When the Rains Won’t Come-we Need to Pray

Last year we had too much. Today we can’t get enough. And there is very little sign that it is going to rain anytime soon.

Since October 2009, the western coast of Dominica has been experiencing below average rainfall while the east of the island began experiencing similar conditions from December. Both Canefield and the Melville Hall Airports last month reported their driest February on record (twenty-eight years at Canefield and fourty-two years in the case of Marigot). Across the island, rainfall totals continue to plummet below the normal levels.

Fortunately, Dominica is not yet under a drought alert as is the case in most of the islands of the Southeastern Caribbean. That time however, might not be to far off and if this dry spell continues, Dominica may be in for some hard times ahead.

This might be difficult to imagine particularly in a land that boasts a river for every day of the year. But the drought has been so persistent and intense water levels in our streams and rivers are beginning to drop. It has not rained in Roseau for the last three months or so. The authorities are beginning to panic. Dowasco has been advising consumers and households to conserve water. Farmers are also already complaining about the adverse impact of the drought on their crops. More than 95% of Dominica’s agriculture is still rain-fed. Besides, there is a reduction in water for irrigation. Supplies of fruits and vegetables at the Roseau market are already on the decline and one can expect a spike in food prices anytime soon. There are also increasing concerns about bush fires. The parched vegetation and the strong prevailing winds at this time of year make for a very rapid spread of wild fires.

Some of our neighbours are already rationing water and a number communities on island have begun complaining about water shortages. Combined with the hardships resulting from the global financial crisis, this situation could spell disaster for our agriculture and entire economy.

In light of the early onset of this below normal rainfall predicted for the first quarter of 2010, the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology has been urging water resource managers to monitor their water supplies and to be extremely vigilant. However, this regional phenomenon may not just be about climate change and conservation.  There could be a spiritual dimension to this and we may quite literally need to pray for rain.

In the bible, rain is symbolic of God’s blessings. Jesus told his disciples that the Lord “sends rain on the just and the unjust alike (Matt 5:45).  Moses, in Deuteronomy 11: 14, assured the Israelites that God would “continue to send [them] both the early and late rains.” He however sternly reminded them that if they turned from him to worship other gods, “the anger of the Lord will be hot against you and he will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain and no harvest for you…”.This was exactly what happened during King Ahab’s twenty-two year reign over Israel. Refusing to honor and serve the Lord, Ahab worshiped Baal and presided over one of the darkest periods in Israel’s history. In fact, the bible said he “did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings before him (1 Kings 16:33).” Not only did he do evil in the sight of the Lord and set up the worship of Baal, Ahab and his evil consort Jezebel embarked upon a campaign to slaughter and exterminate the prophets.

Having had enough of Israel’s apostasy and Ahab’s sin, God sent the prophet Isaiah with a chilling message of judgment to the King. “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither due nor rain in the next few years except by my word (1 Kings 17:1)” he said. The 36 month drought that ensued resulted in widespread death and destruction. It was not until the people repented and Isaiah prayed did God send rain.

While some may think it a little capricious to deem this a judgment of God, the bible is packed with instances when God used droughts and other natural phenomena to judge the nations and bring about his divine counsel.  Still, one might argue, we cannot demonstrate that this is what’s happening.  Neither, however, can we proof that this is not the case.  One thing is clear though and subject to far fewer disputations; the prayers of the righteous are effective and powerful (James 5:16). We can petition God to rain down showers of blessings on our land and thereby secure drought relief.

In 1986 Dominica was affected by a similar dry spell. It had not rained in months and the extremely dry conditions had exacted a terrible toll on the island’s agriculture and fragile economy. Feeling totally helpless and unable to do anything to remedy the situation, the then Prime Minister, the Hon. Dame Mary Eugenia Charles, summoned the evangelicals to pray for rain. Simeon Simon, Pastor of the Goodwill Gospel Mission Church, contacted and mobilized the other church leaders and before they could get off their knees, the Lord had already answered their prayers and sent rain.

In November 2007, George Ervin Perdue, the governor of the state of Georgia, hosted an ecumenical service to pray for relief from an intense drought that had hit the Southeast United States. The prolonged dry spell threatened supplies of drinking water and agriculture. MSNBC reported Perdue’s spokesman Bert Brantley as saying “the only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power.”

Dominica desperately needs rain at this time. We also desperately need to return to God. That would no doubt move him to open the windows of heaven and pour out his blessings on our land. However, while each of us is personally accountable to God for the life that we live, national repentance always starts with the leaders. Seating by the roadside, the King of Nineveh repented in sackcloth and ashes. His people followed suite and God spared their land judgment. Maybe it’s time for the government and appropriate authorities to admit their limitations and call on the prophets in the land once again to pray for rain.