Category: Travel

Hope Changes

A Jon Post

I sat on the couch this week with my wife. I sat and wept for the frustration of the shattered reality that there is no forthcoming solution to the place we find ourselves.

Last Month

Last month Layne posted that Pedro had an MRI and we were waiting for the next step to be determined based on the results of that MRI.
The results came.
Placed up against a florescent light to show the contrast between bone, tissue, cerebrum, artery, and tumor, this thin film of plastic brought with it ugly words.
Tumor, extensive re-growth, malignant, invasive, terminal.
An apologetic neurosurgeon sat in front of me and explained her inability to even close the surgical wound left behind by his first surgery.
“…only thing left to do is help him manage pain and dress the wound.”
And she left me with the honor/dread of telling Pedro his prognosis… of cutting the spidersilk thread we all had held on to that maybe surgery could help… of telling him that his seizures and loss of muscle control were only the beginning… of telling him that there is a God who loves. A God who loves. A God who loves.
Now… 1 week later, he sits in a wheelchair in my back yard.
Unable to move his right arm or leg.

Laughter

And I sat on my couch and wept. In this situation, because of his rapidly deteriorating health, we would have hoped to bring Pedro’s wife and children to him here at Casa Ahavá. But just three weeks ago Pedro’s son was born. His forth child, not even a month old, waits for his daddy to come home. A daddy who cannot hold him, cannot stand tall with him, cannot wrap him against his chest and tell him how proud he is. This 3 week old cannot make the journey to Pedro.
Pedro’s health means he cannot get on a bus or an airplane to get home. His family cannot get on one to come here.
Let’s get Pedro home.
Thursday morning at around 4 we will help Pedro into the car and I’ll drive him the (depending on road conditions) 12 hour trip to his home village. His home is in a bit of a remote area but we’ll make it.
So our hope has changed.
It’s changed from hoping for long months, even years, to hoping for enough days to get home. Just two more days. And it’s changed to hoping for more than just what this broken body can offer. Our hope has changed. Pedro’s hope has changed.
A God who loves. A God who loves. A God who loves.
Please pray for us as we drive to Muxúnguè on Thursday to get Pedro home.

The Route

Pray that our hope is not deferred but that Pedro’s longing to see his son is fulfilled.
Please pray with us for Pedro’s heart.

August 12, 2014

Jon

Casa Ahava, Medical, Rock Climbing, Travel

10 comments

A Thrill of Hope

Thanks Tara Craver for sharing

We are home. The trip was long and our girls are still not recovered – struggling with night and morning coughs and jet lag. I keep asking Jon to reassure me that it will get better… and it will, though it seems like it is dragging. I caught the bug before leaving the States and was determined to get home and get our house ready for Christmas. So before all of our bags were unpacked and laundry was done the tree, garland, and lights went up. This year I am enjoying a little Advent calendar with the girls, and while they may not understand it all, perhaps little bits and pieces will stick.

On Thanksgiving day we received a heavy email with a health update from our dear Eliza. She left for South Africa to start radiation the day we went on furlough to the States. The treatment has not gone well. Her throat has swollen and she is unable to eat food. She has stopped talking and can only use gestures to communicate. Her brother came by our home a couple of days ago to ask for help to get her home. We are so very blessed by our supporters in that the financial side of that is not a problem – Thank you! What we need from you is prayer. Pray that Eliza, who is currently on breathing tubes, will improve and stabilize enough to get on an airplane and make it back to Mozambique, her home country, where she can be around family and those that love her.

Yesterday we were able to make our first visit back to Oncology! We wanted to arrive as a family and introduce ourselves to all the new patients. Our girls are such a blessing there. It was fun to watch our Karasi being toted around, chill as could be. Anaya is becoming more and more comfortable, and we are able to talk with her more about our “job” there. It is sweet when she suggests that we pray for people. We saw two patients that we knew and the rest were all new! Pray with us as we develop new relationships and ask the Lord to guide us in the selection of 4 new patients for Casa Ahavá.

This holiday season, surrounded and so very aware of this weary world, we feel the thrill of hope, and we rejoice! Christ our Savior has come.

