jon and layne heller | Casa Ahavá and our Family

Until I Pass

A Jon Post

As we’ve written before, what we do seems to have a strange and painful rhythm. We see times of joy, rest, and friends recovering from cancer. Then the waves crash back unto a shore washed clean of disease… pain returns… death finds a way.

And we write another story like this.

I didn’t know Moisés very well. I talked to him a few times after he arrived three weeks ago but didn’t have any time to sit with him personally and hear his story. He was laying in his bed when we first met, one face among three new ones. I knew his roommate well, and was surprised to see all 3 new patients there that day. I introduced myself and was pleased to meet new friends and file new names into my head and hope to remember them later.
Moisés sat, shook my hand, and smiled as I told him who I was and why I was there. We shared a few words and spoke of where we were from and then I entered a conversation with another friend in the room.
I saw Moisés other times as I’d pass through but we never spoke privately.
Until last monday.
I had actually been planning on spending time with a roommate of Moisés who was receiving chemotherapy that day. When I entered, there lay Rui on chemo and there sat Moisés coughing blood. The weight of the two men’s suffering bore down hard on me as I passed the threshold into that room.
Rui could barely talk and lay on his bed with a pounding headache. Moisés looked at me and started talking about his pain. Because he was coughing so much it grew hard to understand him. As he spoke and I strained to hear, I heard the end of a sentence… “I’ll do this until I pass.”
He kept coughing.
I prayed desperate prayers, pleaded for mercy from a merciful God, and tried to keep my voice steady.
A peace swept the room. My words slowed and trust fell on us all soft enough to not make any noise but hard enough to drive our fears out of our hearts. Moisés breathed deeply, Rui gripped my hand tightly, and I breathed an amen. Christ’s hand rested on us and we sat together wordlessly.
I stood up, encouraged both men to rest, and left.
Later that night Moisés sat in a chair next to his bed, put his arms on his bed, put his head down and stopped breathing.

So we write these stories and we wonder whose we will write next.

For now, we pray to the God who holds life and death in His hands, and we trust those hands.

Please pray with us. Pray that lives are not lost, that hope is not forgotten, that Christ is known and that hearts find strength.

Please pray that we hold fast.

August 12, 2012

Jon

Hospital Ministry

5 comments

Soul Sculpting

A Layne Post

I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was thirteen years old. The anticipation around the house had been tangible. Somewhere around four in the morning on October 29th, my sister Tara and I awoke; it was time. Our oldest sister Stephanie’s water had broken. About twelve hours later little Lynise was born. I found it strange that as I touched her cheek and looked at her for the first time, I had tears in my eyes. I was moved by the miracle of her arrival, of her life.

Lynise is now 14.5 years old. (I put the .5 because I remember how important it was to me once upon a time. Now I’d rather hide those .5s!) She has been serving in Panama on a mission trip for the last couple of weeks and simply put, she is changing the world. I couldn’t be more proud of her. Somewhere in there, Lynise grew up.

Lynise is a reminder to me that these precious little babies of mine will all too quickly grow up. These days when I never get out of my jammies and pass the time dancing with large hand motions to songs like “I’m in the Lord’s Army” or “This Little Light of Mine”, making grilled cheese, and saying, “No! That is the trash, Anaya! Yuck!”… these days are not for naught. As Ann Voskamp reminds, I am helping to sculpt souls.

From Ann Voskamp’s blog :

Motherhood is a hallowed place because children aren’t commonplace.

Co-laboring over the sculpting of souls is a sacred vocation, a humbling privilege.

Never forget.

So on days like Tuesday when we all make it to the hospital, when I get the chance to introduce my Jovie to sweet sick friends and let Anaya give little waves, when I get to kiss ladies’ faces and laugh joyously about the fact that my daughters are Mozambican citizens… those days are special, but not more so than the ones in the home. We are raising world changers and part of that is feeding them, keeping them safe and clean (ish), letting them explore their imaginations, giving them self confidence by praising them frequently, and training them in the way of the Lord.

July 19, 2012

Layne

Around the house, Mozambique, The Kids

5 comments

His Sunday Best

A Jon Post

My dad read a book a few months back about excess and the American lifestyle. It stirred something in him and he made several personal commitments as a result, including giving away many of the excess clothes he owned.

My dad has worked in the corporate world for years and one of the more enjoyable parts of that job is that he plays a lot of golf and gets to collect a metric ton of golf shirts along the way. You know those really cool shiny ones with that “Sweat wicking technology”, or the ones that have some strange relationship with helium so they kinda weigh less than air, or (my personal favorites) the ones that are so in tuned with the game of golf they were hand woven by the 80-year-old blind Scottish widows of the great Scottish golfing gods of the peat and they are guaranteed to reduce your golf score by at least 3 strokes? Yeah, my dad collected a bunch of those different kinds of golf shirts along the way.

