When the Rain Finally Came toEli Creek

In the summer of 2012, the farmers around Eli Creek, Missouri, watched their soybean fields crack and curl under the worst drought in fifty years. Wells ran dry. Cattle were sold early. The old-timers said they had never seen the creek bed bare down to the stones. Pastor Gene Wharton at Eli Creek Baptist recalled how the whole town felt it — not just in the fields, but in themselves.…