Category: Hospital Ministry

Following Up and Holding Our Breath

A Jon Post

Ok… it’s been 3 months since I blogged about representatives from the hospital visiting our house to see Casa Ahavá and inspect our readiness to give a home and a family to people from far away.

Here’s the blog if you need a reminder of what happened leading up to December 9^th. Questions No One Asked.

The visit I mentioned in that blog went very well and we praised God that our visitors praised the location and the heart they saw for what we wanted to do. We thought we were within weeks of hosting friends here who are currently bound to a hospital bed because they have no where else.

We prayed, we thanked, we smiled.

Weeks stretched on, I kept following up with Social Services, nothing happened. The good men and women who came to see our house assured us they passed on a very favorable report to the hospital’s Director’s Office, but it was out of their hands after that.

We prayed, we waited, nothing.

As often as we’ve asked, we’ve heard only that we’re still waiting.

This week as Layne and I were driving to church together Layne brought this up with me. She has felt on her spirit the burden to pray for this process more directly and more fervently. We have spent little specific time praying for this and I’m so glad Layne’s heart was soft enough to hear the Lord correcting us in that.

So will you pray with us in this? We believe that “In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him” and if the king’s heart is that way, we believe the same of the hospital director’s heart.

Pray that the Lord channels his heart toward us and toward Casa Ahavá.

Pray that we please the Lord.

It matters.

It does.

March 6, 2013

Jon

Casa Ahava, Hospital Ministry

6 comments

When We Beg for Death

A Layne Post

The room was heavy.

She sat hunched over showing me the oxygen tube that had come out, and she needed me to go get a nurse. Her breathing was short. I could hardly believe where the previous 5 days had brought her. Just the week before we chatted about my growing Karasi, babies, and the blessings that children are, even three girls! In this culture boys are prized, so I am often given a sad smile and a reassurance that the next will be a boy. (Next?) That day before I left I remember her saying, “Eu gosto de Mae de Anaya.” (I like Anaya’s mother. – Our equivalent to a casual ‘I love you’.)

This day, even in her agony, she smiled and asked about my girls. And then she winced. Her breast had been taken over by the cancer and had turned into an open wound full of pain and infection. Another tumor in her stomach had appeared just three days previous. It was now the size of a grapefruit. As I sat by her side, she asked me not to leave her. And so I stayed a few hours. Then my friend Alice arrived to sit with her, and then another sweet volunteer, and then I returned, and then Alice spent the night with her. It was not good for her to be alone.

The days to follow would be her last.

Laying down was no longer an option for her as she felt she could not breathe, so as often as I could be there I would go and wrap my arms around her to hold and kiss her weary head that hung in front of her body. When she spoke of this pain and this cancer passing, I spoke of the next life and the hope we find there. Indeed, it would pass. More often than not, however, we were silent. I found myself in a position I’ve been in before – begging for death. There comes a point when the most gracious, most merciful thing the Lord could do is to take this precious life into the next. And what I pray is for an easy, quick transition between the two worlds. In those moments death is not terrifying, continuing life like this is. And so I called out to Jesus. Between the pain and the morphine, she didn’t always make sense, but I cannot forget a clear moment when she looked up and into my eyes and with a smile asked how I was. Me. In her moment, she thought about me.

In my Christian American mind I felt her local family had failed her, leaving her too often alone, leaving me and my friends to care for her in these intimate last moments. I try to be gracious to cultural differences, but I struggled. I am so very thankful that on the night that she passed from this life to the next, it was her husband that was with her, not my friend Alice or me. In that way I believe the Lord was gracious.

And now we no longer pray for her, for she has been made new, but we pray for her family and her two young children that are left here with a large gap in their lives. We pray that Jesus will find His way to fill them up.

February 18, 2013

Layne

Hospital Ministry

4 comments

Dancing on Rusty, Splintery Pallet Tables

A Jon Post

My computer is on my lap, a word document is open and I’m sitting here watching my almost-two-year-old daughter playing on a wooden table made of old splintery nail-split pallets. The slats are coming up, the rusty nails are failing in their job of holding mushy, rain ruined wood together and my daughter is dancing on top. Gasher, my huge dog, is pushing at her with his nose and I can’t tell if he’s concerned for her or wants to get up there and dance with her (and probably push her off to a painful landing on the concrete below).

As I write this I’m realizing that there are few things I’d rather do than make unsafe, FDA non-approved, child hazardous pallet tables and watch my daughters dance on them with my dog. I don’t want to watch them fall off those tables or step on one of those splinters or nails but those risks come with dancing on rusty, splintery pallet tables.

Watch The Fall

So when I take my daughters to the hospital with me, like I did yesterday, I have to remind myself, some times it’s ok to let my daughter dance on pallet tables.

