When I went out to
the curb to my mailbox this afternoon, my neighbors were doing the same thing.
When they checked for their mail they walked over to me and wanted to talk about
the drought we were having.
I told them it was too hot to stand out
here in the sun, to come up to the porch and we would sit down at the table and
we could talk there.
So Sergio, Wayne and José
walked up on the porch with me and we sat down.
We may have been in the shade but it was still hot and humid. It had been six
weeks since we had seen any rain.
Sergio said since the city had banned all
outside watering all of his flowers in his flower beds had died. He wanted to
know how Johnnie was keeping the flowers in the big pots on the porch alive?
I told him she had stopped taking showers
and started taking tub baths. When she was through with her bath, instead of
letting the water go down the drain, she got a bucket and carried it out here
and poured it on her flowers in the pots.
Wayne said that his grass was turning
brown just like it was wintertime already. He was afraid he was going to lose
his lawn.
Jose’ told us he had already lost the
sweet gum tree in his front yard, but he didn’
t
know if it was because of the drought or something else.
"The pecan trees in my back yard are in
trouble"
I said,
"The leaves have already started turning
yellow and some are falling off.
"
We all sat there in silence, thinking
about our problems when Sergio suggested we pray for rain. He told us they had
been doing that at his church. We all thought that was a good idea so we stood
up and held hands and Sergio led us in prayer. We all agreed we would meet on my
porch each afternoon and pray for rain until we got rain.
After three days José said we needed to
get our wives involved in this praying. Wayne said it couldn’
t
hurt so the next day there were eight of us holding hands while Sergio lead us
in prayer for rain.
Johnnie, Melba, Marylyn and Delia had
joined us and Johnnie had made a big pitcher of lemonade, which she served after
our prayer. We all sat there visiting for a while. Then everyone went home for
their supper.
The next day when we meet Johnnie had
made another pitcher of lemonade and Delia brought some home made peanut butter
cookies.
Today when Sergio prayed for rain he
ended his prayer by giving thanks for the companionship of our group and the
lemonade and cookies.
While we were sitting there I noticed
that the sun had gone behind a cloud. Then we all heard it! A distant roll of
thunder. With in five minutes it started raining. I don’
t
mean just a little shower, but a real gully washer.
Everyone made a run (maybe I should say
swim) for home. Thunder was crashing, lightning was flashing and the rain came
down in bucketsful. It went on like this for two solid hours.
That night on the news the weatherman
said we had over two inches of rain and there was more forecast for tomorrow.
It has rained every day for two weeks
now. My yard is a big mud puddle with two inches of water in it. But my pecan
trees have come out of their shock and have turned green again.
I called Wayne, José
and Sergio and asked them to come over. We sat at the table
on the front porch to talk the situation over. Sergio asked if we should pray
for the rain to stop? I told them we should be careful what we ask for because
we might just get it.
We all looked at each other and Wayne
said we better leave well enough alone. But what we did do is a whole nother
story for a different time.
By ~ Loren Moore
2003
