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Monthly Archives: November 2011

Casa Ahava

A Jon Post

So we’re still here in Arizona. Sorry I’m a week late on this post. It feels like we’ve been busy but we’ve had an amazing time catching up with so many Godly men and women.

In sitting down with many of you, we’ve spoken about our future plans and what we would like to do in our ministry. We’ve tried to answer your many questions about what we do and what we hope to do.

As I listened to the questions that have been asked, I realized that I’ve not done a good job in communicating our heart and plans for Casa Ahava, what that means, where we are in the idea and what it holds. I hope this post makes that clear to those of you we haven’t had the chance to sit down with yet.

In our work in the hospital in Maputo, we focus on spending extended one-on-one time with people who have no one else. We try to give hope, life, a smile, and Christ in a place where pain, loneliness and death so often have victory. Our home has an extension behind it where there are two humble bedrooms joined by a bathroom in the middle with a storage/laundry area behind them. When we moved in to this home in June of this year we dreamed of renovating them, painting and furnishing them and offering them to friends at the hospital who would otherwise live in a single bed in a cold crowded room. The rooms began as water-damaged, surrounded by peeling paint, and covered in dirt. Just before we moved in a small team came to visit us. They caught the vision we had to create something beautiful. They worked tirelessly and where they left off I continued the job. At the end of October, two days before we left for America, we finished the renovations/painting/furnishing. I was even able to convert the small laundry/storage area into a kitchenette where guests can make their favorite food.

We are ready.

When we arrive back in Maputo in January we are eager to begin offering the space we have to people who need it much more than we do, pending hospital approval.

Below are some pictures of the work that was done. Just click on the pictures to advance inside the gallery. If you have any questions about this project, it’s funding, or really anything we do or hope to do I’d love it if you would leave that question in the comments. I will answer them the next time I post.

Before

TCF Team Working

Jon Working

Casa Ahava

Not my home

A Layne Post

So here we are, settling in. Driving no longer feels so foreign. I am loosing the urge to honk at everyone. I’ve stopped admiring fancy toilets and thick heavy mirrors. Incredibly nice customer service is no longer shocking, and I’ve lost my urge to grab and hug the necks of strangers for being so friendly. I do not have the desire to shovel every single food item on the grocery isle into my mouth at the same time.

It is such a blessing to have family and friends that we can pick up with as if no time has lapsed at all. There are not awkward silences, or wishing we could slip away. It has been heartwarming and encouraging to be so surrounded by love.

We are happy to be here.

I can say; however, while life seems a bit easier, or perhaps more convenient here, I wouldn’t want to live here. I’ve really thought about it this week, as I’ve struggled through funny emotions, finding it strange that this was ever “norm” for us. It is comforting that the Lord has grown in Jon and I a deep love for Africa, and now specifically Mozambique. I miss it. How hard it would be to feel like our service to the Lord was only obedience. I’m not sure I could leave all this that I once held dear. Instead God has blessed us with a ministry we love, in a place we’ve grown to love, surrounded by dear friends and fellow laborers we love.

So here I am, in my common predicament, torn by the ones we love. Happy to be here, missing people there. I guess we’ll never all be on the same continent.

I’m ever reminded this world is not our home.

America

A Jon Post

We are here… America of old and of new. To us this country is both familiar and foreign in equally comforting and disorienting/confusing parts.

Hugs, smiles, cultures that we know and love well. Huge and blemish-free fruits, pre-packaged foods, restaurant meals that could last me for all three daily meals, and cars that drive on the wrong side of the road.

We are here.

We left Maputo, home, friends, dog, and ministry at 5:30 PM on Tuesday and got here in Arizona 27 hours later. We hope you all know how thankful we are to those of you who prayed for our journey. We are so so so so so thankful. God blessed us with extra seats on all three of our connections and Anaya had plenty of room to nap, play and just be an incredible girl for 27 exhausting hours. Layne and I slept very little but that lack of sleep was made so much easier to handle by the fact that Anaya was a dream.

We arrived in the airport terminal and were greeted by many more friends and family than we had expected. What a blessing it is to be surrounded by men and women who love God and who love us.

Anaya wore a little onesie that Layne stitched especially for that greeting. “Big Sister.”

Yes, Anaya is going to be a big sister in (probably) June of 2012.

Layne is pregnant.

We will be here in Arizona until December 7th and we will fly toCorpus Christi,TX after that.

Please don’t forget to pray for us and, more importantly, please join us in prayer for the many friends, men, women and children in the hospital whom we miss dearly.