It’s good to be back in Santa Rosa Beach and at Good News. Last week was filled with hard work, interaction with our work team, new relationships with people from other churches and some quite time with God. As we did our daily tasks our work team participated with each of you in Faith Quest as we read and processed our daily devotionals. It was a good week, but being home with Lee and my church family has been wonderful.

Our faith quest continues with final preparations for the trip. We learned Sunday that we seek confidence in the unseen but real provision of God. Hebrews 11 calls this faith. The book of Hebrews even says that because Christ has gone before us and prepared the way to the very throne of God, we can confidently approach the “throne of grace … so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” [Hebrews 4:16].

Now that we know we seek faith for our journey that we can share with others, what do we need to take with us? Every successful journey requires that we prepare by packing provisions. For this journey I am suggesting we pack some fruit. Fruit, like bananas, pears and apples, is good for us and is filled with nutrients. But the fruit I am asking you to pack is another kind of fruit. The Bible calls this fruit the “fruits of the Spirit.” 2 Peter 1 tells us that this fruit includes faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, Godliness, kindness and mercy.

Notice that these things are all positive. They are all virtues that we should strive toward every day. They are all fruit that provided for us on our journey last week in Kentucky.

Many people go on a mission project to build a room addition for a poor family thinking that the room addition is the goal. It is not. Our first goal is to show, by our faith, goodness, etc., that God is alive in us and flowing through us to those that we serve in His name.

In short, you are what you eat. If these virtues are to be expressed they won’t be “sold” by our words. For the poor in the Kentucky mountains, our love and our “fruit” is expressed by how we treat them and how we treat one another. When we solve the daily issues of a complex project with God’s grace, they get it loud and clear. When we express the joy if the Lord in our smiles and our love for their children, they get it. When we pray with them for God’s will and provision, they are invited into God’s presence. They see a God who loves them and cares for them. For it is our hands and feet that tell the “old, old story of Jesus and His love.”

Thanks for your prayers for our mission team. May our quest be filled with the God of grace and the fruit of God’s Spirit!

In Christ’s Love, Randy