Gympie region prepares to pray for rain this weekend
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THE superstitious amongst us would have noted that today is Friday the 13th - Black Friday.
In the US, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, but here we just tend to call any Friday that lands on the thirteenth Black Friday.
Black Friday has also established a base from which our worst bushfires have been named, starting with the Black Friday fires of 1939 in Victoria where two million hectares of land was burnt out and 71 lives lost.
Then there were the Black Tuesday bushfires in Tasmania in 1967, the Ash Wednesday bushfires in South Australia in 1983, and the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria in 2009, which claimed 173 lives.
With dangerous fire conditions expected to return today and with another neighbour, the North Burnett, drought declared this week, rain would be - to say the least - a godsend.
So whether or not you are superstitious, and whether or not you are a person of faith, it behoves us all to join in the spirit of a special event in Gympie this Sunday, and across Australia.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church on the Southside will be "praying for rain” at their 6.30pm service, and everyone is invited. Gympie has a strong track record of getting results when it prays for rain.
In fact, if memory serves me correctly, there have been a couple of floods shortly thereafter. We have the power.
