{"id":790,"date":"2010-09-06T12:47:10","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T19:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=790"},"modified":"2010-09-11T11:53:43","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T18:53:43","slug":"a-broad-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/a-broad-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"A Broad Smile"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A Jon Post<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I spent the afternoon with a little boy in my lap, talking, laughing, holding\u2026 while poison dripped into his veins. He started day 1 of 5 of chemotherapy today. Little Tom\u00e9 and his brave little smile.
\nEvery time I come to the hospital Tom\u00e9 comes running. He\u2019s 10 years old and has lived at the hospital for 6 months now.
\nAlone.
\nHis father dropped him off at the hospital 6 months ago with incredible pain in his stomach. He later had a cancerous tumor removed from his abdomen and has been doing 5 day chemo treatments on three week intervals ever since.
\nAlone.
\nHe hasn\u2019t seen his father or mother the entire time.
\nThis post was actually supposed to be about the riots and civil unrest in the city of Maputo over the past week. Layne and I ended up stuck in our house while we waited for the violence that swept through the city to calm down. We weren\u2019t able to go visit our friends at the hospital or even see if they were okay there. The hospital is right in the middle of city and was surrounded by rioters.
\nI was going to go on and on about the country of Mozambique and what would incite people to burn cars in the streets and bring the city to a stand-still.
\nBut today I spent the afternoon with a little boy in my lap. A little boy usually a bundle of energy and looking for someone to hold him, someone to whom he can belong, someone to call him\u2026 mine. Usually Layne and I are called \u201cTio Jon and Tia Elayna\u201d. Uncle Jon and Aunt Layne. But today, while little Tom\u00e9 sat in my lap, a woman walked by, saw us, smiled and said \u201cTom\u00e9 has been asking for his daddy. I\u2019m glad you came. Tom\u00e9 has been asking for you.\u201d
\nI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve earned such a reverent title in Tom\u00e9\u2019s life. I think he\u2019s just desperate for someone<\/em> to whom he can belong. And I\u2019m glad he feels safe enough with me for that to be true of Layne and me.
\nThis is the vision. This is it. We just want to do it in our own home. We want to look after the orphan in his distress. We want to visit the sick. We see Jesus there. Sitting in a hospital bed, arm swollen from countless IV chemo treatments, a piece of gauze taped over a painful sore, with a broad smile on His face.<\/p>\n

Thanks friends and family and supporters. Tom\u00e9 has a family because you keep us here. His broad smile is worth our time.<\/p>\n

Thanks.<\/p>\n

\"A

A Picture of Tom\u00e9 on my Camera Phone <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Jon Post I spent the afternoon with a little boy in my lap, talking, laughing, holding\u2026 while poison dripped into his veins. He started day 1 of 5 of chemotherapy today. Little Tom\u00e9 and his brave little smile. Every time I come to the hospital Tom\u00e9 comes running. He\u2019s 10 years old and has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}