Jay Day's America: Tena Lundquist Faust and Tama Lundquist
To live without our soul is to live without God and therefore without beauty and truth. The irony is that beauty and truth are often found in the darkest and most grueling places within ourselves and the world around us. If we are wise, we take the invitation–which is offered to every person– at some point in our lives to become one with the light of God and to use that light to illuminate the broken and sick (broken, hurting, ailing) parts of the world–and hence find meaning in our own existence.
Jay Day recently had the honor of photographing Tena and Tama Lundquist in the Promise Dress in Houston, Texas, thanks to my writer/ photographer/ director brother Harry Davis.
Dogs, death, danger, ghettos, guns, cruelty, starvation, electrocution, and politics are not words that come to mind when meeting Tama and Tena. However, these are the very words that have described their lives for the past 17 years as they’ve worked to solve the stray animal crisis in the most impoverished and dangerous areas of Houston.
In Houston alone, there are an estimated 1 million stray animals and in the United States, approximately 920,000 dogs and cats are euthanized every year. Tena and Tama have dedicated their lives to being at the forefront of fighting this crisis through their charity PetSet, which saves tens of thousands of pets from being euthanized every year.
The term ‘one percent’ is historically applied to those at the top of society–the ‘elites’, the socialites, the party-goers, and important people. I have found a subset of this group whom I call the ‘.0001 percent’ who are the rare few that spend their lives on the margins of society bringing love, healing, and life where it is needed most.
In the places where we may never dare to go, there are Tena, Tama, and their rescues; all living testimonies to God’s grace and beauty–the .0001%.