See, yesterday we spent some time laughing and playing with Papa João. João is a wonderful grandfather who speaks of his family with immense pride and misses them fiercely while he sits here waiting to finish his 6 months of chemo treatment. From everything I can tell he is as healthy as I could hope for having the cancer he does and we hope together that in 2 more months, when he finishes his 6^th and final treatment, he can go home to that family he loves.

But for now, I take my daughters and they laugh and play with Papa João. They are still getting to know him so they want me around when we’re there and yet they are getting more and more comfortable.

So where are the splinters?

Papa João will, one day, stop being there at the hospital. I hope and pray that it’s because he will be home with his family in Mozambique, but there is a chance it will be because he is home with his family in heaven. And, as hard as it is for me to understand death and it’s gruesome victory, I know my young daughters do not yet know why Dad gets scared when, after repeated treatments, the lump hasn’t gone down like it should. My young daughters don’t always see the rusty nail coming when a friend at the hospital is spending more and more time in bed rather than outside laughing.

Yesterday, when we were leaving, I was holding Anaya and we were walking to the car saying goodbye. Standing there with Papa João I said, “Tá tá Papa”, which in her perfect-two-year-old voice Anaya repeated, “Tá tá Papa”. João smiled and replied, “Tá tá Anaya”. Anaya took this as a good reason (with coaxing from me) to try to say “Tá tá Papa João”. Her perfect-two-year-old voice mangled it beautifully and it come out “Tá tá Papa Jollaw”. João loved it, smiled at me and told me how big she was getting and we walked away.

So what scares me about all this? I don’t think my girls understand that there will come a time when they won’t have the chance to say “Tá tá Papa” anymore.

So watch out for those splinters, rusting nails, and nasty falls my precious girls. And keep dancing. I’ll keep making tables for you, you keep dancing, and we’ll trust together that our Savior will kiss the splinters and cuts when they come and make them all better.

Dancing Together

February 5, 2013

Jon

Around the house, Hospital Ministry, The Kids

2 comments

In Beira

Mozambique

We have talked about doing this for so long. And then there were two kids. And then there was a pregnancy. Things just seemed to keep getting delayed, and quite honestly, I didn’t mind. While the idea of a trip up north sounded great, I really dreaded it with the girls, thinking the work just might not be worth it. Thankfully I have a husband with little to no fears, who kept pressing the idea.

Fine.

I told him when I got out of my first trimester we could do it, more with an attitude of “let’s get this over with and behind us” than excitement.

So here we are in the beautiful city of Beira, about 13 hours north of Maputo, the capital city where we live. The drive was pleasant and enjoyable. Long, yes, but with two very happy little girls. I had no need to worry. The Lord graciously provided contact with some missionaries here that were in need of house sitters, so our lodging has been and will be free. What a blessing! We had planned to only stay 4 nights, mainly due to cost, until the offer to house sit was presented, so now we are here about 12 nights. Since starting our visits, we have agreed that 4 nights would have been very difficult, especially for the girls. The Lord knew better than we did.

Our friends from the hospital have been outstanding hosts and it has been such a privilege to see them healthy in their own homes and to meet their precious families. We have connected with six people so far with plans for many others. Stories to come…

To say I am thankful we came would be an understatement. These are moments to treasure, to store up in our hearts for difficult days ahead.

There is hope.

December 30, 2012

Layne

Hospital Ministry, Mozambique, Personal, Travel

5 comments

Making Spirits Bright

A Jon Post

It’s been a good year.

We’ve seen grave suffering and intense beauty in its midst. We’ve seen tears of pain and tears of joy and we’ve shed them also. It’s a terrible and wondrous thing to serve a Holy God.

In all our time here we’ve seen so little of this gorgeous country.

Tomorrow that will change.

We’ve planned and hoped to visit patients who have come here and since gone home who live in the far reaches of Mozambique. We have hugged backs, kissed cheeks, smiled and waved goodbye not knowing if we would ever see many of our friends again.

Tomorrow that too will change.

As a last minute plan, we will be leaving at 3 in the morning to make a roughly 16 hour drive to a city in Mozambique called Beira. We know many former patients who live in the area and an opportunity to stay for free in a wonderful home came up suddenly and we felt God’s hand nudging us to go.

We’ll go.

So up we get in the morning, loaded to the gills with things to keep two kids under 2 years old happy for 16 hours sitting, with plenty of coffee, plenty of trail mix, and plenty of music to listen to and worship our King to.

It will be a long day.

Please, if you read this on Christmas Eve in the USA or on Christmas day here in Africa, please do stop here and spend some minutes praying for our journey.

Did you stop?

Thanks.

So here’s where we wish you all a Merry Christmas.

If there was snow to go dashing through we’d be doing that but we’ll just settle for trying to go make spirits bright.

Merry Christmas.