As our family drove home from Canada Day celebrations, the day rapidly changed moods. Since morning, we’d enjoyed sunshine at a heritage site about an hour southwest. Now, in stark contrast to the blue and gold, the afternoon sky became a collage of bizarre cloud formations. Some, blinding white and shaped like colossal cauliflowers, grew rapidly larger.

In the back seat and looking skyward, Benjamin Bean told cloud-stories. “That one’s a dragon, see? And there’s its baby. It looks HUNGRY!”

The sky lost its friendliness, blackening fast, until only a fist-sized clear spot remained. Then that disappeared too.

Rain comin’, we said, cruising through the city of Yorkton, our long-time home until we moved to a bedroom community a few miles north last year.

We’d been invited to a barbeque that evening. Guess the barbecue’s off, I thought. Noah came to mind too. With what would you have us build an ark, Lord? No gopher wood in this part of the prairie. And can we forget the pair of mosquitoes?

Moments after we arrived home, a storm of biblical proportions descended.  The rain started and the power quit. Thunder reverberated. Lightning zipped across the horizon.

Over the next several hours, over six inches of water fell on Yorkton and area—most of that in one twenty-minute period. According to those who know such things, that’s 894,321,540 gallons of water, spread over 6, 570 acres of city. It rushed off concrete and asphalt, found the lowest places, filled them up, and kept rising.

One person, standing in a basement apartment living room, noticed something strange on the wall. Sudden cracks appeared and raced floor-ward. A second later, the entire wall caved in, followed by another wall—rushing water. Swimming out was the only alternative. And waiting for rescue by canoe.

Up to seven feet of floodwater filled over half of Yorkton basements. It poured into hollows in the lowest parts of town. A sudden sea sprawled over farm-fields between our home and the city, necessitating livestock evacuation.

Thank God, no lives were lost—but multiple homes and businesses were destroyed. Local history books will mark Canada Day 2010.

Rain keeps coming, though the deluge has stopped. The sea has diminished—mostly. Felled trees have become firewood. Roofs sport colorful tarps. Basement windows wear boards. And waterlogged furniture and carpets hunker curbside, waiting for pickup.

But the storm continues in the lives of our neighbours. Faces remain wet with tears, electrified by shock. More than possessions were lost—lifestyles swept downstream. Speaking from experience, new normal takes years to find.

Many local initiatives have started to help the flood victims. The Preacher and I attended one less than a week after the flood—a hastily organized chili supper at the local Mennonite church. The chili, made by church members, was delicious. So were the buns—large, fluffy, and homemade.

I sampled, too, the best rhubarb dessert I’ve ever eaten, a square, topped with meringue.

Hope House, when we arrived, had two large rhubarb plants out back. We plowed one up last month. Now we have three. Always looking for new recipes, I inquired as to who had made that divine dessert.

One of the organizers told me its story. A community member had heard about the fundraiser and called to ask if she could bring something for dinner. She baked that dessert, and ALL the buns. No one seemed to know her name.

Here’s the best recipe I heard that night: When faced with need, take the thing you do best, the thing you enjoy doing most. Ask God to plug it in somewhere. Then start watching for open doors. Just as he did with the buns and the rhubarb, he’ll find a spot for every willing giver who wants to share his love with those in desperate need of hope.

And it really doesn’t matter if people ever know your name.