jon and layne heller | Casa Ahavá and our Family

World Cup Ends

A Layne Post

The past couple of weeks Jon and I both had some pretty bad colds, first him, then me. Because the patients at the hospital are on Chemo, it is better for Jon and me not to risk passing on our little sickness. Jon missed a couple days, and then I missed all of last week. I realized that I really do miss the sweet people there, and my heart was warmed that they asked for and missed me as well!

The World Cup is over. Congratulations Spain! Now that it has ended, our lives and schedules are about to shift. Due to visiting hours and coordinating with other volunteers, Jon and I can only be visiting in the Oncology Ward on our usual Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays for 2-3 hours at a time. At this point, we are not positive what we are going to do with the rest of our time.

There are some options, and Jon and I are in prayer about these. We do not want to “do” just to “do”, but we want to be passionate and obedient to the Lord. We also want to be faithful stewards of our time and your support. We desire to fill our days with service and love for the community. At this point, finding the best ways to do that may take some time. Please feel free to ask us any questions or raise any concerns.

We still want to get our house ready to have people stay, however, there are many steps to take before we can do that, which you guys can pray with us about. I’ll list them to make it a bit easier:

We need to obtain permission from our landlord. Due to the nature of what we are asking, essentially to allow people to come and die here, we feel it is best to speak with him in person. Because he lives in South Africa, the next time we can do that will be the beginning of September. We want to be smart and not rush things because of our passion, and we believe that waiting will better our chances of success.

We need a partnership with the hospital staff. We want to work hand-in-hand as a support and help to them.

We need some legal backing and possibly some permits. If people die here, we need to be above board and not run the risk of being ‘blamed’.

There are certain cultural ‘rules’ we have to take into consideration. (Paying for funerals and whatnot.)

So that is where we are at. Tuesday we are heading to South Africa, again, to try and obtain our resident visa. The resident visa allows us to apply for our resident permit here in Mozambique. If all goes well, we will apply later this week.

We put a new video in our “Some of Our Stories” tab. Click here to watch it or click on the “Gas and Visa in Africa” in the column on the right.

We love you guys!

The set-up

Jon and Jorge finding 'north' for the satellite

United States national anthem

Watchin' the game

July 12, 2010

Layne

JonandLayne.com, Mozambique, Visas

1 comment

In Loving Memory

A Jon Post

Yes, we remember him well.

I remember when I played my violin for him and he smiled and clapped along. His eyes lit up as he sang, his little hands keeping rhythm to “Joy to the World”.

I remember when Layne hopped out of our car and he ran up and hugged her tight and called her “Tia Elayna” (Aunt Layne) and held her hand for the next hour.

I remember when he sat with me and slowly rubbed my arm hair, mystified by the strange quantity of hair that grew on my arms.

I remember him smiling often.

I remember returning from Angola and sitting with him on his bed reading a Children’s Bible to him. Showing him all the animals climbing into Noah’s Ark and roaring, tweeting, trumpeting, barking as we pointed at each different animal. Explaining that Zacchaeus was so short so he had to climb a tree to see Jesus pass. Telling him the glorious news that Jesus didn’t stay in that grave he was buried in. Rejoicing with him that Jesus waits for us in heaven.

I remember praying through tears that God would redeem the suffering.

I remember holding his quivering foot as he heaved his little shoulders back for one last tremendous effort to breathe.

I remember feeling him relax and stop fighting.

I remember little José Manuel.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(I Cor 13:3)

See I believe that the reason that love is the greatest of those is that love is all that remains after this life.

Faith – Little José and his faith. He spoke of his faith, that he believed by faith that Jesus truly is waiting for him and that Jesus’ death was what paid the price of his sins.

Hope – Hope is born of suffering and José suffered. He suffered. The tumor that started so small, grew and eventually squeezed his airway shut. The cancer didn’t actually kill him. He suffocated. In suffering, we hope… we hope that there is something greater than this, something beyond this life, something we wait for. In Portuguese the word for hope is the same word for wait. José waited… and he hoped… and he suffered.

