The Rain In Bahrain Makes the Kids Go Insane

Last night, I heard a knocking in/on my a/c.  It was disheartening (I thought it was broken) until I realized it was the pitter-patter of rain drops!  This morning while at school, it started to come down fairly hard.  A good solid rain.  With thunder and lightining, which is fantastic.

You can imagine that rain is a fairly uncommon thing in Bahrain.  I mean, we live in the desert for goodness sake!  Having a rain storm here is the Midwest equivalent of having a huge snow storm.  Its a lot of fun to see all the snow, and there's a good chance that school may be canceled.  No, really.  School has been canceled before due to the chaos the rain causes on the roads.  I may have blogged about this before, but here are some observations/thoughts from today's rain storm.

1.  Road Chaos.  People drive really really slowly.  Traffic will back up for miles.  And when you finally get to the hold up, you often find that its just a puddle.  I used to think that people were afraid of getting their cars wet.  However, I have a new hypothesis.  There are a lot of potholes in the roads, and with puddles, you can't see the potholes.  It could be quite damaging to some cars if they were to hit some of the potholes.  Therefore, they go around the puddles.  Slowly.  Which backs up traffic.  Not only that, but people are a lot less used to driving in the rain, so people go slower out of safety.  Its like being in the south when an inch of snow brings a city to a halt.

2.  The kids go crazy.  It was a pretty solid down poor this morning before classes started.  The kids would run out into the court yard and get rained on then run back to cover.  Screaming and screeching from students.  It was a delight.  Until they got to class and I had to attempt to calm them down and teach about solving word problems.  But seriously, who wants to solve word problems with there's RAIN outside!  They all come in making jokes about how they didn't need to take a shower this morning or about how its going to flood the entire city (which might happen, actually - the sewer systems aren't built for heavy rains)

3.  New meanings to scripture.  Coming from the Midwest where rain is abundant, its hard to imagine how refreshing rain can be.  But when rain only comes 3 or 4 times a year, its extremely refreshing.  Any place that there is standing water, there is life.  there's a place near our house where trucks get treated water, and it often spills out as they leave the compound.  This has created a pond of sorts near the entrance.  All around it are green grasses and plants.

So when Jesus says that he has living water, it is extremely stark imagery.  Where there is water, there is life.  There is refreshment.  When David says in Psalm 23 that "he takes me to lie beside still waters..." its not just solitude or time for contemplation (though that may happen), he's talking about something much deeper.  Fundamental.  Its not just relaxing.  Its LIFE.  Without it there is death.  And not just any death - a slow, prolonged death of dying from thirst.

I've probably blogged about rain before, and I'll probably blog about it again.  Its always fun to get rain.  If I ever get a decent picture, I'll post it on here.