Cameroon on youtube 

Here are som good ones that I found

This one of a photo montage of a 

group that climbed Mt. Cameroon

in the description of the video they 

also have some info on how the 

climb went for them

This is a video of dancing in

Oku Cameroon which I thought

was pretty cool since that is 

where we are going

The beginning and end of the video

just have shoots from a really bad

road in Cameroon. But in the middle

there is some footage of a JuJu 

ceremony that was really interesting

 Well those are some of the videos I found. I hope you enjoy them.

This makes me so excited to go to Cameroon!

45 days!!

Unrest in North Africa

So as many of you may have heard there has been unrest in many countries in North Africa. Cameroon isn't really considered North Africa is more West Africa but it is near enough to countries that are going through unrest that they too might be effected. So I decided to do some research. I came across this article that adresses issues with possible protests against the current president. You can read read the article Here. 
Please be praying for safety in Cameroon.

Awesome God

I was planning on writing something about lent and surrendering idols in our lives to God this week. But when I went to my Bible study tonight God really just like hit me on the head. (And to think I was so close to not going this week) 
We have been going through the Truth Project with some people at my church and tonight in the lesson there was this video. 
A managed to find it on youtube, for those of you who aren't at Heritage and can stream video.

I was just completely blow away. This video almost had me in tears. What really hit me was just how amazing God truly is, the world is so beautiful when I look at nature I just can't get over how breath taking it is and God CREATED this world and everything in it. But not only that God also created ME. The Bible says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But not only did God create me He also sent His one and only son to save me. God is so great and I am so little I don't deserve to be saved yet I am. I don't deserve to have a relationship with God yet He not only wants to have a relationship with me he desires to have a relationship with me. 
Our God is truly an awesome God.

Oku

I posted before that the team was going to split in two and work in two different language groups. That has now changed and the whole team is going to stay together and work in the Oku language group.
Location: North West of Cameroon
Jesus Film: Not available 
Population: Over 80,000
Villages: Over thirty-three 
Agriculture: corn, Irish potatoes, beans, plantains, and cash crops like coffee and cola nuts 

Lake Oku

Praying the Psalms

Lately I have been going through some hard stuff. I was just really in need of comfort, so I asked my R.A. what I should do. Her reply was "read Psalms". So I decided to follow her advice.
Sometimes it just feels wrong to me to cry out to God when I am in pain. But when I read the Psalms I see that they are filled with David crying out to God. 

"Listen to my cry 

For help"

Psalm 5:2

This really just blew me away. This really just became my prayer, I have never felt such a close connection to the Psalms before, it was almost as if these words had become my own.

"My soul is in anguish

How long, O Lord, how long?

Psalm 6:3

It has just really amazed me that can read through the Psalms and be praying with them. It is just such an incredible thing that there are words in the Bible expressing how I feel. The Bible really is God's gift to us. No matter how we feel there are words for us in the Bible. 

This has really impacted how I pray, now I when I go to pray I will open my Bible to the Psalms and I will read the Psalms and highlight what really stick out to me and pray those words. I am so thankful to God for the comfort this gives me He is such a glorious God. 

I know I can trust God to take care of even in this time of hardship.