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Author: Jon

One Year Ago Today

A Jon Post

One year in Africa. A month in Botswana, two months in Mozambique, two months in Angola, one month in Namibia and finally, 6 more months in Mozambique. Twelve months in Africa.
And today, one year in, a painful reminder of the reason we are here.
Today, Oombi died. The three-year-old son of my good friend Albano entered the hospital 10 months ago with a cancerous tumor in his eye. Albano brought his son to the Maputo Central Hospital and lived with him, slept in the same bed, spent every long day caring for his son and waiting to take him home. He goes home on Wednesday in a casket.
We knew and loved Oombi. We visited him and his father. Over the last 6 months I’ve sat countless times with Albano, praying over his sick boy, waiting on the hand of our Lord. I’ve studied the Bible with Albano while he held his tired son in his lap. And I’ve smiled and held Oombi as he toddled over to me with a shy smile.
This is our ministry.
One year in.
We have a vision. It’s not huge for now. It’s not to reach hundreds at a time. It’s to see the one. To love the one. To bring a smile to the one.
One at a time.
Our vision is to use the house the Lord has blessed us with as a place of hope. A place of love.
We’ll call it Casa Ahava. Casa simply means house or home in Portuguese and Ahava is a Hebrew word for love. It’s used in the Song of Solomon 8:7 when speaking of a love that cannot be washed away or quenched by a torrent of water. A love that sees all the depth of suffering and pain that will come as a result of choosing to love and yet chooses anyway. Ahava sees pain and misery and chooses to love.
Casa Ahava will see pain and loneliness and offer hope and rest.
One at a time.
This is our ministry. This is our vision.
November 8, 2010
Hospital Ministry, Mozambique
5 comments

Silence of God

A Jon Post

There’s a moment. I don’t really know how to describe it. It comes after a prayer, a Bible study, a tear, or a simple breaking of the soul.
It’s the silence of God.
I’ve prayed and cried with a man who holds his dying son in his arms and looks at me and asks me what he should do. He has just heard from his wife that another of his children in his distant home is in the hospital. “What should I do Jon? I can’t go home and leave my son here at the hospital, and my wife cannot watch over my other children while one is in the hospital. What should I do?”
So we pray and cry and wait.
And we’re answered by the silence of God.
See it’s easy to walk into a place of suffering with stories of overcoming obstacles, deliverance, and God’s goodness in times of trouble. But how am I supposed to look into the one good eye of a boy who is about to return home with a tumor hanging over his other eye because the one hospital in the country with chemotherapy is out of its chemotherapy treatment. What do I say to this boy of hope?
And the silence of God hangs thick and it nearly freezes the tears to our cheeks.
Andrew Peterson, a singer/songwriter said this:

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone
And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

I think Jesus knows what the Silence of God feels like. I think He’s intimately acquainted with the torture of the soul that comes with a desperate prayer and the inky blackness that drapes over the heart in response.
I think Jesus hasn’t forgotten the sorrow that Albano, Marçelino and Rosina carry.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(Isaiah 53:3)
Wow… a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
See, I may not understand what my friends in oncology go through. I may not be able to wrap my mind around the intensity of the pain that they experience every day, hour, and ticking second in their beds.
But the man of sorrows does. He does. He’s familiar with their suffering.
What other God could I turn to than this? What other God answers sorrow and suffering, not by waving a magic wand and making us all smile and making it all go away… but by joining us in it.
Christ Jesus… the man of sorrows. He knows deeply the silence of God.

October 24, 2010
Hospital Ministry
8 comments

Our Lives

A (long and maybe boring) Jon Post

Life is hard to understand sometimes. It’s also hard to do sometimes.

Thinking about life with my dog

Thinking about life with my dog

Gasher agrees "Life is hard but fun"

Gasher agrees "Life is hard but fun"

Layne and I are in Botswana right now as this is posted. We own a vehicle from when we lived in Botswana (for those of you who tracked with us back in November of last year we bought one there to replace a vandalized/ruined one we owned previously) and dearly wish to keep it. I was speaking to Layne about “dream cars” for our current life here in Maputo and, honestly, I wouldn’t pick anything different than the Land Cruiser we own. It’s an amazing vehicle and has taken us across the continent of Africa 3 times and seems ready to do it a hundred more.

