A Jon Post
Luis, father of 4 sits in my back yard reading a paperback New Testament. My children laugh, play, fight and scream nearby, all at once asking for independence and constant attention. My wife stands in the kitchen preparing a meal for our hungry children and her goofy, bearded husband. I’m sitting with my back against Casa Ahavá’s wall next to Luis, watching my daughters bounce from dog to toy to treehouse to slide to ground.
Smile
“What have you been reading in there, Luis?” I ask, trying to be as respectful as possible.
And a conversation centered around a scripture in the Epistle of First John begins.
The afternoon draws on, the mosquitos come out, the dusk draws the curtains of sunlight down and my kids have been called into the kitchen where my wife has finished dinner prep. God’s gift of abundant grace enables her to recognize the import and urgency of the moment and she selflessly gathers all four children to the dinner table, leaving Luis and me to watch the sun’s droopy eyes close over another day as we talk about the right to be called God’s children, not just His creation.
“What do you think it takes to be called God’s son, Luis?” I ask.
“I don’t know, Jon.”
So we talk more, the sun finally falls asleep and the stars wake up and still we talk.
Then a whispered prayer, an urgent voice, and a resounding chorus of angels rejoice as Luis and I look at each other. “You have the right to be called a son of God now, Luis.”
“Yes, brother Jon.” He replies, “Yes, I am God’s son now.”
Luis had a tumor pressing on his esophagus at the beginning of the year. He noticed the discomfort, went to a provincial hospital, had an x-ray, and a surgeon scheduled him for a surgery that was never explained to him nor was he asked if he’d like to proceed. He trusted the fledgling health system here in Mozambique and went under the knife.
4 months later I found myself sitting with the head oncologist who looked at Luis’ patient history and a current x-ray of his esophagus. The tumor, barely touched in the surgery, had grown and closed a badly mangled esophagus that had been stretched to (needlessly) bypass his stomach. In every sense of the phrase except literal, Luis had been butchered.
“This cannot be fixed, Jon”, said the oncologist. “We can only give so many chemotherapy treatments, but we can’t fix this.” He gestured in futility at the patient file on his desk.
Some weeks later, Luis and I talked about his prognosis. We used some awful words;
Terminal
Palliative
Cancer
Death
And we used some wonderful ones;
Care
Family
Hope
God
Life
Now Luis lives with a tube inserted into his upper intestine where he injects liquefied food with a large syringe in order to stay alive. He cannot swallow, he cannot go anywhere without a small tupperware container to put his saliva in, he never tastes food.
And I’ve never seen him go for 10 minutes without smiling.
You… Yes you, supporter/prayer-partner/curious reader… You would be so proud to see the way Luis cares for his roommate who is blind in one eye and in consistent pain. He cooks for him, cleans the room alone, holds his hand to walk him across a dangerous road, gently and graciously teaches him the game of checkers, and never once complains about his own pain or discomfort.
You… yes YOU, reading this right now… If you consider yourself a child of God… you can be extremely proud of your brother, Luis. He will probably make it home to his Father before you do, and you will probably not meet him until you get there too…
But be proud of your brother, Luis.
Sons of God