Church in the Age of Corona Virus

The rainy season is upon us again. What I mean this time is the long rainy season that begins in March. Usually it is welcome after 3 or more months of dust that has piled on roads and anything that has managed to remain green. But this year I believe we had about 10 days of dryness between the end of the short rains and the beginning of the long rains. But in those 10 days it had the familiar hot dry feeling typical of the month of February and early March.

Rain does not really change our daily routine. It means mornings are cool and often overcast, but we still get up at 5, and get ready for school busses and swimming by 6:40 am. There is something interesting about swimming in a downpour, especially walking out shivering in a bathing suit and plunging in to find that the pool water, while cool as well, is not lower than the air temperature.

Daily routine is helpful this time of the year in MCC. Office work is a bit slower as we come to the end of a fiscal year. It is a time when we start to think about new concept papers and are looking at potential new partners doing interesting work. The downtime has also allowed us to do a little re-arranging in our office space. With the renewal of our lease, we acquired an extra room which we have turned into a 'kitchenette'. (At least it is where we put our hot water heater and microwave). So we have moved it out of the large shared office that Rebecca, Chrispin and I occupy. With that change, we had a big open space in the room where the stuff used to be. Sharon donated two of her chairs and some plants and tables to the cause of creating a 'staff lounge area' :-) It is conveniently located next to my desk. Here is a photo of me trying it out with a cup of coffee.

For us, like everyone else in the world, the big news is the new coronavirus (COVID-19). At this point, there have been no reported cases in Sub-Saharan Africa, but that will certainly change. There is certainly concern from those of us living here about whether countries are prepared for an effective response, or even whether there is a capacity to test and diagnose putative cases when they begin appearing. One thing in the back of all of our minds is the fear that in many of these countries, the spread of such a virus would be almost impossible to contain in areas where people live in extremely close quarters.

I do know that there is some diligence around ports of entry with immigration 'thermo-scanning' everyone as they enter. Anyone with a fever is quarantined and tested presumably. People leaving with a fever are also not allowed to fly until it goes down.

There is also some anxiety among expatriates about potential limitations on travel. Already all conference travel to Kenya has been banned, and MCC has had to postpone or cancel some regional gatherings there. People will likely have to cancel planned trips home during this period if there are bans affecting travel through Europe or to North America.

For the time being, we are taking the recommended cautionary measures in our personal lives, social distancing, washing hands, avoiding any physical contact with others (particularly handshaking) and trying not to touch our faces.

New offering set up.

One area in our context where this can be particularly problematic is church. Our sanctuary is often packed pretty full on a Sunday and greetings--hugs and handshakes-- are common. Last week the church council took measures to address this issue including teaching a new warm greeting that does not involve hands, using tongs to serve communion and installing hand sanitizer at every door. We even changed the way the offering is collected: instead of passing a plate, people will go up to the front of the church and put money into the offering bag. This will minimize hand contact on the same object. Interestingly, this is the way most Tanzanian churches do the collection instead of the more private 'western' way of slipping money into the passing plate. In the past, our church has avoided the social pressure that is a very normal part of giving offerings here in Tanzania, with everyone watching you put something in the basket or conversely, the shame associated with not going up to give. (And often someone shows and announces the amount you are putting in if it is a special offering.-- Definitely not the 'don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing' approach!). But at ACC it was quite fun this past week to have everyone get up and dance to the front to give.

So we are adapting, and I have no doubt that the worst is yet to come. I think it would be hard to avoid infection if there was an outbreak in Arusha, but we will do our best to take the suggested precautions.

Outside of work and virus, we have had a few interesting days. David's primary school had a parent day and I was able to observe his English and math classes as they are preparing for the huge standarized exams (CIE's) at the end of primary school. It was enlightening to see what a lesson is like. Teaching is a bit like preaching and exhorting here: teachers demand a fair amount of participation in terms of students being able to rapidly answer a question, or show a skill that will be on the exam. It almost seems like an SAT test prep course with a lot of focus on precisely what they need to include in their 'big write' for instance, for maximum credit (hint: complex sentences, impressive vocabulary, with an intro, build-up, dilemma, resolution, conclusion).
But Ms. Joshua was very skilled in getting them to grasp this and think creatively and quickly. (Some of the exercises were like the game we would play where one person would start a paragraph, and another person had to pick it right up and continue--but follow the rules of the arc of the story.

