This summer was so extremely hot and dry that the grass in the fields turned brown in mid-June and throughout the summer, the brown grass it actually made crunching sounds when you walked on it!
Heat loving vegetables like eggplants and peppers shriveled up. The leaves on our fruit trees all turned brown, even though we tried watering. Everything did really poorly this summer. Last summer we had a similar drought and heat but our gardens flourished. Not so this year. I don’t know if it had something to do with the bombing of Ukraine, just to the north of us, or what.
I had a couple of fig trees in our greenhouse that were doing really well, with figs on them. But in the heat, their leaves dried up, withered and brown. I was so discouraged I didn’t even want to go back into that greenhouse, but two boys who live here kept going in and started watering them. And they came back to life! They are now lush and green as if nothing had happened! Even have figs!
In mid-September, we started getting rain. The grass greened up and seedlings are coming up everywhere! The other day, I spotted something I’ve never seen before. Our fruit trees’ leaves had browned and withered, but here was new growth- and even apple blossoms on a couple of the trees- at the end of September!
It gave me such joy to see this. To me, this symbolizes Hope and the abundant life that the Lord gives. We should never give up Hope, Faith, or Love.
~by Roberta Moore, IM staff serving in Cornesti, Romania
