The speaker in our evening devotional talked about our gifts. He read from 1 Corinthians 12 on our spiritual gifts, but he ended up in Job talking about Job’s friends judging that Job’s calamity to have arisen surely from unknown unrighteous actions.
The pastor from Finleyville continued to tell us that he had been down here only twice. The first time was two weeks after Katrina. (Isn’t it interesting how many pastors made this trip so fast after the storm?) Most of his mission time has been spent in Central America.
He talked about the admonition we give all the volunteers in our first briefing. We are here to help these people who have suffered harm for no apparent reason, not to judge them. He remarked how hard it is to distinguish between the collective damage to their dwellings from years of poverty and Katrina damage.
His first home to work on this week was a house that would have sold for over $300,000 back in Pennsylvania. The crew’s job was to put up drywall in the garage. He said he stopped and wondered what on earth he was doing in the garage of this large house. He came down here to get people out of FEMA trailers, not work in some luxurious home.
The house did not suffer any surge damage; the wind blew off all the shingles of the roof and gave the entire home a 13 and one-half hour soaking. Every ceiling had to be removed. Including even the multi-car garage. He went further into the house. As he noted 24 foot cathedral ceilings in the large living room, bile soured his stomach.
As he walked further into the home, he met the woman living in the house. He really wasn’t so interested in her story; he was still simmering about why he was here. Then the woman began her story and it poured over him wave after wave buffeting him as if were itself Katrina’s surge.
Her husband was a quite wealthy businessman. He had walked out on her two days before Katrina hit and headed for a resort city in an island archipelago in the Pacific.
She continued. Her son had followed dad and left her and her adult daughter behind living with her. Then Katrina hit and wreaked this damage.
Then she talked about her automobile accident. It was a bad accident that shattered both of her femurs. It crushed one ankle, crushed and broke both arms. She has metal pins and rods from hip to feet as well as in both arms.
She turned her story to her daughter, a young woman of twenty or so years who lives with one of those autoimmune diseases we hear about once in a while. After the storm her disorder took a turn for the worse. Mother is not fully sure of her daughter’s prognosis but doesn’t expect her to live more than a few more weeks.
She continued her worry not only about her daughter but about her own health. Then the next turn came forth. She has had a heart attack and two strokes during all this post-Katrina chaos.
In grief at the realization of what he had done, the pastor observed that Job's “friends” at least sat in silence with Job for seven days before beginning their presumptive judging. He had started within the first hour, even after the admonition of the first day not to do so.
Listening to the pastor tell this story, I paged through earlier pages in 1 Corinthians and was caught by Paul’s comments in chapter 4,
“…do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purpose of the heart. Then every one will receive his commendation from God.”
The pastor ended by observing that the volunteers do this thing for God. This work, they do it for God.
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