Hope in Haiti

Daily Devotional Bible Verse

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

Where we live in Haiti, we have three Mango trees on our property. My son devised a wonderful plan to put old fisherman nets around the base of the trees, supported by cuttings of branches. As the mangos ripen naturally on the tree in God’s good time, they fall out of the tree and land soft as a baby in our net. Every morning of the season, we wake up early and immediately go out into the yard to see the bounty we’ve harvested.

It’s like Easter Egg hunting, Haitian-style.

We eat our fill of Mangos, have them for breakfast, make juice, and even process and freeze down the concentrate for later in the year. But without fail, we find ourselves overstocked. We give them to our neighbors, then our neighbors’ neighbors. We send them off to the old village, and even the local pigs get their fair share. There are so many we can give them by the bucket.

That’s exactly what the Christian life should look like. We should be overflowing with so much mercy, grace, peace, love and joy, that we just have to give it away. And by the bucket! The fruit of the Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians should be more than we can carry.

If we’re really living in the promises of the Lord, we will be absolutely contagious, down-right infectious, to the point that we’re knocking on people’s doors, saying, “Hi, I’m sorry to bother – but would you like some Joy? Could you use a little Peace? We just have so much here, and we really don’t know what to do with it all. It’s too much!”

Do those around you see the fruit of Galatians 5:22-23 in your life?

Guest devotion by 
Dan Elliott. Dan is a missionary who sold everything, left America, and started Bibles For Haiti—an organization that does exactly what it sounds like. Learn more about Dan and Bibles For Haiti visit biblesforhaiti.org. This post is adapted from “Haiti Ever After,” the interactive online story of Bibles For Haiti. You can see more, here.