December 9, 2013

Layne

Personal, Travel

5 comments

Snapshots

A Jon Post

Following are a few snapshots of our lives over the last 2 months from a family that did a pretty poor job of communicating with all of you about where we are/what we’re doing. If you don’t have time to read it all please just skip to the end where I list a couple prayer requests.

#1 Week of September 22-28
A mad scramble to figure out if we would be able to get 2 our patients home, to the hospital, or to life-extending treatment in South Africa before we left. A mad scramble to find out if one of our patient’s tumor was operable or he needed to go home, and a bus ticket to send another one home who had finished her treatment and needed to spend her remaining days/months with her family.

Family minus Filomena

Zakarias, the surgeon didn’t respond before we left, we did not know if his tumor was operable, he stayed in our house.
Tomás and Eliza, the day we left for the USA (September 24th) we were up first thing in the morning to buy last minute bus tickets to send them to South Africa for more treatment.

Filomena The Day She Left

Filomena, we purchased a bus ticket and sent her home a few days before we left for the USA to make sure she was with her family after she was discharged with no more options to fight her cancer.
September 24th, we left our house at 11 AM and arrived at Layne’s parents house 40 hours later with all three girls in tow. Thankfully we had the gracious help of Jon’s parents who came to visit us and joined us in our long journey to the USA and helped tremendously on the plane.

(whew, that was a long first snapshot but we did a really bad job of telling everyone who reads this blog that any of that stuff happened before we left)

Jovie Meeting the Dolphins

Anaya Running with Dolphins

#2 Time in Corpus Christi, TX
The Texas State Aquarium with our girls. Grandparents helping them swim and play, as well as cousin time. Sitting with sweet, sweet supporters. Trying to recover from the jetlag and help our girls sleep in new places with new surroundings.

#3 October 30th More Travel
Flight from Corpus Christ to Phoenix. Left Layne’s parents place at 8 and arrived at Jon’s brother’s house 7 hours later. This was our first plane travel with our three girls alone. They are super stars.

Layne and Her Dad

#4 More Family Adjustments
Man… it’s hard doing this furlough thing with 3 little children. We could not ask them to be better sports through all of this but a new bedroom for a month, a new bed for a month, different living space for a month, meeting lots of people (supporters) for the first time on an almost daily basis. Well… it’s tough. Our girls are super stars.

#5 Time in Chandler, AZ

At Uncle Joe’s Duck Pond

Seeing more sweet, sweet supporters. Time with other Grandparents. Time with LOTS of cousins, girls napping in the car a lot.
So there are a few, far from comprehensive or descriptive, snapshots of our lives since September. We are currently in Chandler, Arizona in the USA trying to connect with those who pray for us and give to this ministry. We have been trying to sit down with each of you and we still have a little under two weeks to do that. We are very sorry that we haven’t pursued you and communicated with you all well enough to do that “sit down” better. We are finding out that we need to be more diligent with some things and one is our personal and purposeful communication with team mates.

They See Us Strollin…

Anaya Loves Karasi

In closing this little “snapshot” post. Can we ask you to pray for two things?
Would you pray that our children’s health improves? I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have American immunities built up or if it’s just a bug they would have picked up either way but all three, Anaya, Jovie, and Karasi have bad coughs and are very congested. It’s hard for them to rest and, thus, hard for their parents, especially Layne who still feeds and comforts Karasi in the night. Would you pray for them?
Would you also pray that each airplane on our return flight has LOTS of open seats? Neither Jovie nor Karasi are ticketed for those flights and are traveling as lap children. Anaya still needs plenty of help and attention on the flights and Jovie needs space to move so if we all try to jam into three seats it’s just really hard. Would you pray for our flights? Would you pray that a check-in agent magically upgrades us to first class? Would you pray that we have 15 seats to spread out on and rest on for the 40 hours of travel?

Karasi Loves Jovie

We love you guys. Thanks for loving us, even though we lost touch there for a bit.

November 20, 2013

Jon

The Kids, Travel

1 comment

Guest Blog from Dan Heller: Names That Have Faces

A Jon Post

It’s been a busy couple weeks. My parents arrived in Maputo on September 15th, ready to spend some time with our family and see our ministry. They spent our final 1 and a half weeks with us in Maputo before our two month furlough. They got to see us running around, trying to tie up all loose ends, getting our home, Casa Ahavá, ready for two months without us. Patients to and from the hospital, to and from administration records buildings, and seemingly endless errands all led up to leaving our home on Tuesday the 17th and arriving, 40 hours later, in Layne’s parents home. It was exhausting.

