Drought incites Arkansas prayer meetings

Bill Bumpas   (OneNewsNow.com) Friday, August 10, 2012

As the drought in key farm states continues to linger, some rural communities are going to their knees to seek help for rain to water the crops. Arkansas is one state that has been hard hit by the drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor has classified more than half of The Natural State as being in an exceptional drought status. Ranchers are selling off their cattle because of lack of water and hay to feed them. Pastor Warren Watkins of Southside Baptist Church in Heber Springs, Arkansas, saw how the drought has been affecting people in his community and decided to organize a prayer meeting. "Since many of our followers of Christ here at our church were praying for rain, I thought that maybe I should mention it to some of the other pastors, and that we could have a county-wide meeting just to pray for rain," he explains. "And they thought it was a great idea; we just simply put it on the schedule and told them, 'bring your umbrella.'" He says prayer is a way to exercise one's faith. "We believe that God loves us, and he wants to provide all of our needs and he wants to hear from us," he adds. "He wants to hear us praying to him, and so in obedience to that, we go to him in prayer." Watkins trusts that the prayers will encourage those farmers and ranchers who are really struggling. "We hope that as we tell people we're praying for rain and we want you to pray for rain too that what happens is that people will turn their hearts toward God -- not just for rain, but for salvation and for every need they have," he tells OneNewsNow. Pastor Watkins is hoping to make the prayer meeting a weekly event until the drought is over.