This has been on our hearts for some time now. We’ve been praying and fasting and seeking the Lord’s heart and we want those who read this, especially those who consider themselves part of our team to know what God is doing and how He’s leading in us the ministry that He’s called us to.

There is a link to a pdf document here that I hope you have time to open and read. It explains more about how God whispered to our hearts and pushed us to arrive where we have but to put it plainly, we want Casa Ahavá to grow. We have room now for 4, we need room for more. As team members we feel it’s important that you know that, that you pray with us, that you are on the same page as we.

Here’s the link to where you can find that pdf document

Casa Ahava – Hoping to Grow

Here is a short video that may help explain visually, what God has laid on our hearts.

Please, please, please, pray with us about this and about how we can be faithful in what God has called us to NOW and how we can be faithful to what God is calling us to in the future.

Thanks!

Obrigado!

Canimambo!

Tinabonga!

Sibongili!

A Jon Post

Well, this week wasn’t really going to be a “blog” week so much as just a link to the newsletter we wrote for everyone. Instead, we had something happen on Saturday that we felt we should share with you all.
Saturday, very early in the morning, it started raining very hard. It kept it up and at about 6 Layne got out of bed and went down and saw that the water was rising pretty steadily. She woke me up and I did what I could to try to hold back the might flow of the torrent. I began bailing out our driveway but simply could not keep ahead of the waterfall that was coming from our roof. We moved what we could in the house, stuffed plastic bags under the doors and prayed the rain would stop.
It didn’t.
3 hours later our house had an inch of water in it.
I spent the next 4 hours bailing water into our road (surrounded by neighbors doing the same thing) trying to lower the water level in our yard so that the water would run back out of our house. After a while it finally started rolling out and Layne gave it a helpful shove with a squeegee we went out and bought. Because it looked like the rain could start back up at any moment I kept up the bilging process and Layne dried most of the house out.
Our wood floor has taken the most damage. As you can see in these pictures it’s in a lot of trouble. The water got under and into the wooden slats and they swelled up so that they don’t fit together anymore. We will probably have to redo the floors.
Such is life.
We honestly don’t deserve a dry, waterproof house so we’re not complaining.
The house is mostly dry and we’re fine. Anything that would have been critical in the water was upstairs and our roof sheds water very well.

Anyway, we did finish our newsletter. Please download it here and read it when you have the time. I know you may have just taken up your “read Jon and Layne’s stuff” time by reading this blog but please do read this newsletter when you get the chance. We’ve spoken of our time at the hospital and our plans (including a delay) for our “Casa Ahava” project in our home.

We are so blessed by you, your prayers, your support, your emails, your comments here even. We’re blessed to have a family who loves us across the world.

—Click here to download our newsletter.—

For those of you who may not have time to read our newsletter, pasted below is our journal entries from it.

From Layne’s Journal

Maybe it’s been the Lord. Maybe I’ve been too busy to think about it.
Maybe tumors weren’t scary, weren’t contagious… I don’t know, but suddenly it was there: Fear.
Fear planting images in my head of me with each skin disease I saw. Fear making me wonder if I caught that man’s Tuberculosis as I prayed with him. Fear to touch his deformed hand covered in warts. Fear.
But when a voice whispers, “I am thirsty,” how can I refuse to touch his face and pour water into his mouth? When the weak boy says, “I am hungry, but I don’t have the strength open my orange,” how can I not get close and help him eat? When the coughing man looks lonely through his one open eye as we visit all the patients around him, how can I pass his bed?
A mighty fortress is our God, a sacred refuge is Your Name. *
Visiting in Dermatology has yanked me out of my comfort zone, called me to a new dependence on the name of Lord. There is balance between wisdom and faith that I find myself in constant search of, even more so with Anaya coming to join our family, our ministry. I take refuge in our God, who has put us in this place, and who guides our every step.

*Christy Nockels song ‘A Mighty Fortress’ the Passion:Awakening album

From Jon’s Journal

I’m lying here in a quiet room, thinking my thoughts and praying my prayers. My beautiful wife sleeps beside me, my dog snores away on the floor. My daughter is growing silent and constant… her heartbeat as strong and insistent as the sun that is slowly making its way around the far side of this earthen orb.
What is this great barrier reef of emotion that pushes my groaning prayers forth in desperate cries to the Savior to save my daughter? Do all fathers tremble so at the thought of my sin passing to her?
What a beautiful and poetic tragedy it is that at once life seems so perfect and so terrifying.
Perfect in the love and smile that my wife gives me every day. Perfect in the knowledge that she will pass those to my daughter. Perfect in the baited-breath, pins-and-needles, hair-pulling, stomach-lurching, toes-tingling anticipation of seeing her fingers curl around mine.
Terrifying in my failings, my mistakes, my pride and my sin all coming down hardest on the two women I love more than life… my wife and my daughter. Terrifying in the unknowns that I face with the lives of my wife and daughter fated upon my decision and resting in the steadiness of my hands. Terrifying in knowing that I will stand before a righteous judge and account for how I lead these angel-women.
So my prayers flutter up to a compassionate ear. Mumbled thanks and pleas for help seem to fill most of them.
Missionary father indeed.
First to my Christ and to His glory all my efforts and might.
Then to my wife, my family, kept safe and secure through the night.
What’s left to the stranger, the orphan, the widow. To love but one is worth the fight.

We are rolling out Video Blogging  to jonandlayne.com. We’ll try to do it about once a month and we hope that it helps give an even better glimpse into our lives here. We’ve also written a newsletter that you can download and view from the link below the video. Thanks for reading/watching!

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Read our latest “pretty newsy” newsletter here.