A Layne Post

I love what we do. I am a people person.

I love the people that have come into our lives and stolen our hearts.

I love the diversity we have seen over the years.

I love the ones with whom we had that instantaneous connection. Ones we liked from our first introduction.

I love the ones that grew on me as the weeks went on, that slowly opened up to trust and let us in.

But there are some others… let’s be real. When you are in people ministry there are always going to be a few that are difficult. We are not exempt in our compassion ministry. We talk a lot about loving people well and about serving, even sometimes about overcoming challenges, like wounds, but we haven’t talked much about the people that have come through that have made us want to scream, made us want to kick them out, or perhaps have made me want to throw a food item at their head. (Note: I did refrain. No food was thrown.)

Serving people can be HARD. And keeping a humble heart and forgiving 70×7 times can be exhausting. Finding the all too blurry line between generosity and tough love can be confusing. Attempting to facilitate peace in a community of the sick while feeling undermined by a poisonous drip of constant negativity from within… that’s hard. We aren’t that good at it.

And even when we want Jesus to meet that person and change their heart, when we want to love extravagantly and see freedom and healing come to a soul; it isn’t something we can force. We can pray for the Holy Spirit to draw, daily forgiving and serving.

We are currently in a season like this, and we aren’t perfect, and we don’t always love extravagantly. Sometimes it is easier to avoid a person than to humble myself, go out of my way, and ask them about their day and their family. Some days it is easier to just come home rather than purposely stop and get their favorite soda to bring home as a treat.

I know, however, the Lord can work in our souls during these seasons and even when we don’t see change in a person, we never know what seeds are being planted. And so we trust Him, and we continue serving, even when it feels like struggle.

Would you pray for us as we try to lead Casa Ahavá over the next couple months?

Thanks so much. We love you and cherish your support.

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

A Layne Post

My stomach turned, my lip curled. It was involuntary, but guilt washed over me like a flood. I felt unloving. I took a big breath through my mouth, careful not to let air in through my nose. I poured lots of detergent and carefully poured the clothes into the washer making sure nothing touched my hands.

Bandages

Wounds stink. It isn’t something someone can control. Baths don’t help. It comes with advanced cancer, cancer like many have probably never seen. We change and clean bandages. But the fact is we don’t have access to nice charcoal bandages that can help with the stench; they are expensive and not practical. And so we have learned to breathe through our mouths, and when the person is near, we are careful to control our facial muscles, willing them to stay steady and not move, in an effort to honor the person and discredit the wound, in an effort to love.

The washing machine played its little chime from the veranda. The laundry was done.

I carefully lifted a shirt and with trepidation I sniffed. The smell was gone, washed away by streams of cleansing water. Into the dryer they went. An hour later I pulled clean fresh clothes out, carefully folded them and walk out back.

Gratefulness. I was greeted by a man physically suffering beyond what most of us will ever know. He with all humility, not weakness mind you, but humility, offered thanks for my small gesture.

Sometimes loving comes easy. But then there are other times that loving is a choice. Sometimes it is a matter of taking a deep breath, moving forward and serving, even when everything in your body tells you to back up.

I wonder if the Lord felt the same way. Our sins like gaping cancerous wounds attached to our bodies destined to die. Perhaps His lip curled as He took a deep breath through His mouth and stepped towards us, being birthed onto this earth, choosing to move forward in deep love, honoring the persons and not the wounds. And then as the blood of Christ fell like a flood spilt upon the ground, our stench was washed away.

Will we, too, respond in humble gratefulness, aware of the stench our sins put off? Have we been washed in the blood? Maybe, though our bodies were born with stench of our sin, we can offer incense and be called His?

He stepped toward us. He chose love.