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Standing There

A Jon Post

It seems like I’ve been “doing something” for a while now. Layne and I have been pretty busy over the last couple months and I’ve felt like I’ve lost some of my time for something else. Something very African and very much a part of what Layne and I try to do in our ministry.

Just standing there.

It’s funny, but as an American, I have learned that it is not an acceptable part of my culture to be around people or next to someone and just stand there. We have to be doing something, we have to be talking about something, we must have a purpose. Being here I’ve learned that those things don’t necessarily translate to the culture I’m in now.

As I’ve rushed around doing something on a nearly continuous basis (or at least felt like I have) for the last couple months, I’ve missed some opportunities to stop…

And just stand there.

I don’t honestly know who coined the phrase “Don’t just stand there, do something!” but whoever it was I don’t think they have ever been next to a man dying on a bed who has not had a face to smile at him for 6 months. I don’t think they’ve ever sat beside a mother whose son has just lost his 2-year battle with a sickness that rotted flesh from bone and ripped breath from lungs. That phrase really makes no sense in such a context.

When faced with such powerlessness… I think one of the most encouraging suggestions is:

“Don’t just do something, stand there!”

Just stand there. Just hold a hand. Just weep with them. Don’t say anything, don’t try to fix what cannot be mended with words or service… just stand there.

A tragically troubled man, who served God and loved people named Henri Nouwen once said,

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not healing, not curing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

I miss those times.

I don’t want to forget that Christ can be found, Christ can be known, Christ can be seen…

By just standing there.

 

June 26, 2011
Hospital Ministry, Mozambique, Personal, Things we're dealing with
8 comments

Jonathan Heller: Husband and Father

A Layne Post

Jonathan Heller has been the most caring, loving, romantic, passionate, strong, and wise husband. I know many people would say these things of their husbands, but I honestly think I have the best out there. I would follow Jon anywhere. Really, I would. And I have. With him by my side, I feel safe and secure. Much of that is because I am able to rely on Jon’s wisdom and guidance that comes from our heavenly Father. He makes it easy to submit to his spiritual leadership. I respect Jon in every way; he is an example of Christ to me. I knew when I married him that I loved him, but I had no idea what was to come.

With each year that has passed I have fallen deeper in love with him. When Anaya was born I knew things may change a bit, and they have… for the better! (Who knew there was so much better?!) The day she was born he took to her like a natural. He is so patient and gentle, nurturing and kind. My heart becomes so full when I listen to him read and sing to her, when he prays over her. Anaya looks to her Daddy with awestruck eyes. I can already see the special bond she has with him, and I love it! Fatherhood suits him well.

Anaya is blessed to call Jon her Daddy, as I am to call him my husband.

Father's Day 2011

Happy Father’s Day

&

Happy 3rd Anniversary,

Jonathan Heller!

June 19, 2011
Personal
5 comments

So I Carried Him

A Jon Post

I was going to write about having a mission team here with us and the activities we’ve been doing. But Thursday something happened that I haven’t been able to get off my heart or out of my memory.

Carrying Tomé on a Good Day

Carrying Tomé on a Good Day

Tomé, dear sweet Tomé, had his last 5-day chemo treatment this last week. He has been here at the hospital for a year and a half now, getting this 5-day chemo every 3 weeks, for 84 weeks. Every vein in his hand, wrist, forearm and upper arm, even in both feet, has been used many, many times.  Like any other chemo course, by day 4 his body was haggard and broken by the poison dripping into it.
He had been receiving his treatment into his left foot for the first three days of treatment. One of the side effects of his treatment is that he has to urinate often and painfully. With a chemo drip in your foot, walking to a bathroom 30 yards away is not an easy task.
By this day, his foot had become swollen and painful and the chemo was no longer flowing into his shrunken vein. The nurses needed to move the needle.
Countless times they poked him, wrists, arms, even in his head… finally they found a vein in his other foot.
He was crying uncontrollably when I found him in the treatment room, gauze taped to his head, arms and left foot to cover oozing needle marks. The nurse told him he was done and could go back to his room.

So I carried him.

Crying in my arms, his weak grasp wrapped around me for balance, we made it back to his bed. At 11-years-old he’s just old enough to be ashamed of his tears when he’s in pain. This day he didn’t even make an attempt to stop them. He just leaned against me and wept softly at the pain of his final treatment.
Mustering courage he told me he had to go to the bathroom.

So I carried him.