I was at school several times last week, once to see David, and then again to rescue Oren after he got drenched in a downpour as they were returning from a long nature walk as one of his electives. He was too soaked to get home on the bus.

Church continues to be demanding, but interesting. I am still leading the Sunday School program with about 75 kids. Generally, it goes well. They are working on an arrangement of the Dry Bones song that they will sing for the adults as part of a family service at the end of March at which I am preaching.

Rebecca continues to be busier than me with church things, and although she has stepped down from the Council Chair position, she is stepping into Chair of Worship Committee. Last Saturday she hosted a Council retreat day for the elders. Our new chair led them in a lot of get-to-know-you games, as well as some time to reflect on the direction the church is going, get some spiritual renewal and deal with some practical problems. We were able to host it on our front porch under our new roof!! Yes, we decided to expand our house a bit by putting a covering over the front porch so that it can be used in the rain. They just finished building it last week and it looks great. Here is a picture of some council members sitting under it on our porch.

Rebecca is picking up the writing here: Last week we celebrated Book week here, too. There were a lot more special events for David in Primary and he was especially happy to buy some new books at the book fair. On Monday, he went to school in the only pair of pajamas he owns, which I realize must have been passed down from cousin Gabriel more than 2 years ago (they were a little on the short side!!). Thursday was costume day, and Paul and David worked for several evenings, concocting a Roman soldier’s helmet, armor and sword. I’m not sure which book this was drawn from, but that was what David wanted to dress up as. I think they may have just finished a unit on the Romans…

Aside from the routines of life, we have had a couple of nice special events going on in the past two weeks. One of our friends from Bible study, Joerg, invited us over to his house in the evening for a birthday celebration around his new firepit. It was an adult kind of gathering, but some of us brought our kids, who huddled in the living room watching a movie. The rest of us had some extended time to talk and share in a more relaxed way than we normally have time for at Bible study. A number of our friends are part of a school which is going through some tough transitions in their immigration status, but it was great to hear good news of progress on that night.

The next evening, Oren and a friend had been invited to have s’mores and conversation in a kind of mentoring situation with an older man who worked for years mentoring teens at Rift Valley Academy. It was on the other side of town, so we had dinner with one set of friends over there, and again a really good time of relaxed sharing. And then we picked up Oren’s friend, took him for the s’mores outing and hung out with that friend’s family, playing games into the night. It was apparently a really great time for the two teenage boys. They felt that this older guy was like Gandalf, with practically the whole bible inside of him. We are very grateful for people who take an interest in encouraging Oren as he is firmly settling into the teen years now. We as parents are really trying to work on ways to talk calmly about life and values and choices (proactively before the clashes that make all our tempers rise).

We also had some fun times with a 3-day power cut on our compound (I’m serious!). I would so much rather lose power than water, and thankfully, since they fixed the major pipe leak outside our house, we didn’t run out of water! Because it was all dark at home, it focused us more to play a few games together and go to bed at a reasonable time. Wow, I am really scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to write about this week. That’s also because there was a fair amount of drama involving the parents’ association of our school that I can’t really write about here… too bad, would have made some great stories, but you will just have to settle for the more mundane news.

This afternoon, Oren and I are having an evening out. I picked him up from school and now we’re sitting in this outdoor restaurant, watching Thompsons gazelles grazing in the enclosure next door. He’s currently doing homework and we’re going to have dinner and then go watch “Just Mercy” together. I’ve heard it’s a very good and thought-provoking film, but too much for David. I think structural racism is the kind of subject Oren would want to know more about and consider what it means to confront it. I’m enjoying hanging out with him and praying for some good conversation afterwards.

So, that’s all for now.

Bonus Photo. Oren working on art homework