Now, José has no more need for Faith or Hope. His Faith in Christ redeemed him from his sins and has made real the salvation of his soul. His Hope for a life beyond this, a life of no suffering, a life of deep breaths, strong legs, big smiles, and immense hugs, has been made real. He doesn’t hope anymore. He doesn’t have faith anymore. He is where he hoped to be and where his faith led him.

Now… he is simply surrounded by love.

He lives… in an endless love.

And though we miss him, though we love him, though we honor him and weep.

We rejoice.

His faith is fulfilled, his hope is real.

And love is all that’s left.

Weep with us dear friends.

Now rejoice.

July 4, 2010

Jon

Hospital Ministry

8 comments

Vlog from our home

Well, we’ve been here almost a month and the promised “home-tour-video” has finally arrived. Our house is a bit more livable now (sorry it’s taken so long to get this up) and we’re happy to show you around. We’ve been working hard and trying to get it looking nice for you all and we will continue to work on it to finish up the parts that still need work. Thank you all for your patience and your support as we’ve managed the stress and work that it takes to move into a new house.

Enjoy!

[flashvideo file=/blogpictures/vlog2.flv /]

June 27, 2010

Jon

JonandLayne.com, Mozambique, Vlog

10 comments

Anniversary

A Layne Post

Well, tomorrow is our second wedding anniversary. =) It has been a wild ride getting to this point, but the best one yet. We plan to go on a trip to celebrate in August. Because of the World Cup, things are a bit too chaotic and expensive, so we’re going to wait it out.

Tomorrow we are taking a quick trip to South Africa in order to sort our our visa situation here. We want to apply for residency, however, the visas we were issued are without permission to apply. It is a bit frustrating since we had explained our situation, but at this point there is nothing we can do, except go get the correct one. We hope to go to the High Commission tomorrow, come home tomorrow night, and then apply at immigration here on Tuesday.

Please be praying for this process.

We hope to post a video blog and tour of the house later this week. Stay tuned!

June 20, 2010

Layne

JonandLayne.com, Mozambique, Visas

3 comments

Let’s Get To Work

A Jon Post

It’s been a long day. Well, it’s been a long week… 2 weeks actually. Today, Layne and I got up at about 7 to continue working on this house. When we moved in there were a lot of problems and it needed a lot of work. Leaky/moldy sinks/showers, rusty screws in the walls, sticky/stained tile, peeling linoleum front porch… I could go on for a while here. Anyway, we did some more cleaning and repair work and at about 2 this afternoon I left to do a World Cup outreach. We partner with local churches and show World Cup games in the suburbs/slums of Maputo on a large screen with big speakers and the pastors of those churches get an opportunity to invite those at the games to church, encourage them with the gospel, and follow up when we leave. We set up a satellite dish to receive the games out in some pretty rural areas where TVs are rare and people have little or no chance to see a World Cup game and connect it to a projector. It’s pretty neat actually. Anyway, I left at about 2 and just got home at about midnight. We showed two games in two different locations tonight. It’s a long process. Layne’s been home all afternoon/evening painting a room in our house. We’re both exhausted. We’ve been exhausted for 2 weeks now.

One day last week we were planning to go to the hospital. We had even put our things in the car and were just about to get in and go. We make it a habit to sit down and pray together for some time before we go and so we sat together and just looked at each other. We both recognized quickly that neither one of us had much to offer at the hospital and we were both just struggling. Both wondered if we should just push through it and choose to serve anyway. We decided to stop, pray, worship and just draw close to Christ and to each other.

It was good.

Praying deeply for each other and for our ministry we felt a peace that we hadn’t felt since we moved in. We cried in each others arms and released all our emotional weariness to our Lord.

This house is big and needs a lot of work. In fact it is much bigger than Layne and I can use on our own. We both saw quickly when we moved in that it could be used as so much more than just our personal home. As we were praying and waiting on the Lord we felt the burning of God’s heart for what it could look like.

There are so many people in the oncology ward at the Central Hospital who have a need for a home for short periods of time. They may be dying and simply can’t get home to be with family because of the distance and cost. They may be waiting on the next round of chemotherapy and just sit in the hospital for weeks waiting for the hospital to re-supply. It may be a child… whose parent has left them alone in a hospital. The parent must return to the village he or she is from and the child must face the terrors of a growth inside the body that slowly… but surely… kills.

We want to offer a home for that child.