Author: Jon

Joy Crashing Into Grief

A Jon Post

Layne and I are in Maun, Botswana visiting good, good friends whom we used to minister with as missionaries from 2005 to 2007. Layne’s medical condition is still undiagnosed and when we spoke to the doctor in Windhoek, Namibia he said we are waiting for test results and biopsies results of some spots in her stomach found during her recent gastroscopy. Because Maun is about a day’s drive away we decided to spend the weekend here with friends. Maun is situated just south of the Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta in the world. It is a haven of African wildlife and has been a favorite camping spot of ours for years. We decided to spend two nights camping on our way to visit our friends here.

I was going to post the rest of this about our safari trip and about Mother’s Day. But we went to our old church here in Maun today and saw friends we’ve not seen in a long time. Today was going so well, we had an incredible camping experience, and God seemed to be smiling on everything I looked at.

Then I spoke with a friend that I’ve known here in Botswana for many years. I’ve kept in touch with him since I left, and he loves the Lord so much. He is an incredible doctor, husband, father. His wife just had a newborn baby girl.

And she isn’t well.

I wish you could see and share in the tears I have while writing this dear friends. My friend’s name is Enok and I could see the pain in his eyes as he spoke of seeing his little girl through the eyes of a doctor and knowing the gravity of her illness. I could hear the agony in his voice as he spoke of his wife’s wavering voice telling him to stop giving a doctor’s diagnosis and simply hope the hope of a father.

Sometimes my theology is of no comfort to me.

I know that God promises that He works for the good. I know that.

It doesn’t lessen the pain.

This little girl is suffering and her lungs are in danger of collapse. Please pray with us for her. Please join with us as we pray for little Tefile (pronounced Tehfeelay). Pray for Enok and his incredible wife Patience. They are an amazing family.

Sometimes, when life seems so good, when joy is found in every little thing, the gravity of this fallen world hits like a hammer.

I can wrap my arms and heart around my Savior, because I know he sits with me… with us and He cries too. He knows what it means to see the innocent suffer. He knows. And he cries with us.

Please pray for Enok, Patience, and especially Tefile.

We love you all.

You can read about our safari trip here.

May 10, 2010

Jon

Travel

4 comments

New page: Some of Our Stories

A Jon Post

Well, there isn’t much to say this week. We are still in Namibia, still seeing doctors and getting tests done to find out what is causing Layne’s stomach pain. We’ll know more on Thursday after a scheduled test to look inside Layne’s stomach. Please pray with us that all goes well and that a quick and easy course of treatment is available to get us past this thing.

Because we don’t have a huge post this week, we rolled out a new section of JonandLayne.com. The “Some of Our Stories” tab up on the top left is a place where we will be occasionally adding a specific story that doesn’t appear on the blog. It’s just a place where you can read some of the specific things that happen to us or that we do that may or may not really have much of a spiritual focus. We just want you to get a bit more of a glimpse into our lives here and some of the, at times crazy, at other times scary, at other times exciting, and all other manner of descriptive words.

So I’ve added the first two stories. They both took place while we were in Angola and we will keep throwing them up there occasionally.

Thanks for your prayers. We need them.

April 25, 2010

Jon

JonandLayne.com

3 comments

Sickness and Leaving

Layne with two young girls she's been discipling

Hello blogites,

Well… We’ve got some news. There are quite a few things happening in our near future and now’s the time to share it with you.

The first thing you should all know is that Layne is sick. About three weeks ago she woke up in the middle of the night with intense stomach pain and spent the rest of the night and morning in agonizing pain. We thought it might be a passing thing, prayed, hoped it wouldn’t happen again and waited. One and a half weeks later it happened again. We got a little worried, prayed, thought it might be a food she ate, and waited.
Six days later, two nights ago, it happened again, and it was worse. All night we stayed up, all night I prayed over my suffering wife, all night she waited for the knifelike pain to subside. It was anguish.
We have decided to seek medical help. Because the medical world in Angola is still recovering from the war, we are not confident that she can be helped here in Angola.
Tuesday morning we are driving to Namibia. Namibia has excellent healthcare and we are sure she can be diagnosed properly and treated. Please pray with us that it is smooth and quick.

