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 5:23 ESV

He has Risen and spring is in bloom. We celebrated Easter Sunday in April and for the first time, I truly understood the beauty of "God is for us". God calls us to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. We come to a realization of our own depravity, our sin. We turn from that depravity to God. We repent and come to faith. The celebration at Easter is more profound then at Christmas. At Christmas, we understand that "God is with us". At Easter, we know that He loves us through the death and resurrection of Christ.

And through the resurrection of Christ and his love, we are aware of how all things grow. I am focusing on the fruit of the Spirit in this post as the boys are growing in these areas in different ways.

Jordan has had some amazing movements into love, joy, and peace.

He is a beautifully emotional boy who cries easily when he does something wrong. Perhaps it is his age, but I see him full of love for his family. Every Sunday night he thanks God for his family and has at least one story about a sweet or great food that he enjoyed over the week.

He expresses his love for family and his delight and joy in friends, food, and family relationships. He smiles delightfully when he talks about his seatmate at school. I still receive sweet expressions of love every evening and morning from this dear child.

He is learning peace. We spend quite a bit of time learning Bible verses from Sunday School during the week. He does this with great enthusiasm most of the time. 

(Jordan being delightfully mischievous!)


Aidan has been working on patience, kindness, and goodness.

This child has an unending amount of patience. He endures teasing from his older brother, and encourages his younger brother to try things when scared.

His endurance for kindness can be seen in his aptitude for service. He enjoys helping around the house. This past Saturday, he did one of Justin's chores. He took out the wet garbage and washed the pail. He returned it to the kitchen perfectly clean and proceeded to show me.

​He also continues to work on goodness through the memorization of Bible verses. This seems to come easily to him and has resulted in fewer emotional outbursts. 

Justin has started high school; he is learning faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

This is the child who had incredible hills and valleys of learning in middle and elementary school. He seems to be getting a grip on faithfulness. He is starting to understand commitment and what Eugene Peterson coined as 'a long obedience in the same direction'.

Faithfulness is becoming a habit! He is learning to breakdown his learning into manageable chunks that are done little by little over a long period of time. He will say, "I am angry" when something happens that he doesn't like, but he does this in his gentle and funny ways. 

Self control is an thing that many adults still aspire to. A little over a month ago, Justin expressed to me that he wanted to be like Aquaman. He wants that actor's build and particularly the long hair. "I am going to get a flat stomach Mom! Then, I am going to work on a six-pack!" Well, he has the flat stomach, and is working on the six-pack.

The fruits of the spirit are about growing in Christ, and they reflect growth in personality. I'm excited to see what will happen with their lives as they grow into who they are in Christ. 

The fruit of the spirit are about growing in Christ, and they reflect growth in personality. I'm excited to see what will happen with their lives as they grow into who they are in Christ. 

We all grow in the fruit of the Spirit. We are saved by God and then we grow into who he calls us to be, but we all grow into love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Which of these virtues are you contemplating lately? 

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Just one more shot that happened this morning! Too good not to post!

In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8 
​

The month of May has more than few holidays here in Korea. Korea celebrates Children's Day and Buddha's Birthday as national holidays.  Buddha's birthday was the more eventful holiday.  We did not go to the temple and eat bibimbap. Instead, we packed up bathing suits and spent the afternoon at Daecheon Beach.

It was a slightly cloudy day, but that didn't stop the boys from having a great day. They helped set up the beach tent, listened carefully to instructions about what could and could not be put in the tent, and then ran into the water at full speed! Jordan, in particular had a great time dancing and singing to a song that he had in his head. Justin and Jordan enjoyed burying Aidan in the sand. We all played, took pictures, ate snacks, got too cold, wrapped ourselves in towels, and just had a fun afternoon.  It all ended a little about 3:30 when it started to drizzle and Dad decided it was time to go home.  

One of my favorite moments was coming home. Justin, true to form, fell asleep in the backseat. He does this quite often right after we have done something really active!

Justin in many ways is a typical teenager.  He is phone obsessed, calls me "momma", and cracks jokes whenever he has an opportunity. The other day I had the pleasure of taking the boy shopping in Homeplus. What a riot that was! I don't think I had taken him with me since elementary school, and he was like a kid in a candy store looking at things, asking questions, and trying to get me to buy stuff for him. The highlight was looking at dustbusters. He thought he needed one just for his room! (I have a hard time just getting the child to pick up the garbage that seems to scatter all the floor.)

Jordan continues to fluctuate between wanting to be a big boy and being a baby. The baby action at the moment is to touch people, declare them "soft", and then run away giggling. The big boy action is to play dakjee with big brother Aidan and other friends in the playground. For those of you who are curious, dakjee are plastic discs in varied forms that the children slam onto the ground in an attempt to get them to jump or bounce. If you can make another kid's dakjee bounce or jump, you get to keep that dakjee. They get quite skilled at this too. 

Aidan continues to be the kids with plans in his head. He is always thinking about the best way to do something. The latest decision is to get up earlier than Justin and have a shower.  I guess waiting to use the bathroom is just too hard when you are nine years old.  He is learning patience. And patience is something we all should learn.  We all need it.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2

There is nothing quite like family living to show you just how impatient you really are!

Beach Update: We will be having another beach day because of some Wednesday’s off in June! Looking forward to it!

The cherry blossoms were out in all their spring glory less than two weeks ago!  We were all went outside and enjoyed the glorious weather and walked along the path beside the river underneath the cherry blossom trees!

Did you see the eggs?  The kids had a great time at church Easter egg hunting and I had a fabulous time watching it all.  Jordan thought this was a blast and Aidan was sorry he missed it!  He was in Mongolia with his Daddy having a good time as you can see in the following shots...

We will end this pictoral essay on April with a few shots of Justin who wins on making smart comments this month.  Yesterday I asked where he had been because he didn't come home until close to 6 pm.  He answered, "Teenage boys need snacks!  Need snacks very much!  I went with other teenage boys to eat noodles! Teenage boys need snacks!"

​What a kid!