The Vagaries of Weather

Esther and I both grew up in families with deep agricultural roots, in fact, her parents still run a garden centre in Sarnia () Both of our families come from Holland and both were farming families. I spent much of my childhood, even into university, working in agriculture. Esther does a lot of gardening. We love nature. We love eating it's bounty. We love planting trees in our work now with MCC.

But it wasn't until last month that I started to feel like what I think farmers back in North America feel about the weather, specifically rain, and or lack thereof. You see, our work is very cyclical and is based on weather patterns. We start planting seeds in the nurseries in January and from then until early June, the committees are taking care of the trees in preparation for the big planting season when the rains start in June. We plan the tree distributions, but they are always based on the rains. If it hasn't rained the day before, we will not do a distribution on the next day, because we don't want people planting in dry conditions. Watering the seedlings after they are planted out is not an option, so we don't want to waste 6 months of work - so we wait for the rain.

This year, we had our 3 week schedule perfectly worked out, 2 distributions per day to do our 23 nurseries. We had a nice rain before the first distribution day and day one went off without a hitch. But then right away we were hit with 3-4 days with no rain, so we got behind almost from the start. But then the rains came and we were able to catch up after week two. Week three was a whole different story. The rains just stopped - completely. We went through that whole week with no rain and so our plans were thrown away. I had a planned trip to go visit friends back in Ontario ( for just after the distributions were to have finished, but because of the rain, they were to continue after I left.

While I was in Canada I felt this deep, gutteral emotion for Haiti, especially thinking about the rain. Is it falling? How much fell? Did they do the distribution today? How many distributions are left? How is the planting going? Are they all going to get done this week?

I checked the internet for weather patterns in the Caribbean. I emailed and called to get updates. But no rain. I didn't fall for 10 days. The distribution schedule was thrown into a tizzy and our staff were wiped out from having to deal with it all.

And I found myself relating to farmers in Ontario worried about the rain. Or too much rain. Or too cold. Or too hot. Or hail on the peaches. Or bug infestations. Or whatever vagaries of the weather Mother Nature would throw at us.

Or God, right? Yes. Still, despite the problems the lack for rain posed for us, the rains DID come, the distributions HAPPENED and over 400,000 trees were PLANTED! Thanks be to God.

Matt