Drought

We walked out of our apartment on Monday to see all the cars in our little parking lot coated in a brown sheet of dust.

We haven't had a solid shower of rain here in weeks, maybe more than 2 months. Normally this region is more rainy than sunny during the spring. The winter was abnormally dry, too. Temperatures have regularly been in the high 60s and 70s, instead of the 50s where they should be. One friend told me that this has been the region's warmest spring since they started keeping records here, in the mid-1800s.

Over the weekend I noticed my hair felt dirty every day; I realized it was from all the dust being kicked up in the air. When you look toward the horizon or up into the sky, you see haze. It's from the dusty atmosphere.

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/04/24/europe-is-facing-the-worst-drought-in-century/

According to this article, in Zurich officials had to start moving trout out of the Toess river before it becomes uninhabitable.

While I love a good spring or summer storm, I'm less enthusiastic about the more typical cold, drizzly weather that is common here. So I haven't minded all the unseasonable warmth and sunshine. But we live in an agricultural area. Farms and fields completely surround our little village. You are more likely to get creamed by a tractor while crossing the street than to be hit by a car.

It's an immediate reality to me that Europe needs rain.

It needs spiritual rain, as well. It needs the live-giving, thirst-quenching, refreshing, reviving Living Water that God wants to pour out on His children.

We pray for both kinds.