Hoping for rain in drought-ridden Ethiopia

“For everything there is a season and a time for every occupation under heaven: A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.”
Here in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, these words from the Book of Ecclesiastes certainly ring true. As we pass through rural villages, the heat and dust swirls and gathers around us. Children appear from everywhere as we meet villagers in these rural communities. The stories shared are heart rendering and touching. The complete failure of the rains this year, crops wilted and dead and animals struggling to survive as water dries up and disappears. People talk about this year as the worst year of drought in living memory and speak about how this year is now built on five years of erratic and sporadic rainfall.
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