The second thing you all should know is that we will not be returning to Angola in the near future. Despite the fact that we have felt for so long that God was moving on our hearts to come to Angola long-term, that has changed. Maybe God meant this short time was what He wanted. Maybe He means later in the future.
As we have been praying and seeking the Lord’s wisdom and direction for our future, we have taken the opportunity to look back at the things we felt the Lord initially put on our hearts since the beginning of our journey back to Africa, as well as the things He has pressed on our hearts since. After reviewing those things, and then feeling the peaceful and good moving hand of the Lord in our prayers, we have come to a decision.
For now we don’t know what/if our future is in Angola.
What we do know is that God has moved in us to go back to Mozambique.
Our time in Mozambique made a huge impact in our lives. We made fast friends with fellow missionaries that we respect and love, and we ministered alongside them in various ways and we are sure that God has said to go there and plant roots. We may uproot someday but for now, we have a peace from the Lord that He is putting us there to minister and love people well.

Friends, family… I know we ask often, and I know it gets repetitious… pray for us.

My Beautiful Wife

Pray for my wife… my beautiful… lovely… incredibly giving… passionate wife. Pray she is healed. She is sick and I can barely stand it. I love her so… Join me in prayer over her health.
Join us in this new vision. We will share more soon about what our heart is in Mozambique and how we are transitioning into ministry there.
Pray with us dear friends.
Have faith with us dear family.
These mountains don’t stand a chance. (Matthew 17:21)

Jon and Layne

April 11, 2010

Jon

Angola, Mozambique, Travel

12 comments

Courage, Pharisees, My Friend and My Bride

A Jon Post

I spent much of today thinking about what I wanted to post. I decided I’d just post a few things I’ve felt and written down recently. I’ve felt a little discouraged lately and I know missionaries are supposed to be perfect and awesome and not have any problems but this week I guess I wasn’t the great missionary that most people seem to think I usually am. Here are a few thoughts from the week. Feel free to read one at a time and come back to the others later. I’ve been loving the depth of the Hebrew language as I study the Bible lately and as a result I debated about it in my head for a bit tonight and decided to put the word “Selah” after each thought. No I don’t think I’m some kind of psalmist I just really like the meaning and depth of that word. After unloading a passionate thought when I put “Selah” after it I just feel like it caps it and proclaims that peace that is so present after expressing deep things. So there it is. Read on. This is what my life is like here some times.

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What does it take to find courage? I found it tonight in just singing a song of desperation. I sang and sang and sang and found courage in a thankful heart. I know it sounds cliché but it’s true. I found that lifeblood rhythm that God planted in everything while I was just singing a “thank you” to my Christ for His blood.

Selah

Pharisees… What a show… Men more interested in tithes and recognition than service. A man more interested in screaming his “sermon” than the truth of the Word of God. How did the Gospel get hijacked by these fools? How did the most beautiful, most honest, most caring, most loving, most gracious, most free, gentle Gospel get turned into a two hour pitch for a “donation” and a magic prayer that heals everything?
A day is coming… a day when these men… these men whom God has commanded to be the chief servants in the church, to live in abject SLAVERY to the body of Christ… these men who live as if the whole reason for the church is to bring honor, wealth, comfort, glory to THEMSELVES… these men will look for mountains to hide under to escape the wrath of a holy God.

Selah

My friend Lazaro, I really like him. I worked alongside him trying to keep up with his endless energy. His smile and laugh are pretty infectious. And he sings… oh friends he sings…
His language; N’kangela, his heart; praising his God, his African voice; lifted to heaven. It’s so natural to him. I really really like Lazaro. We joke, we work. And I’ve even gotten to study the Bible with him. He doesn’t have his own so he knows very little beyond what his pastor preaches on Sunday mornings. What an honor, to discover the Living Word of God with my friend. I really like Lazaro.

Selah

My wife
My princes, my bride. Nothing compares… nothing.
African sunsets, wind gently playing in the tall grass, rainbows of birds; bright and beautiful as they skirt the tips of the grass, a jeweled river; dazzling in its reflection of the sunrise as it cuts across the Angolan countryside…
All of this beauty… All of this… Nothing compares… Nothing.
“I have set her as a seal over my heart like a seal on my arm. For love, Ahava, love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns in me like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench Ahava, love.” Song of Solomon 8:6-7
My lover, my bride.

