God Sends Abundant Showers

Joel 2:23 – Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. (NIV)

Over the period July 23, 2000, to August 20, 2000, I was away from my usual work station, taking a holiday. The place for my break was Kabale, my birthplace, in Uganda. As I arrived in this small town, I noticed that the place was a lot drier and dustier than I had known it before. I was also told that food was in short supply, mainly in the neighbouring countryside, as the rains had stopped coming much earlier than usual, leaving food crops too young to survive.

It was thus with a hint of disappointment that I retired to our house on the hillside for my first night of the holiday. I was a guest in a dry dusty place and among a people worried about the food scarcity that promised to get worse with time. Indeed, my experience of the next few days did not help things as the only way to avoid an envelope of dust was to travel in a car with all the windows closed, in places where I would have preferred to walk. Moreover, while in that car, I noticed that many people on foot grew apprehensive of my approach, as I was bound to raise enough dust to completely cover them!

The fact that one of these dusty places was the gate of a hospital where most victims of this dust were out-patients depressed me even more. My problem-solving instinct soon made me determined to do something about this. Besides the daily prayer and wish for rain, I sought audience with the financial head of the municipality and asked him what he was planning to do about the unacceptable level of dust by the hospital gate. We both pondered the possibility of trucking and spraying water there, but he pointed out that there were not enough funds to effectively sustain this method. We were discussing this problem in the evening of August 14, 2000.

Close to midnight, the beginning of the 15th day of August, 2000, I woke up to a very pleasant sound of a strong downpour of rain! What with the sounds of water streaming from several places on my roof-top and the consistently heavy downpour, I could not contain the mounting effect of gratitude I felt for the Lord over this most welcome gift of rain! As I sang in praise to God for this gift, I wished I were not physically alone so that I could share this joy with all members of my family! Yet I also felt that God had chosen to bless all those who needed this rain, in His own way, and I was immensely grateful!

There had previously been scheduled a service at the local church, for that day, and the route I travelled was totally dust-free! Neither was it muddy! Please join me in praising the Lord for His many gifts of this nature, which we continue to receive.

Prayer: Praise be to you, heavenly Father, for continuing to take care of our needs, in spite of our weak faith, in the power of your hand to save and serve us, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Amen.