Rain!!!

Yesterday we had RAIN!!!  It started around 8:30 and poured for almost two hours.  Then it kept coming and going for the rest of the day.  All together we got 6.5 inches!!!  We have never seen that much rain in one day since I moved here in 2006.

Manis and Samuel make canals in the rocks so that the water will go to the trees.

Streams in our front yard!

 Just a pretty shot.

 I love the look of raindrops on leaves.  It is like a sign of hope to me.

While the rain brought great joy and will soon be bringing much green, it also wreaked a bit of havoc in the area.  Some people had parts of their gardens washed away.  Others lost livestock.  The torrents of water took along anything in its path and unfortunately there were some livestock out to pasture near the ravines.  

The ravine that normally carries rain water down from the mountains overflowed.
The water then flowed down the main road (shown here) making it a second river.
These I took today, but you can see where the water went through. 

Inside the gate at the Lemuel garden was pure mud.  

You can see how the water rushed through here too.  

Water still standing under some of the plantain trees.  

 The water that turned the main road into a river reached all the way past Lemuel's gate and actually ripped the gate right off. If someone had not been there to catch it before the other side ripped off the water would have carried the whole thing away. 

One of the biggest discouragements, despite our joy over the rain, is that the ground on the north side of one of the school cisterns caved in allowing water to seep through the footers and put enormous  pressure against the north wall.  The walls were designed to withstand pressure from the inside out, not the outside in. The wall eventually collapsed.  We have thought through how to fix this problem and we are happy it happened now and not after it was covered, etc... but it is still disappointing. 

When we went to see it yesterday afternoon it was only a third way full.
It rained a few times after that and the water seeped in all night and now it is almost completely full... not exactly the way we were planing on filling it, though!

Thank you to all of you who have, and continue to, so faithfully pray for rain.
Despite the set-backs, everyone is smiling today and full of hope for what the next harvest might bring.

P.S. I have had a LOT of computer, email and internet issues over the past few weeks.  If you have tried to contact me and have not heard back, please try again.  I may not have gotten your email, or you may not have gotten my response.  Thank you!