Selah

March 28, 2010

Jon

Angola, Personal

2 comments

It took two hours to upload this video

A Jon Post

So I live in Angola for now. I’ve started noticing differences in how I live as I move from place to place. You just start seeing things differently. I’m not talking about the big “Oh… I just appreciate things so much more now!!!” kind of ways of seeing things. Everyone likes to talk about those things and I think people aren’t as honest with themselves as they like to pretend when they say them. I really do like to eat good tasting things, I like comfortable couches, I like fast internet, I like nice clothes. Now, I’m willing to live without all of that but to try to convince everyone (including myself) that I really don’t want those things anymore is just a bit disingenuous I think.
No… I’m talking about the funny little ways you start seeing things differently.

Spider webs on my ceiling are very good things. They function as a natural mosquito net that catches the bugs that want to enter my house when the lights are on. “Plague” is a good word to describe what it starts to look like if you clean those spider webs out.
Snakes are friends around (though not in) the house. They keep the mice and rats away.
Soap is really an amazing thing. I can work hard hard hard all day and then run water over myself and rub myself with soap and the emotional, psychological, and physical difference is simply astonishing.
Cold drinks are to be savored.
People all over the world are really just after the same things. Culture changes how they pursue them but, in the end, we really are desperate, lonely, frightened creatures that long for love, belonging, and to be part of something greater than ourselves.

I wrote the following down earlier this week. I hope, I hope that I can learn from what happened and see Christ in a person sooner than I did in this story.

A man came early this morning. I wasn’t here and I was told he was belligerent, demanding, and even threatening. Being the only male on the property I gathered myself up for a fight and was ready in case he returned. Suddenly a shout came that he was returning. I puffed out my chest, spoke to myself of my strength and walked out to meet him before he could get all the way to the house.
“Good afternoon sir. How are you today?” I ask, trying to slow him down if, indeed, he is on some kind of warpath. I had been told he disagreed with this ministry’s ownership of the land and was ready to fight for a piece of it.
“Good afternoon,” came the reply, “My name is Isaac and I am the son of…” and he began listing his genealogy and where his father, grandfather, uncles, great-uncles are/were/have lived and why they have a right to be where they are. Placing himself in a long, great list of men who are proud to be a part of the land and the country of Angola.
I prepared myself to answer his dispute of the land, but as I listened… I realized my pre-conceived ideas of what he wanted were wrong. He began to tell me of how he is in the military and stationed far from here and before he left he built a small house just OFF of this ministry’s land. Leaving for a few years he has returned just for a week to see family and has found his house destroyed.
“Why” he pleads “have you destroyed my house when I saw your fence, I had permission from the state and I built on my OWN property?”
I am overwhelmed. Seeing from his point of view I nearly begin to weep for him. ”My friend Isaac,” I respond, “I hear you. I am so sorry. If I knew who had destroyed your house I would help you. I too am angry at what has happened. You are right, you are not on our property. If this had happened to me, I too would be angry and seeking to find out why it had happened. I am angry with you my friend. I see you well.”
“Jonathan my friend,” Isaac looked at me with sorrow, “I too am sorry. When I came earlier I thought people were telling me that I had no right to this land. I am sorry that I blamed you for this. I see that we have no problem with each other. My name is Isaac. I live just there,” he says pointing, “and you may ask me for anything you need in that neighborhood.”
“My name is Jonathan. Thank you for speaking with me today.”
A man came today. He looked ready to fight, but he simply wanted to be heard. He simply wanted to be loved.

Here was Christ. Here was a stranger that I am glad I was able to invite in and welcome and love (Matthew 25:35).

[flashvideo file=/blogpictures/house.flv /]

Layne took this short video and gives a brief tour of our house. I heard that there was some interest in seeing the inside of it so here you all go.

We love you all. Thanks for reading this long post.

March 14, 2010

Jon

Angola, Personal, Travel

16 comments