Author: Jon

Things I am Praying for in April

A Jon Post

These are the things I’ve found myself praying for this month:

Trust

That my faith would grow as strong as my obedience and that my obedience would grow as strong as my faith.

That Casa Ahavá’s ministry leader would teach me to follow Him closely and that I would never think I’m leading it.

Brave

That Anaya would always trust her daddy.

That I would always look to be the servant of society, not its leader.

That Jovie would be brave.

That my beard would look good with a little grey in it.

That my knees and back would hold out a few more years.

That Christy would remember her husband well and that her children would find their heavenly daddy while they miss their earthly one.

Mending

That my gratitude would always come before God’s provision for my family and my patients.

That Layne would always melt when I hold her

That my dog would stop making such a mess.

That I Anita’s broken heart would mend.

Pirates

That my hands would stay strong enough to catch my daughters when they fall, soft enough to hold my wife when she’s weak, skilled enough to make nice things for my patients and tender enough to hold theirs when they are sick.

That my kids would be able to memorize and sing the pirate song with me that Tigger sings in Winnie the Pooh… “IIIIIIII love to live the piraty life, sailing the seventy seas…”

That I may continue to learn about self-sacrifice and servanthood from the way Layne serves me, my kids and my patients.

Teaching

That we would keep getting to know Anita and Inês as they continue to know and trust us and our family.

That Layne would always believe how much she captures me.

Strong

That Karasi would be strong.

That Christ would redeem and have mercy.

That I could learn from Inês’s years and scars.

That my children would not grow so used to death that they don’t mourn those who die and that they would not be so broken by it that they cannot find wholeness.

Scars

That Layne’s eyes always find mine.

That no one in our home would be afraid to live or scared to die.

Melt

April 12, 2014

Jon

Around the house, Casa Ahava, The Kids

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Come Meet Filomena

A Jon Post

Here is the video interview we did with Filomena while she lived here with us at Casa Ahavá. Please take the time to watch it and remember her with us. If you do not have the whole 10 minutes, I hope you have time to go to the 6 minute mark and watch until 8 minutes and hear how much she loves her family and what God has taught her in her sickness.

March 16, 2014

Jon

Casa Ahava

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Pausing for a Breath

A Jon Post

Casa Ahavá’s first patient has left.
Zakarias arrived for the first time in April of last year. He spent 6 months in Casa Ahavá and then returned to his home in Beira. As many of you have read here and here, he came back in January and spent another month in Casa Ahavá with his wife and daughter.
After meeting with his oncologist, we received a final, though not unexpected, response from the oncology ward.
His cancer is untreatable.
Terminal.
Fatal.
So he went home.
We spent many of those days while he was here in January and February talking about how he could prepare his life for its end. We visited multiple government offices to arrange for his veteran’s pension and social security payments to continue to support his young wife and children.
And he went home.
A wonderful doctor in the hospital’s pain management unit prescribed some medicine that has helped him tremendously. His pain levels are much decreased and his sleep time is much more peaceful.
So grows his cancer.
So creeps towards its glory, the spirit of Papa Zakarias.
Upon arriving home, he promptly sent someone to find out information on Filomena. As we mentioned here, we have been unable to contact her.
A neighbor had the news.
She died. Two weeks ago.

Goodbye Sister

So arrived into glory the spirit of dear, sweet, Filomena.
When I heard the news all I could remember was the night I held her trembling body in my arms and willed oxygen into her fluid-filled lungs.
For this, Lord? For this? You saved her that night… for this?
Though I know the answers to the questions and the pain that flooded my heart, when I heard of Filomena’s death, those answers brought little comfort. They brought little relief from the weariness that threatened to overwhelm my spirit.
So entered glory, the spirit of Filomena.
Casa Ahavá; Home of a love that chose pain before ease. Home of a love that chooses flood waters before abandonment.
Now Casa Ahavá welcomes her next love. Now she offers her bed and arms to her next friend.
Dear Tia Anita was all packed and ready to come to Casa Ahavá on Friday, February 21st but paperwork and slow processes turned that into Tuesday afternoon, the 25th. Having spent the last 5 months away from her family and faced with the prospect of the next 2-3 with us, her stand-in family, we made the decision to send her to her home town for two weeks to see her daughters and grandchild before her next treatment. She will be back to stay with us next week on the 11th.
So now we pause. Now we try to breath. Now we remember the Sabbath that our Lord made holy, and we try to keep it holy.

I think God thought up camping/rock climbing for just such a time.

Thanks for praying for us, Zakarias, and for Filomena. It is known and it helps.

March 4, 2014

Jon

Casa Ahava, Rock Climbing

6 comments

This is All We’ve Got Right Now

A Jon Post

I’ve been trying to write this for a while now. I hate it. I’ve started a few times and keep ending up feeling like I’m forcing something out and trying to do a nice mix of emotion, encouragement, spirituality, faith, and all the other nouns or adjective-nouns that are used to describe what we do/write.