I don’t consider myself a strong guy, but there was little that would have unsteadied my step or shaken my grip around his frail body as I made my way down that hallway to the bathroom, opened the door to the dirty stall, and knelt with him to get him close enough to the toilet.
Painful moments later, we were making our way back to his bed. I laid him down as gently as I could and covered him in his little blanket. There he lay, quivering in pain, wishing and waiting just to make it through the next day and a half.
Alice and Paula (another dear lady who comes to bless the children there), brought some milk, cookies and candy to try to help get his mind off of the pain he was in.
He closed his eyes, grimaced and tightly gripped my hand and Alice’s hand as a nurse pushed a shot into his IV in his foot.
There I sat. I knew Tomé had no words or strength to look to the Lord or ask Him to come sit in bed with him. I knew Tomé didn’t know how to approach the Lord or come before Jesus on his own.

So I carried him.

I poured out my heart to Jesus Christ, praying desperate prayers from desperate lips. No crowd around me or Tomé could keep me from carrying this suffering boy and laying him before Jesus’ feet.

So I carried him.

 

June 12, 2011
Hospital Ministry, Mozambique
16 comments

Give Light

A Layne Post

Her name means ‘Give Light’. For months this little eight year old was shy and introverted. I would try to talk with her, compliment her painted toes and colorful skirts, bring Anaya by her side, etc. but I could not get much of a response. I remember thinking how sad she looked and feeling frustrated I could not break through the wall she had surrounded herself with. She seemed ashamed of the large tumor protruding from her eye, even though she was, and is, surrounded by people in the same situation. Still I tried; reminding her that I thought she was beautiful.

A couple weeks ago something changed. I do not know why, but she chose to open up to me. She didn’t have to; they never do, yet she chose, and I consider myself the privileged one. She was receiving treatment when I arrived at her bedside, and her hand reached out. My heart leapt as I grabbed it. The time passed while I sat in her bed, rubbed her arms and legs and traced her little hands. She would tickle me, slap my hands and giggle as I responded. Every now and then she would rest her head in my cupped hand, and I would take the opportunity to kiss her precious head. When it was time to go, she begged for me to stay. That is the hardest part. I promised my return and gave a few more kisses.

Now, every time I arrive, her face ‘gives light’. Her tumor is growing; however, she is more beautiful than ever, this precious eight year old girl. I do not know what the future holds for her. If I relied solely on my experiences, it does not look good. I have already cried many tears for her suffering. May the Lord be merciful.

Thank you for your support, which allows me to sit with an eight year old girl suffering in a hospital bed, to try somehow to be the touch of our heavenly Father. Thank you for the impact you are making here in Maputo, Mozambique.

His love always wins.

June 5, 2011
Hospital Ministry
7 comments

He Never Left

A Jon Post

His Splendor

His Splendor

Wave after wave charges toward sand dunes piled two hundred feet high. The unmitigated fury of the ocean is resisted by walls of sand solemnly holding their heads high against the fray.  Thousands of years of the anger of the sea are met by the thousands of years of the tranquil defiance of those dunes. Here lies the coast of Mozambique; beauty hidden away, not by secrets or jealousy, but merely by world-wide ignorance of what is watched over safely by a land most have forgotten. I myself have simply stumbled upon it. I read no guidebook, followed no GPS coordinates, heard no “if-you-do-nothing-else-you-must-see-this”.  I have stumbled upon this treasure guarded only by the distance between here and there. Here, laid up for countless years, the richness of God’s splendor is displayed in the thunderous applause of the waves and the regal silence of the dunes. Here is Mozambique.

Many may think God left this continent long ago. After reading, seeing, and hearing of countless wars, famines, diseases, many lose hope.

But I think there is depth that so many choose not to see.

God’s been here the whole time.

He is in the smile of Tomé. He is in the hug of Maninha. He is in the shyness of Emilia’s greeting.

He is in the touch my wife offers to a lonely soul. He is in the time I spend sitting next to a tired friend, who waits for treatment to end.

God has always been here.

Not just since Layne and I started doing what we’ve been doing for a year now. For one year, we’ve been doing this with the energy of God that so powerfully works in us.

But for generation upon generation, there has been God calling out, pursuing the lost sheep, offering mercy where only judgment is deserved. We, the ransomed of God, will never know how dreadful deep were the wounds that scored His hands and heart, ere He claimed us for His own.

Here is Mozambique.

Here the Father pursues, has pursued and will pursue His own.


May 31, 2011
Mozambique
5 comments
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