So my dad reflected on his trip with my mom and he/they wrote this guest blog this week. They/we hope you enjoy.

A Dan Post

Names That Have Faces

Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone and thought, “finally a face with a name”. Maybe a relative or a friend of a friend or just someone you have heard about. Vicki and I, after visiting Jon and Layne, met their first patients. Papa Zakarias, Eliza, Filomena, and Tomás are not just names anymore but faces; real people that were not just names but became “friends”.

We would like to offer a picture through our camera lens of who they are, so you might know their faces:

Papa Zakarias

(Papa Zakarias) A 53-year-old diminutive man sits in comfortable solitude in a plastic chair. The sun’s intense rays cannot

reach him here in the shade of Casa Ahavá, where Papa Zakarias lives with his fellow patients. We often see him in this pose, playing his made-up chords on Jon’s guitar, of which Zakarias has become the unofficial keeper. We want very much to come close enough to hear as he softly sings the words he has written to his wife and young children, the loved ones he has not seen these many months of cancer treatments; but we dare not disturb his privacy, and besides … the language barrier would prevent our understanding of the words. But there are other glimpses into his tender father-heart: the way he looks after the other Casa Ahavá patients; his smiling eyes blessing Jon’s and Layne’s little ones; the longing in his voice – “Ahhh, ….. Jovie …” – embracing the name of Jon’s one-year-old daughter as he cradles the top of her head in a good-bye gesture, knowing it is possibly the last time he will see these children as well. Papa Zakarias is easy to love. And we do – hoping, praying for the good news that he has been deemed a candidate for potentially life-saving surgery to remove the hateful tumor that has banished him to a place so far from home.

Auntie Eliza

(Eliza) We love her Mozambican style: the artfully arranged head turban covering her chemo-bald head, the beautiful wrap-around capulana skirt, the fringed shawl. Eliza’s communication and facial expressions vary from day to day, depending on the level of pain or discomfort she is experiencing. It is a relief to see that she freely trusts Layne with her needs and her pain. We have been in Jon’s and Layne’s home for several days before we see an easy smile on her countenance. We are happy that she, a grandmother herself, has been here at Casa Ahavá for all these months, hugging and cheering our precious grandchildren in our stead. Who, we wonder, is loving on Eliza’s grandchildren for her? Occasionally, and comically, we try to communicate with words, hoping that our body language will come through for us; it often doesn’t and we find ourselves looking to Jon or Layne for interpretation. It is not until the day before Jon and Layne will leave for their 2-month-long furlough, that we see the full expression of Eliza’s love and gratitude toward them. We do not understand her words, but her tears say it all. Again, we pray and hope for this one: God have mercy; help Eliza learn to know You in “the power of an endless life” (Heb. 7:16).

Filomena and Vicki

(Filomena) Quiet. Fragile. Recently bereaved of her 16-year-old son. These words pass through our minds as we think of the short time we knew Filomena before she left 10 days ago to return to her village in the north. Her fellow patients firmly believe that being at Casa Ahavá saved her life – at least for a little while longer. On the day of her home-going, she is happy, excited to be returning to her two young children. In spite of her shyness, she seeks Vicki out for a hug and poses for a picture with her. Somehow, the photo reminds us that, just as He sees the sparrow when it falls, God sees her. That He knows her name and her story. That even though we will never see her again, she leaves her mark. For reasons beyond our understanding, God chose Filomena to live at Casa Ahavá for a few months, to love and be loved there. And it was good.

Tomas

(Tomás) One would never guess from looking at Tomás that he is sick. Strong and handsome with an easy smile, he says little, but he knows. For one of our dinners with the patients, he proudly prepares, in Casa Ahavá’s little kitchen, a delicious Mozambican dish of cooked greens. He enjoys an occasional game of Jenga or checkers with me, Jon, and Papa Zakarias. We wonder what he is thinking on Tuesday morning, when he and Eliza board a bus for a two-month sojourn in South Africa for radiation treatment. Will he see his Casa Ahavá friends again?

Casa Ahavá is Real – A House of Deep Love because of your generosity and prayers.

