A thought...

I was just thinking about the comment that Paula left on my blog from yesterday – after I posted the pictures of my bro in Moldova with the twins… She said “it's people like that that make the world a better place”. – So true, yet so easy to take for granted at times.

Cesco and Pris are old friends that are very dear to me, my bro (and his wife), and my mom. We loved them deeply (still do, of course), as they’re basically like family. I haven’t cried for the passing of anyone ever really (other than a few tears at Grandpa’s death, though those were more for the way Mama Maria was so brave and positive through it, I think), but I actually found myself burst into tears when hearing the news of Cesco’s passing. I wish I had the means to go and be with Pris and her kids to help, but the best I can do is offer my prayers, get the Lord’s encouragement through PnPs for her, and get my Home to send them gifts. – Which we’ve been doing as much as we can, and which they desperately need.

Back to my thoughts though, I know what Paula said is so true, yet we often forget to think twice of the way we have such a loving and caring greater Family. I was reminded of a write-up Joan Clair posted on the Family Youth group in 2003 shortly before her mom passed away due to lung cancer. I was so touched I saved it…

I’m going to post it here again, as it says so well what I’m trying to say.

“This is on the topic of the recent topic of the old and sick Family members being left out to die in the wilderness once they hit 50.

My mom is 52. She has terminal lung cancer and probably 2 months left to live max.

She has been in the Family since she was 22, traveled around to more countries than I can count, and 8 months ago was in Taiwan. She had a persistent cough, got it diagnosed as bronchitis and then pneumonia and finally got some Xrays and discovered--quite out of the blue--that she had 4-6 months to live. That was 2-1/2 months ago.

She is now in Santa Barbara (she had returned to the US a few months after the bronchitis diagnosis) and as horrible and painful as her sickness is, one of the things that has been most touching for me to see the great testimony it gives to the Lord and the Family.

My sister has been in Nepal for the last 8 years and has come back to take care of my mom fulltime (alas I have 2 kids or I would be there myself). They both landed in Santa Barbara with only a small bit of money from a gift from my grandma. Deciding to stay there, they made a trip up to FCF to attend an Easter fellowship. June from FCF picked them up at the train station. On the way back to the Home she stopped off at the store and insisted on buying them any needs they had. They were put up in her own room (I don't know where she slept but she moved every single one of the multiple dozen scented candles out onto the porch when they were impeding my mom's breathing).

Visitors poured in to visit her during her several day stay. Grant from FCF, hearing they would need to rent an apartment, loaned them the $1600 needed for their down payment. Nearby Homes offered them furniture, and said if she had been living closer (they are in San Diego) they would have loved to give food from the weekly provisioning.

The Home worked out for Linda, another sister, to drive them back to Santa Barbara. They filled the car with dishes, household supplies, and food that lasted them a couple weeks or more. Though she had originally intended to stay just a day, when mom and my sis had to leave their hotel because of a big martial arts festival, Linda stayed an extra week to drive my sister around house-hunting. She didn't go until they were settled in their new apartment.

So there is the Family's care in time of trouble. Nick the VS has said the Homes would be able to give a monthly gift to help her out, and she has had a steady stream of phone calls and even visitors despite how out-of-the-way they are.

And then, there is that indefinable thing that can only be seen as the Lord's presence. They were able to find a beautiful, affordable apartment with supermarkets in walking (or biking) distance, a huge sunny porch, gardens on both landings.--A little bit of Heaven.

The nearby hospice has taken Mom under her wing, and has not only given her free care and doctors' and nurses' visits as often as she needs them (sometimes up to twice a day), but a free hospital bed, state-of-the-art wheelchair, oxygen machines and as many oxygen tanks as she needs for going out, pain killers and any other medicine needed, an air humidifier, and the other day when discussing how she needed more protein, they went out and bought her a brand new blender so she could make shakes.

There is a wish granting association that is going to send them on an all-expenses paid trip to Yosemite park in a private airplane. Mom couldn't apply for the state's disability payment until they had an address; some people have waited up to 6 months before their paperwork came through after their application. Mom's first check arrived exactly 10 days after they moved in to their new apartment.

My sister is working out her paperwork to get her social security number (we are dual citizens and she did not have US citizenship before, tho Mom is American). When that comes through, she will be able to received In Home Nursing Care payment, whereby the state will pay her hourly wages for taking care of Mom. Then there is the housing grants, which if received would cover about 60% of their rent. This has not come through yet (please pray for it!) but they have put Mom at the top of the list; they have to wait until someone else moves before she can receive it.

The landlady has taken them under her wing and recently talked one of the other renters who was leaving into passing on a few of his leftovers--they ended up with a brand new TV, set of pots and pans and a comfortable reclining armchair that Mom sits on when she can get out of bed.

I'm sure there are things I am forgetting, but to me it has been one giant tapestry of miracles. Yes, she is still dying, but what I see is the God that she has served without monetary recompense for her whole life, rolling out the red carpet for her. This is the greatest testimony I could ever hope to see that shows that God does care for His own.

I know people who get cancer and die alone, friendless, penniless and unable to afford the things they need because the insurance and salary or pension that they trusted in their whole life was insufficient when push came to shove.

If you put your trust in the world, then you will end up thrown upon the world's mercy when the time comes. But if you put your trust in God, what better hands could you end up in?

This is why my mom's death, just as her life, will always be the supreme example of the infallible rewards of giving your life to the Lord.”
(end of comment from JC)

Isn’t that just so touching? All I can say is, my prayer remains: "May we always be known by our love!" (John 13:35)