I want to go home!

“I want to go home!” screamed Lungile during a church service
last Monday. When we took her back to
her room, she still persisted, “I want to go home!”

She had no idea what she was asking.

Calie and I visited Lungile, a 39 year old woman, every Monday and Friday
for the last month at the Hope House, a long-term care center in Manzini for
the very sick and terminally ill. Lungile had moved in the week before we first visited her in early February. 

The first time Calie and I walked in we found a fun woman with a lot of
energy. Our conversation was fun and we
sang songs with her; Calie and I knew that the Lord had called us to this room.

It did not take long to see that she was sick with AIDS. She was very thin and her legs were virtually
useless, a sign that most likely pointed to tuberculosis. She was loosing her hair, as well. Her body was a mere shell of what it once
was. However, her mental processes
seemed fine, and we had so much fun. 

I visited Lungile once more that week and had a blast again. She came to the church service that our team
held under the pavilion there. She
remembered Calie’s and my name. The
seeds of our relationship were planted, and both Calie and I were very excited
that we could spend two days a week with her.

When the following Monday came, Calie and I were beaming with
excitement. We were going to see
Lungile, the woman who was so much fun to talk to. Calie had even learned how to play the song,
“Open the Eyes of my Heart” on the guitar, at her request. We were completely unprepared for what was
going to happen that day.

The Lungile that we met the previous week was not the Lungile that was
there. This day, she was filled with
worry and paranoia. She kept thinking
that her caretaker was not feeding her, and that they were putting something
harmful in the food. Then she kept
saying, “I’m going to die here.” She wanted her family to take her
home. We realized that day that there
would be some good days and some bad days, and we had to be ready for both.

Over the course of the month, there were in fact good and bad days. Calie and I learned to persist through the
bad days filled with negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. When she said that she was going to die here
and that she was being neglected, we would tell her that she was getting better
and that she was getting great care. Calie was the best at this. Like
rapid fire, every time that Lungile said something negative, she would have
something positive to say.

Our days consisted of telling her stories, singing songs, reading the
Bible, and sometimes just sitting having a Swazi conversation. (A Swazi conversation is essentially a slower
conversation that isn’t afraid of silence, foreign to most Americans.) As she got more comfortable with us, she also
started bossing me around too. I can’t
count the amount of times refilled her water bottle and got her food out the
fridge. In addition, she began to warm
up to us and reveal more about her life.

Lungile didn’t have a family of her own. Her mother and all of her brothers and sisters have died. Her father and her stepmother disowned her;
they refused to take her home and even to visit her. Calie and I were the only visitors that she
had.

During our visits, we learned to find joy in painstakingly difficult
times. It was obvious that Lungile
didn’t have a lot of time left, and there were some days that I thought her
time was nearer than others. I would
pray that she would be at the Hope House every day I would go, not knowing how
much time she really had.

Last Monday, we visited Lungile with Liz, our female team leader. She had heard a lot about her and wanted to
meet and spend time with her. Lungile
was very antsy that day and kept talking about home. She didn’t want to be there anymore. “I want to go home.” As I have stated, Lungile didn’t have a home
in Swaziland anymore. Her dad and
stepmother left her at the Hope House and weren’t coming to get her. We sensed that the home that she truly
desired was not on this earth. She just
didn’t know it yet.

It makes everyone quite apprehensive to talk about death; fear of the
unknown is quite a sensitive subject. I
felt the Lord tugging on my heart to ask about it. Obviously, He was moving Liz to do the
same. Knowing that she was a Christian,
and that eternity was secured for her, Liz asked Lungile what heaven is
like. She opened up the book of
Revelation. We talked about heaven, and Lungile’s spirits brightened. We could see the hope that we had revealed to
her. It was then that I knew that her
time here was now very limited. However,
nothing could prepare Calie and I for what happened on last Friday.

Last Friday, we showed up the Hope House and Lungile wasn’t there. The staff told us that on Thursday she had
stopped eating and refused to take her medication. They had taken her to hospital for
treatment. We knew that our time with
Lungile was waning, and that we may never see her again. However, our team goes to the same hospital
on Tuesday. Calie and I were praying
that Lungile would make it until then when we could see her again.

When our team planned to go to the Hope House on Monday, Calie and I made
other plans. We thought that since
Lungile wasn’t there we would do other things. Calie planned to go to Timbale crafts and I was going to help a Katie
find an orthodontist. The Lord had other
plans. Timbale crafts were cancelled for
Calie. I went to the clinic with Katie
(this is a story in itself), which is located next to the Hope House. A few minutes after we got their, Debbie and
Melissa came and told me that Lungile was back and didn’t have much time to
live. I went immediately to her room.

When I got there, our whole team that visits the Hope House were gathered around
Lungile’s bed. She looked even less like
herself. She couldn’t speak anymore and
every breath was vigorously labored. I
sat next her bed with Calie and we talked to her and read the Bible to her
about heaven. Ryan played the guitar and
we sang worship for a solid hour and a half. Although Lungile couldn’t speak, we were able to make out a few things
she was trying to say. To me, she said,
“Hi. How are you?” and to Calie, “I love you.”

A week earlier, she said that she wanted to go home. Everybody in that room was praying for
it. There was even more confirmation
that she no longer had a home in this world; she did not have any other
visitors. She only had us. In the last month of her life, she only had
Calie and I come to visit her.

At a quarter til one we all left her room. The priest who runs the Hope House suggested that we leave her in peace,
and at most have only a couple people stay with her in silence. We headed for the pavilion to eat lunch. At 1:40 I went to say goodbye. By that time she had gone into a coma. At 2, as we were leaving, a nurse came and
told us that she had passed.

“For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is
destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. For in this tent we groan,
longing to put on our heavenly dwelling…For while we are still in this tent
we groan, being burdened.” 2 Corinthians 5:1-2, 4

 Lungile doesn’t have AIDS
anymore. She is not in pain. The tent that she resided in on this earth is
replaced by her true home in heaven with the Lord in paradise. The old has passed, the new has come for
her. She is forever with Him and can see
Jesus face to face. She doesn’t have a
father on this life that disowned her. She is with her heavenly Father forever.