A place that provides comfort to the sick and dying; a place that forgets cancer; a place that is filled with music; a place where games are played; a place where the women hold little Karasi and remember their own children or grandchildren; a place where life abounds even with the protector and guardian of the house – Gasher the dog! A place of sharing meals together, trying to understand different languages (Vicki and I); a place of realizing that our hope in God is the anchor of our soul and the only answer to life’s challenges; a place of gratitude, listening to the patients express with tears how thankful they are for Jon and Layne and all they do, one in particular saying she would have died earlier if it had not been for them. This is what our prayers and generous giving are supporting.

We walked away knowing that Life is being discovered in the Face of Death.

September 30, 2013

Jon

Casa Ahava, Mozambique, Travel

3 comments

Lunch with the Paschecos – More Stories From Beira

A Layne Post

There they stood in the heat of mid-day, the four of them with broad smiles across their dark faces. Surprised, we only expected Pedro to lead the way to their home, we pulled off the road and loaded the two men up front and the two girls in the back. Anaya’s thumb went in her mouth as soon as the boisterous greetings began, and Jovie sat staring intently at the new faces in front of her. While they both know Pedro, it seemed they didn’t remember.

The drive to their house was short, though very bumpy. I braced myself by sticking one arm straight above my head pressed into the ceiling while using the other hand to try to keep Jovie’s head from bouncing from left to right in whiplash fashion. Our truck’s roof rack barely cleared the previous evening’s decorations, along with a laundry line we needed to pass. Two men held the line as high as they could above their heads, barely making the path possible. We unloaded from the car, Pedro’s brother, Albino, carrying Anaya into the yard and placing her in his lap. To our amazement, no tears ensued.

The whole family was there to meet us, all thirteen of them. Hands were grasped, kisses were given, and friendships quickly bonded. We were seated beneath the colorful and festive decorations from the previous night’s New Year’s Eve celebration. There were many colored balloons hanging from strings and shiny silver wrapped around trees. To her heart’s delight, Anaya was handed a balloon to play with.

The table was set with a lace tablecloth topped with their best dishes, glasses, and silverware. There were cold Cokes and Fantas ready to serve and six beautiful red pots with colorful flowers patterned on the sides, each filled with fresh warm delicacies. Food would be plentiful.

Straw mats were placed on the dirt ground beside the table for the women and children to sit and eat. However, I was a guest of honor and, not wanting to refuse the generous offer, a woman and her kids sat down at the table with the men.

Pedro’s daughter came around with a plastic basin and a pitcher of cool water, a towel draped over her arm. We washed our hands and dried them. Lunch could begin. We ate seasoned rice harvested from their farm, crab with potatoes in a wonderful curried sauce, and curried, buttered clams.

Anaya came to sit with Dada, rice and Coke being some of her favorites. She spotted a yellow balloon overhead and desire overtook her. With no hesitation, our hosts were quick to oblige her, cutting it down and placing it in her lap. It popped seconds later. She tired quickly of the table and hopped down to do her usual exploring as we continued our meal. Jovie made eating the unshelled crab a bit of a feat for me, as she wanted to get her hands on some. I overcame, with a bit of Jon’s help when he was finished. My pregnant belly sat full and content.

Conversation went around about the family, the farm, house construction, and old friends at the hospital. At one point Pedro grabbed his phone to call a boy at the hospital. He beamed as he told him we were with him right there at his home, and then handed the phone to Jon as to verify his claims.

Anaya found a duck and climbed through the fence to get closer. Before we knew it, she was in the neighbor’s yard, cautiously chasing the fearful duck. We gave warning to only look, not touch, and made sure the neighbor would not be upset.

When lunch had come to a close, the dishes were promptly cleared and out came bowls of freshly cut pineapple and roasted cashews, also harvested from their farm. It was some of the best pineapple I’ve ever had. I had to practice some restraint not to gobble up the entire bowl.

We spent some more time with the family, me sneaking away from the men’s table to appease Jovie, supervise Anaya, and join the women on the mats below. How casual and comfortable the afternoon passed. As the girls’ nap time approached, we said our ‘goodbyes’, everyone anxious to know when our family would return to Beira. Only the Lord knows but one thing is for sure, when we arrive, we will have friends to welcome us.