So he read this book and realized that he has a bunch of scottish-hand-woven-sweat-wicking-helium golf shirts and he doesn’t wear about 90% of them. So he called me up and asked me if I could give away any he might send me! Despite our general decision to not pass out gifts to everyone (we try to keep our relationships based on the time we have with people, not the free things we might hand out) I made an exception for my father and told him I could. I have many friends here, old and young, who show up at the hospital not imagining they will be spending the next 6-12 months in the hospital living with a mere one or two outfits.

A few boxes in the mail later and I happily showed up at the hospital with a backpack full of top-of-the-line men’s golf shirts. I handed them out to the men I knew there and explained they were from my father. They all expressed their immense gratitude to him and I passed along the word of thanks in a phone call.

I occasionally see one or two of my friends there wearing their shirt but it is rare. These are scottish-hand-woven-sweat-wicking-helium golf shirts, not to be worn on any regular old day!

When I gave Nelson his shirt, he smiled broadly and held it up and fingered the smooth texture gently. His quiet nature did not allow for expressive shows of gratitude, loud words, or big hugs. He just looked me squarely in the eyes and solemnly said “thank you” with a smile. He didn’t say it but the way he held it made me think it may be the nicest shirt he had.

I didn’t see him wear the shirt until yesterday.

Last week Nelson’s health deteriorated from smiling, walking, eating and talking to bed-ridden and barely able to breathe. I don’t know if a tumor metastasized or if there was something else but he quickly lost the ability to communicate beyond muffled moans and murmurs to indicate mostly yes’s or no’s. I’ve spent much of the last 8 days visits sitting by his side… praying for miracles and praying for mercy.

Yesterday I walked in and found him much the same; lying on his side, holding his head with his hands as if he could push the pain out with his trembling fingers, and waiting for his miracle. Most of the time a person is admitted here they will wear their standard issue hospital clothes; light blue scrub top and bottoms. Nelson is no exception and up until yesterday he was wearing the same hospital clothes he nearly always wore. But this visit, I noticed, peeking out from the top of his blanket, a black, sweat-wicking collar above a butter smooth, tan-colored golf shirt.

Nelson had somehow found the strength that morning to put on his best shirt. At first I didn’t catch the significance. I smiled and remembered the way his eyes never left the black raven embroidered onto the breast as I handed it to him a few weeks ago.
Then I realized that Nelson was wearing his best shirt even in his desperate sickness. With a sigh, a deep pain and a deep longing for what Nelson had already realized, I sat down next to his bed and began to pray. Nelson’s miracle is coming soon. I held Nelson’s hand and prayed that God would smile with Nelson as he would soon be entering the throne room of grace wearing his best shirt and walking with a straight leg and back. Despite my failure to communicate with him about preparing to meet the Creator Who Smiles, he had taken it upon himself to look his best for that face-to-face meeting.

Nelson’s miracle is coming soon.

I’ll miss my friend.

July 11, 2012

Jon

Hospital Ministry, Mozambique

8 comments

Ordinary

A Layne Post

or·di·nar·y

adjective

1. of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional

2. plain or undistinguished

3. somewhat inferior or below average; mediocre.

4. customary; usual; normal

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Ordinary Day

Today marks 2 weeks for our Jovie girl.

Yesterday we were all sitting on the couch, all four of us, and Jon wanted to catch a picture, a picture of ordinary life… well the new ordinary. You see, it seems like only yesterday Jon and I were adventurous young newly weds with a vision on our hearts and passion to fuel it. We took off traveling and searching for a home, a place to spend this God given passion within us. We found that home in Mozambique.

Now when we walk in the hospital we are greeted with happy smiles and familiar ‘Hellos’ by the staff and patients. Some hardly lift their heads from their crocheting and give a simple wave. Anaya is their little ‘Oncologista’ as she toddles around pointing at and naming the animals on the wall in the hallway. We’ve become regulars… ordinary.

When I roll out my tortillas or individually cut my chips to bake, when I make my own white sauce to substitute cream of chicken soup, when I measure in milliliters… it’s my ordinary.

It happens quick, this settling, this ordinary. Jovie has only been here two weeks, and yet my mornings and days have fallen into a rhythm. My mom came for three weeks, and she quickly slipped in. By the time she left she had become accustomed to making the coffee every morning for the three of us, she’d do afternoon dishes, take Anaya to play outside after lunch, she filled Anaya’s juice and milk cups at the end of every night, she’d make bubbles on Anaya’s feet in the bathtub. It became ordinary to have her around.

So I was thinking… I wonder, if this ordinary is so easy to slip into, if it happens so quickly, then what new life things would I like to become ordinary things? And what is the difference of forced adjustment and voluntary adjustment? Jovie is here for good, no options – we adjust. My mom came to visit – stuck in our house 3wks, no options – she adjusted. But then it comes to resolutions and goals and we just can’t seem to get in the groove.

Anyways, I don’t really have an answer, I just got to thinking. Thinking about the joy it is to have Jovie feel like one of us, an ordinary Heller. Thinking about how I miss my mom and hearing her door open in the morning, the lack of what became ordinary. Thinking about how I’d like to be more consistent about reading the Bible with my husband an about prayers with my daughters before bed… things I want to be ordinary.