A Jon Post

We’d just gone to the beach… just spent a day together as a family laughing and dipping our toes into the cool waters of the Indian Ocean as it lapped gently against Maputo’s shoreline… just driven through Maputo’s “downtown” area, smiling and marveling at the engineering and architecture that went into creating the bustling city.

Monday was a good day.

That night Maria walked into our kitchen.

“Can I come in?” She called.

“Don’t ask me that!” I joked over my shoulder from the stove, “Just come in! It’s your house! You can’t ask if you’re allowed into your own kitchen!”

“I just received a phone call.” She told me.

I could hear the concern in her voice…. hear the pain behind the unspoken words left off the end of that sentence. I stopped what I was doing and looked at her. I could see the tears brimming in her eyes, the sorrow disfiguring her face like a hurricane ripping through a city.

“My husband was walking home from work and was hit by a car.”

I held my tongue. My American tendency to draw out all relevant information with a flurry of questions stilled and I held her hand and waited for her to continue at her own pace.

“He didn’t come home last night and my brother found him in the hospital this afternoon.”

A small relief. He is still alive.

“He wants to talk to you.”

I looked at her outstretched arm and the phone nestled in her quivering hand. The Southern African reliance on community in tragedy is a weighty thing. When there is bad news to be shared, often times it is shared around those most profoundly affected, especially when the news is shared over the phone. This is a good practice when emotional and spiritual support is vital. It was humbling and honoring to be asked to be a part of this for Maria, so recently a member of Casa Ahavá.
I accepted the phone and held a brief conversation with Maria’s older brother. Her husband is alive and conscious, but is in critical condition after being hit by a car from behind and sustaining deep road burns on his face and arms. His back and is in a lot of pain and the doctor suspects a cracked pelvis.

I looked at Maria. She sat on our kitchen bench looking at me, waiting to hear what I had to say. I assured her brother on the phone that I would get Maria to her children and husband as quickly as possible and we ended the call.

Layne had heard the commotion and we all sat together in our little kitchen. I explained to Maria what her brother had shared with me about her husband and assured her that, from the sounds of it, her husband should recover.

And we prayed. All of us held hands and I sat on my tile floor and we prayed. Maria on my couch, battling leukemia 1200 kilometers from her children whose daddy lay in a hospital bed in pain.

We pray still.

This Friday, Maria will have another consult with her doctor and, as long as her body is responding well to her latest medication, we will put her on a bus that night and send her to her suffering family.

I saw a movie last night that detailed part of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At one point in the movie Dr. King looks at a grieving parent, lost in the throes of agony. “There are no words” Dr. King says through tears to this weeping parent. “But one thing I do know for certain,” he said,

“God was the first to cry”

God was the first to cry for Maria when her body betrayed her to leukemia.

God was the first to cry when her husband lay on a dark road, covered in blood and dirt.

And God was the first to cry when Maria’s children spent the night alone, both father and mother in need of Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who Heals.

So we cry with our Lord.

Maria

Maria

Our Lord who comforts His beloved. Our Lord who speaks tenderly to His dove who hides in desert and mountainside.