The Day It Finally Rained
Can you feel it?
When the first rain drops began falling everyone who was not already outside came out of their homes. All eighty-seven members of the settlement stood on the ground — most of them barefoot — as the rain intensified, quickly drenching them all.
The collective joy was palpable. Some people were dancing in the rain. Children were stomping through the quickly forming puddles. Many just stood and, with arms spread outward, they lifted their faces skyward to let their tears of joy be instantly washed from their smiling faces.
The drought had lasted for two years. The settlement’s store of food was depleted. The latest crops were not growing. The surrounding hillsides had become so dry as to pose a severe fire hazard.
The previous year the people had come together to collectively pray for rain. They prayed and prayed and prayed but the rain never came.
Prayer commenced this year even before the new crops were planted. The people prayed, they implored, they begged. They were in a desperate state.
But the rains did not come.
After a couple of bone dry months a visitor came to the settlement. Sitting with several of the settlement’s elders he learned of their predicament and he learned of their collective praying.
