Jacqueline Powell, who hails from Cascade in St. Ann, was all smiles as she chatted with Freedom Come Rain at the Denbigh Agricultural Show on Tuesday.
While her and her team didn’t have a lot to showcase, due to the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Beryl, she was still thankful for the mercies extended by God.
Listening to the wind, Powell said it seemed that it was speaking anger, and as for the hurricane itself, she said it seemed to be hungry as it was intent on destroying food.
Powell informed that a lot of banana trees fell down, as did fruit trees, and those that weren’t uprooted had all their fruits fall off.
“And what I noticed, the one that remained just dropped off after a while,” she said as she explained that the yam trees were blown down.
Powell, a Christian for 22 years, recalled how she felt during the passage of the storm. She said she was “really scared”. As she heard the howling winds, she had the real fear that her house would come tumbling down, but she said she managed to calm herself through her faith in the Lord.
“I prayed; honestly, I prayed to God. And as I said, I was scared because I’m living in a two-story building. And you know, the building could have come down, but God has kept us, my family and I, and the next morning, we came out, and we were safe,” she highlighted, stating that the experience has seen her drawing closer to the Lord—closer than she was before.
Her community, while not suffering some of the great devastation as other parishes like St. Elizabeth and Clarendon did, still saw farmers taking a beating.
Although the event at Denbigh had been scaled down and reduced to one day, both Powell and her team leader, Selma Watson (check name), were grateful for the experience. They had entered a competition organised by the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), which afforded them the opportunity to attend.
This was the first time for Watson too, as she previously attended as an onlooker. Powell, who used to live in Kingston, attended the Portmore New Testament Church of God in Bayside. However, after relocating to St. Ann, she joined a Baptist church.
