Farmers seek divine intervention

COURTLAND -- The Rev. Billy Turner said he has seen a lot of curled leaves on new corn, and cotton that should be knee-high is only a few inches tall.

"We're asking for fresh, healing rain,'' said Turner, a Limestone County resident and pastor of Courtland Methodist Church.

Turner and other area clergy, farmers and residents joined together Friday morning at Courtland Presbyterian Church to pray for rain.

Colbert County farmer Price Counts Sr. said he has put out 48 crops, and he can never remember it being this dry.

About 40 people from Colbert, Lawrence, Limestone and Morgan counties participated in the prayer session that lasted about 45 minutes.

"I think this speaks of the direness of the situation for you all to take time off to come here,'' said the Rev. Bill Cooper, pastor of Courtland Presbyterian Church, as he opened the special service.

"The Lord hears our prayers and answers them. We're here to ask him for rain for our crops and our community.''

After a silent prayer, various attendees prayed out loud.

"You tell us to seek and we shall find, and if we knock, the door will be opened. We're here to ask you to send down your precious rain,'' prayed Sam Wallace, pastor of Courtland Baptist Church. "We need rain, not only in this community, but all over the state.''

The group gave thanks for blessings and then asked for blessings of rain.

"We don't know what it's like to turn on a faucet and not have water. I don't know what it's like to have to share a cup of water with a neighbor because that's all there is,'' prayed Cindy Cross, of Lawrence County.

"I'm thankful that I don't know these things, and I'm thankful that so many people have come together to pray and ask for help, to ask that the heavens open up and give us rain.''

Heath Potter, regional agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, said the problem farmers in the region are facing is very bleak.

"I can't paint an ugly enough picture of how dry it is,'' Potter said. "Some of the farmers have been irrigating for almost a month. Normally, they wouldn't start irrigating until late June.''

Potter said the last substantial rainfall was the weekend of April 14-15. He said that in the month of May there was only about a half-inch of rain, compared to six inches during the same time in 2006.

"If we don't get some water by the first of the week, there's going to be some cornfields that will be gone,'' he said.

Retired farmer Hood Harris was the organizer of the prayer service.

"This is a start,'' Harris said of the service and efforts to end the drought.

"What we're asking for today is a miracle,'' Turner prayed as he closed the service with those in attendance standing to form a circle and holding hands. "But the one we're asking is the one who can send those miracles.''

Tom Smith can be reached at 740-5757 or tom.smith@timesdaily.com.