And still no rain…

The clouds haven’t opened yet for us here in Lopit, and I’m not exactly sure what that means.
I’m becoming more convinced that maybe God is just holding it back. Every other place in Sudan has got rain, but not us.
It drizzled just a bit the other day and it set the people dancing like wild. It hasn’t dripped a drop since.
The rainmaker grows more and more nervous, I hear. The Munimiji are wondering what the heck is going on. The rainmaker now claims she put a spell on to make it not rain because people haven’t done enough for her or brought her enough gifts.
Some of the team went on a mini-outreach the other day, to check out a baptism in a village a couple hours away. They said a situation like this happened there, where it didn’t rain and didn’t rain and the rainmaker kept going ‘round and ‘round. Well, they eventually buried said rainmaker alive… and then it poured. I guess that’s not an isolated thing, burying the rainmaker alive. (Eeek.)
It’s starting to effect more than just the water now. Iris says there’s starting to be starvation in the villages. They get people daily coming to beg for food. We had our first such visitors yesterday, as well. I think this is a cultural struggle I’m not at all prepared for.
The hardest thing is, these people get food from the UN or World Food Program. And they tell the UN and WFP that there are about a gazillion more people here than actually are, so they really cash in. And they take the food they get and make beer out of it. So is this not just reaping what they sow? (But what exactly are the children sowing?)
It’s not so bad, yet. And I’m not sure it will get so bad. I wouldn’t have known about it, had Iris not told me and I noticed a few people have left to go for food elsewhere.
Anyway, just pray that God is glorified—in the famine, in the heat, in the dryness and in the rain, if He wills it come.