I can’t do that right now.

So here you go:

Eliza died last month. Her tumor grew so big it shut her throat and she couldn’t eat or speak. She died in pan. We couldn’t be there.

Filomena is suffering immense pain, her weight has dropped dangerously low, and her phone number, our only way to communicate with her stopped working. A neighbor in her town far to the northern part of this country tells us she’s been admitted to the hospital there and is dying.

Zakarias came to live with us along with his wife and two year old child. I’ve had many conversations with him since he arrived last Tuesday about his health. He’s dying. He only came back because the pain was too intense and there was no way to get any medicine to control it so he came here. We are trying to help him.

We’re finding moderate success.

He’s dying.

Dosma at the Beach

Two weeks ago a young man named Dosma, an 18 year old boy who had come back to the hospital from his village of Calimane, died. I had known him almost two years. About a year and a half ago I took him to the beach and the little shopping mall that’s near the beach. We spent the afternoon talking and thinking about home, the farm, school, his first girlfriend, his mother, my money, his desire to be rich, his need for Christ.

He died two weeks ago.

This has been a tough start to 2014.

Pray for us.

January 20, 2014

Jon

Casa Ahava, Hospital Ministry, Things we're dealing with

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Snapshots

A Jon Post

Following are a few snapshots of our lives over the last 2 months from a family that did a pretty poor job of communicating with all of you about where we are/what we’re doing. If you don’t have time to read it all please just skip to the end where I list a couple prayer requests.

#1 Week of September 22-28
A mad scramble to figure out if we would be able to get 2 our patients home, to the hospital, or to life-extending treatment in South Africa before we left. A mad scramble to find out if one of our patient’s tumor was operable or he needed to go home, and a bus ticket to send another one home who had finished her treatment and needed to spend her remaining days/months with her family.

Family minus Filomena

Zakarias, the surgeon didn’t respond before we left, we did not know if his tumor was operable, he stayed in our house.
Tomás and Eliza, the day we left for the USA (September 24th) we were up first thing in the morning to buy last minute bus tickets to send them to South Africa for more treatment.

Filomena The Day She Left

Filomena, we purchased a bus ticket and sent her home a few days before we left for the USA to make sure she was with her family after she was discharged with no more options to fight her cancer.
September 24th, we left our house at 11 AM and arrived at Layne’s parents house 40 hours later with all three girls in tow. Thankfully we had the gracious help of Jon’s parents who came to visit us and joined us in our long journey to the USA and helped tremendously on the plane.

(whew, that was a long first snapshot but we did a really bad job of telling everyone who reads this blog that any of that stuff happened before we left)

Jovie Meeting the Dolphins

Anaya Running with Dolphins

#2 Time in Corpus Christi, TX
The Texas State Aquarium with our girls. Grandparents helping them swim and play, as well as cousin time. Sitting with sweet, sweet supporters. Trying to recover from the jetlag and help our girls sleep in new places with new surroundings.

#3 October 30th More Travel
Flight from Corpus Christ to Phoenix. Left Layne’s parents place at 8 and arrived at Jon’s brother’s house 7 hours later. This was our first plane travel with our three girls alone. They are super stars.

Layne and Her Dad

#4 More Family Adjustments
Man… it’s hard doing this furlough thing with 3 little children. We could not ask them to be better sports through all of this but a new bedroom for a month, a new bed for a month, different living space for a month, meeting lots of people (supporters) for the first time on an almost daily basis. Well… it’s tough. Our girls are super stars.

#5 Time in Chandler, AZ

At Uncle Joe’s Duck Pond

Seeing more sweet, sweet supporters. Time with other Grandparents. Time with LOTS of cousins, girls napping in the car a lot.
So there are a few, far from comprehensive or descriptive, snapshots of our lives since September. We are currently in Chandler, Arizona in the USA trying to connect with those who pray for us and give to this ministry. We have been trying to sit down with each of you and we still have a little under two weeks to do that. We are very sorry that we haven’t pursued you and communicated with you all well enough to do that “sit down” better. We are finding out that we need to be more diligent with some things and one is our personal and purposeful communication with team mates.

They See Us Strollin…

Anaya Loves Karasi

In closing this little “snapshot” post. Can we ask you to pray for two things?
Would you pray that our children’s health improves? I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have American immunities built up or if it’s just a bug they would have picked up either way but all three, Anaya, Jovie, and Karasi have bad coughs and are very congested. It’s hard for them to rest and, thus, hard for their parents, especially Layne who still feeds and comforts Karasi in the night. Would you pray for them?
Would you also pray that each airplane on our return flight has LOTS of open seats? Neither Jovie nor Karasi are ticketed for those flights and are traveling as lap children. Anaya still needs plenty of help and attention on the flights and Jovie needs space to move so if we all try to jam into three seats it’s just really hard. Would you pray for our flights? Would you pray that a check-in agent magically upgrades us to first class? Would you pray that we have 15 seats to spread out on and rest on for the 40 hours of travel?