Working on my dream car

Working on my dream car

Well, to keep it here in Mozambique it turns out there are some papers and costs.
We need a “Police Clearance Letter”, essentially saying that we own it free and clear and didn’t steal it from anyone. This letter must come from Botswana and the vehicle must be there in order for it to be issued. Hence, we find ourselves driving 13 hours across the continent (again), simply to pick up a letter.

And we need to come up with some money. We’re not sure how much at this point (we need to get the afore mentioned letter to start the process and find out) but it looks to be anywhere from $1800 – $3500. No… we’re not trying to raise this money here and now on this blog (though we may later, heck… it’s a lot of money), I just mention it because it’s there and it’s on my heart and I like sharing what’s on my heart here with you.

On my heart… I don’t know if I communicate it all that well at times. With a daughter coming and an incredible wife I often find myself a bit preoccupied with thoughts of them and their safety.
Pray with me please. Pray with me that God grants them safety.

I heard a song a couple weeks ago by a desperate husband and father who simply wants to do both of those jobs well. He sings of his wife and children calling out to him and at times I can hear and see the same thing in mine.
Lead me with strong hands.
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love…
Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life

And his/my response is simply to cry out to Christ

My beautiful wife loves me so well

My beautiful wife loves me so well

Lead me
To lead her, with strong hands.
To stand up when she can’t
I don’t want to leave her hungry for love…
I’ll show her I’m willing to fight
That she’ll always be the love of my life
So lead me, because I can’t do this alone.

I want so badly to lead, provide for, cover over, and protect my wife and child. Pray with me please.

Me and my Angel

Me and my Angel

October 3, 2010
Mozambique, Personal
8 comments

My Little Girl

A Jon Post

We’re having a little girl.
I get to be a daddy to a little girl.

Anaya Hosanna Heller will be here some time near the middle of February.

Over the next 20+ years I’ll learn what it means to raise a princess.
I’ll try to show her how a husband loves his wife. I’ll teach her how to drive stick shift. I’ll try to demonstrate humility. I’ll show her how to swim. I’ll teach her to clothe herself in strength and dignity and laugh at the days to come (Proverbs 31:25). I’ll teach her how to ride a bike. I’ll show her how to open her arms to the needy and extend her hands to the poor (Proverbs 31:20). I’ll teach her to climb cliffs and find hand and footholds where ascent over the crux seems impossible. I’ll hold her hand and dry her tears and pray away fevers and kiss away fear and drive out rebellion and usher in truth and shoo away ghosts and beasts that come in the night and I’ll love and care and hug.

My little girl.

Anaya (Look up to God) Hosanna (and SHOUT with praise)…

You’ll bring forth poetry, and song, and dance.

You’re little hands, wrought by tender scarred ones, will show love and comfort and gentleness.

You’re little feet, dancing in the footsteps of those of us who go before you, and standing on the shoulders of those of us who stand beneath you.

Look my little one… Look little Anaya.
Look at your mother and her compassion for the lost. Look at her loving submission to her husband and her firm wisdom and her ready smile. Look at her patience and her grace. See how she clothes herself in her gentle, quiet spirit (1 Peter 3:4), how she prays and fasts and buries heart in the depths of her Lord.

And look at your savior.
Little Anaya, look to the cross. Look to the one whose blood stained the ground and in whose grace and mercy we are purchased. Look to the cross my dear Anaya.

Oh, Lord Christ, save my daughter. In your mercy and compassion look past the sin that she is born into, that I pass on to her in my fallen flesh. Chose her for eternity, Jesus, and breathe life into a dead spirit. Save my daughter. Save her please. Have mercy on her. Don’t let her go into the night, don’t leave her in sin’s darkness, don’t let her pass into that shadow. Call her out into your marvelous light. Save my daughter, Lord Jesus. Oh… save my daughter, Lord Jesus.

I get to be a daddy to a little girl.

September 19, 2010
Personal
9 comments
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