jon and layne heller | Casa Ahavá and our Family

After a Year

A Jon Post

In April, last year, I got a phone call from the doctor who leads up the Social Services department of the hospital. We had spent years submitting papers, meeting with hospital doctors/leaders/administrators. We wanted to do it right, we wanted to wait for timing and favor to come together so that we could know, know, that it was ready. Last year in April my phone rang. It was a short conversation, by I hung up with a shaking hand. The director of the largest hospital in the country had approved us to partner with the Oncology ward at his hospital and house some of his patients. We called this fledgling project, Casa Ahavá.

It’s been a little over a year since our first patient came to stay with us. We’ve had 7 more since. Each has stayed at least 3 months, some up to 6. Each has become an intimate part of our family for the short time they are here.

Zacarias

Eliza

Tomás

Filomena

Anita

Inês

Pedro

Rosa

And more to come.

I was looking back over our blog and wanted to share something with you… mostly just a bunch of names. I’ve listed these names once or twice before but I wanted to give some scope to what we feel God gave us to do. We arrived here and felt God stir our hearts to minister in this way back in 2009. It’s been almost 5 years since that time and we’ve chronicled a lot of stories we’ve been privileged to know. Most of them are filled with pain. Most, but not all, ended in death.

I know I’ve asked you to pray with us before and I’m asking again. My faith has been growing in regards to prayer recently and I know I don’t do it enough. So I need help. Would you pray with me? Would you pray that we continue to be given the strength to serve?

Below is a list of names of people we’ve met and told a personal story about here on this blog. Don’t go reading all of them. But if you recognize one or two, would you open that story and read it again and pray. Pray that God gives what is needed to invite any future stories like it to share in the story of Casa Ahavá.

Pray with us please.

Tomé here and here

Lúcia here and here

June 6, 2014

Casa Ahava, Hospital Ministry

3 comments

Overcomer

A Layne Post

I found myself frustrated.

Jon took off Pedro’s bandage and for the first time in 4 years I felt that familiar wave come over me.
Woozy.
I quickly made an excuse to go to the kitchen and left Jon to continue cleaning and changing the bandage. I stood there in the kitchen with Karasi on my hip determined this would not win. Hadn’t God done such a transformation in me? I often testify to His graces that I am able to see and visit some patients with large tumors or wounds; however, hands on involvement was proving to be a whole new level. I got some fresh air and returned to look and conquer this involuntary feeling. I managed.

The rest of the day I wondered if I would ever be able to do wound care. I was jealous of Jon’s “dive in” mentality and his courage to do what was set before him. In faith that afternoon I told our new patient Rosa that if she would like some help with her bandage the next morning, I could help. She had previously said she could do it, so I expected a “no thanks” and not the enthusiastic “yes please!” I actually got.

“Phew. Here we go,” I thought.

I had a serious conversation with the Lord that evening. I begged, yes, begged the Lord to give me courage and to calm this silly tummy. I was desperate to serve our patients in this way, but I was going to need some supernatural intervention.

The next morning came and there with knees bent before Rosa, I did my first day of wound care and while the wounds were worse than expected, I continued without the slightest flutter of my tummy. Hallelujah. He overcame.

I quickly decided that if I was going to do this, by golly I wanted to do it well. So, thanks to much research, reading, and study (thank you Google machine) I feel like I have learned how to work with the supplies we have and care well for the wounds Rosa has. Would you believe that I now am anxious each morning to take off the bandage and gauge our progress? I actually find it extremely satisfying to see a nice clean wound! Miracles happen, my friends, miracles happen.

What sweet intimate conversations are possible during these times of dressing changes. They have becomes little gifts to me – these moments on my knees whispering hope to a sick, sick friend.

Oh Jesus, thank you for being my Overcomer.

Below are some pictures from our recent beach day! Enjoy.

May 23, 2014

Layne

Casa Ahava, Medical

11 comments

Learning to Create Family Out of Brokenness

A Jon Post

There is much brokenness here. There are broken families, broken spirits, broken bodies and broken hearts. We swim in it.
One shares about a faithless husband who brought a deadly virus into the bed with him which only adds to the mountain that she must climb to find health…
here is brokenness…

Rosa

One shares about the family that sent her away because they were afraid of her cancer and her tumor, thinking it was infectious and that the plague of cancer must be driven from their house…
here is brokenness…
One shares of a child not 5 months gone… lost to malaria, tuberculosis, or some other preventable sickness… and now cancer is ravaging the child’s mother…
here is brokenness…
One shares of a 6 year old son who misses his father beyond words… and while the father sits in my back yard his little son cries out to his mother to please let me talk to daddy on the phone first!!!
here is brokenness…

But there is still life.

There is life when Anita comes out of her room singing praises to God in the morning.
There is life when Pedro plays checkers with me and doesn’t want to stop.
There is life when Inês laughs.
There is life when Rosa finds her appetite again.

Though these small things seem inconsequential and minor in comparison to the agony that threatens… these humble signs of life are the driftwood that we find in this tempest of cancer.

Pedro

So this is our broken little family; Jon, Layne, Anaya, Jovie, Karasi, Anita, Inês, Pedro, Rosa and Gasher.

Pedro and Rosa just joined it last week.

We need help.

Our family is running out of money. Pedro and Rosa both need some special care (they both have open wounds that we clean and dress every day) and that only adds to the speed that our bank accounts are drying up.

We need help.
I know there are a lot of people who read this blog and pray for us. The biggest focus of this blog is to keep those who already DO give to us informed and to try to help them feel a part of what is happening here with Casa Ahavá. But beyond that, I know that there are many people who read this who haven’t given.

Please. We need help.

Family Dinner Time

Would you share this on your social networks, tell your friends, tell your church, try to find someone who can do what we cannot: Fund this thing.

We need about $1000 more per month to keep this family going.

We will continue to try to be the hands God uses to heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds.

Would you help those hands keep working?

To those of you who are already helping; thanks. We really, really, really do know how much of a sacrifice it is. We do. It’s not small. It’s not forgotten.

Thank you.

Life

May 12, 2014

Jon

Casa Ahava

4 comments

People Come with Stories

A Layne Post

People come with stories.

Some will make you laugh.

Some will stir rage.

Some will make you cry.

And slowly unveiled amid warm afternoons passed under shade cloth, surrounded by giggles and cries of three little girls, they begin to unfold, these people, these stories.

And we find, not to our surprise, they are so much more than a cancer diagnosis.

And so we minister, as desperate people serving desperate people in need of Savior.

And it isn’t grandiose.

In fact, it seems small this “ministry” we do.

Sometimes it may be a morning spent at the beach, or a few new colorful skirts bought solely for pleasure.

Sometimes it is tossing bean bags into wooden holes.

Sometimes it is singing along with the strum of a guitar.

Sometimes it is sitting on tree stumps bearing souls and airing hurt.

Sometimes it is a big stinky dog catching slobbery toys thrown to-and-fro.

Sometimes it is watching television with the air conditioning on.

Sometimes is is plate of fried chicken or the cooking of comfort food.

And then in the quiet stillness found at the end of the day, we find ourselves drifting to sleep and thanking God for these stories collided into ours, and begging His smile as we try to love those He loves.

Thanks for being a part. Thanks for seeing people and loving people with us.

April 24, 2014

Layne

Around the house, Casa Ahava

4 comments

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.