Email: Jessie Jennette

Happy holidays from Houma!

Thanksgiving dinner was last night here at the Houma village. We had two PDA (Presbyterian Disaster Assistance) managers and the PDA village supervisor here to share in the meal with Cassie, me, and our six volunteers from Albuquerque, New Mexico. So much good food, I didn’t think I’d be up today to work at the job site. The volunteers, however, were raring to go. Where they get their energy, I will never know, but I’m grateful that it’s infectious.

This week my duties shifted a little. Came with the shift in climate I guess (it’s amazing how quickly the warm weather spoils you—you begin to think 45°F is freezing). I’m looking at a change in job description that allows me to spend more time with the volunteers on the work site. Monday was my first day with them and that evening after we returned from an eight-hour work day, I wondered how they could possibly do this every day for an entire week.

Five bayous branch off toward the Gulf of Mexico from Houma, Louisiana. Chauvín (SHŌ-van), one of them, is home to a family that PDA and TRAC (Terrebonne Readiness Action Council) send volunteers to, the one we’re scheduled to work at this week.

Eight o’clock rolls around, we “circle up” in the gravel- and oyster-shell-paved driveway, bag lunches, extra tools, and cooler in tow, and hear a word of inspiration from Tim, a volunteer, to start our day off right. Then we load up their van and head out. On the way, we pass dozens of homes, a neighborhood of beautiful mansion-sized buildings at first, then we cross a levied bridge and suddenly the homes are double- and single-wides on stilts anywhere between three and fifteen feet off the ground and look like a decent wind could blow them right over. Some are flat on the ground with watermarks still showing through the coats of paint. Then the jarring contrast of a few newly built, sturdy houses makes you question which ones are real and which homes are fake. They just can’t have two homes so different next to each other. These thoughts are pushed from the mind when we pull up at our work site, someone’s damaged home, and greet the homeowner as he comes out of the FEMA trailer parked on his front lawn next to the dog pen, his wife and youngest son already at work and school for the day.

A flurry of pointing and explanations about the various jobs he hopes to get done, and we get right to work. Just look at me, second day on the job, and I already feel like a contractor. Yesterday, I climbed out of the van hoping to not get in the way of the more experienced volunteers that have some skill with carpentry. Today, I’m hoping Jill and I (the unstoppable “Caulking Queens of the Kitchen”) can get on the miter saw so we can finish putting up the rest of the trim. With this feeling of accomplishment came a recognition that had nothing to do with filling trim gaps with caulk.

Before I came down here, I was in the midst of questioning a lot about my faith. I mulled over everything—questions ranging everywhere from “how literally were we meant to take the Bible” to “whether or not Adam and Eve had belly-buttons.” Questioning my faith didn’t bother me, but rather where to get the answers. The rules for exploring your faith are not as clear-cut as, well, other things you explore. To be sure, there are spiritual guides that have presented themselves to me, but there are some revelations you need to connect yourself in order to understand their true meaning.

So, there I was—a nail gun loaded with finishing nails in one hand, the other holding a piece of crown molding in place against the ceiling. And I think to myself, “Why do I feel so good?” Ka-BAM, goes the nail gun, and I shift to the left to secure more of the trim. “Be kind to your neighbor, and treat your neighbor as yourself.” “Whosoever cares for the least of these, cares for me…” Pieces of biblical text start to stand out in my head. I’m not sure why. Ka-BAM. But I somehow know the words to be true. It doesn’t make sense that the words that I puzzled over for so long would just suddenly make sense, without applying serious thought or mulling over them until some connection in the brain is made and you can see the truth of it because this leads to that, which leads to that. No, there’s no explanation for the sudden ease with which I accept the verses. Just the feeling that tells me it’s true. It’s as if the intuition of the soul automatically trumps any feeble thought the mind can produce. Ka-BAM, ka-BAM. Something divine in this nail gun let me see the truth of it. Or maybe it was that I was living the text and I had never before experienced such a powerful connection with the words in the Bible. So, what about the rest of the questions that remain in my extensive list? I guess…ka-BAM…I’ll understand eventually.

All my love,

An occasionally clairvoyant,