According to a story that recently appeared on the CNN site Parched West Africa seeks help from above. "Thousands of people across the West African state of Niger turned out at Muslim prayer meetings on Tuesday to ask for rain, hoping to save their failing crops and avoid famine." Niger is one of the countries that sits just on the edge of the Sahara desert in Africa. "Niger's rainfall in June was down 60 percent on last year and below the average of the past 30 years. Around 4,000 people, including President Tandja Mamadou, gathered to pray for rain in Niger's capital and similar meetings were held across the impoverished country. Appeals for rain by imams in Mali at Friday's prayers appeared to have been answered over the weekend, when torrential rains in the capital Bamako took part of the blame for a low turnout in a parliamentary election.Burkina Faso, sandwiched between Mali and Niger, is planning a more scientific solution, using planes to spray chemicals on the clouds to induce rainfall."

After watching heavy rains over both the Sahara and Sub-Saharan Africa earlier this year, I have been watching and waiting for the resumption of the rains later in the season. What has been taking place has reminded me of a certain passage in Isaiah 41:17 which reads, "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I YAHWEH will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together; that people may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of YAHWEH has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it." Now God forbid that the name of YAHWEH should be defamed by such a thing not actually taking place, in particular after the excellent, above average rains the region received last year. However, I do not see it as my job to pray in this matter, but rather theirs, to bring a blessing both to themselves and to Eden, which waits...

The graphic below in the Water vapor spectrum, for July 20th, 2002, shows in white the concentrations of water over Niger and Mali this evening, something they haven't seen during the month of June, so this looks encouraging to me...





There are two things I am currently watching for at the present time (the middle of July 2002). First a very bad, very large fire in the Rocky mountains, spreading a smoke cloud both west and east, this happening concurrent with a downpour on Eden, or the Sahara as everyone else refers to the place. And so this developing situation I have been watching with some interest. Currently, today, the Satellite imagery reveals that there is in fact rain over Niger and Mali, but not Eden, so what is most interesting is yet to come.

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