I remember when I was a child, we used to share everything with my siblings and cousins. From clothes to food and even diseases. Yes, diseases. To avoid all the care giving stress later on, my parents would organize sleep overs at which ever cousins had a flavor of the month communicable disease. All our other cousins and close family friends would gather to share in the tragic community pot that Patient Zero would generously provide. Whether this practice was sanctioned by the W.H.O. or not, I am yet to investigate. Contracting child diseases like the Mumps, Measles, and Chicken pox became group activities and we would trade notes on levels of pain and itchiness. We grew up with a few children of the same age group and the rest being a bit younger so it was a given. The logic was that our clique of relations and friends would all contract the disease at once, develop immunity all at once and all move on with life. 

I recall an incident when one of us got the Chicken pox and I didn’t catch it till all of them were done. That calamine lotion looked like poorly rendered zombie make-up on my dark African skin. I walked around looking like a rejected extra from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. (For our younger readers please refer to YouTube if you are unfamiliar with it. You will only appreciate the visual after watching the music video). I got teased a lot by the earlier survivors of the disease and because I was the only one with it at the time, they had to be quarantined. It was not pleasant watching my play mates, playing and enjoying their recovery through the confines of my bedroom window. I would ask to participate and hearing them say “NO we can’t. Mum said to stay away from you.” As a child you feel much debased by such situations because playtime is everything. It wasn’t a pleasant experience at all to a point that in my adult life, I remember the somber feeling well.  I eventually healed and joined the crew but that feeling stayed with me. That feeling of being an outcast because of a sickness. No one wanting to touch or play with you and treating you like a mucus monster. In this time of the Corona Virus (Covid-19), the methods of keeping one safe are similar to my childhood quarantine though the stakes are far higher.

Today the Corona Virus has become a household name all over the world. The world’s scientists have had previous experiences with the virus, in one form or the other, since the 1960s. Some of the most recent encounters are the SARS (SARS-CoV) outbreak in mainland China in 2003 and the Middle East Respiratory syndrome (MERS-Cov) in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Korea in 2012. But none of the previous encounters have garnered as much notoriety as the current iteration, Covid-19. According to the World Health Organisation, as of the 3^rd of April 2020 there were 900 306 confirmed cases of the virus with 45 692 confirmed deaths and a total of 206 countries or territories with confirmed cases. With the world scrambling to “flatten the curve” of infection, medical scientists have devised a raft of prevention mechanisms. Chief among them are social distancing and self-quarantine. Recently some countries, South Africa Included, have instituted a nationwide lockdown where all social and mass gatherings are prohibited by law. Just as I felt the sky was falling because I was being left out of playground activities for the social butterflies, this is a waking nightmare.

This disease has in every essence taken away the human aspect of being a human being and that is being around other human beings. God created us NOT to exist alone. Our existence is intrinsically linked to the world around us. Trees need us for the Carbon Dioxide we exhale and we in turn need them for Oxygen. We need the earth to produce our food and water to enable the plants grow. The examples of what creature needs what to live are too many and would take a lifetime to write about. Bottom line is we are not created to live in isolation. I know some introverts are not much perturbed by the restrictive measures and feel right at home in such environments, there are inherent advantages and perks to being able to associate with a warm body as and when one requires. This pandemic began in a market in the Chinese city I had never heard of called Wuhan. Now, it has managed to bring the whole world to a standstill. We here in South Africa have had to adjust to the Lockdown and are unable to send our children to school. We are now working from home and are avoiding all contact with the outside world unless absolutely necessary. Yet we don’t even live on the same continent as Patient Zero.

It has escalated to a point that borders have been closed. It is tall order to contain a virus that mainly spreads through normal social human contact. Now we are being taught not to touch our faces, keep a 2 meter distance between us and others, cover our faces and hands when we do interact and not to shake hands. The very communal activities that make us human. There is most definitely “…an evil under the sun” – Ecclesiastes 10:5. By extension Church gatherings are also now illegal. We live in the age of mega churches were gathering of 500 or more are common place. If this is not an attack on the body of Christ then I don’t know what is.

I believe all maladies and negative events that occur in our lives are designed to keep as distractions from worshipping and praising God and also serve as diversions you from our mandate here on Earth. Covid-19 has managed to isolate people and turn them into little islands individuals in their homes. Most who left their native homes or provinces and came to Gauteng for economic opportunities, live alone. With the usual weekly association and fellowship with other believers taken away from them, this means and even deeper social and spiritual isolation. The Bible says “When two or three are gathered in my name I will be there” - Mathew 18 Vs 20. It has managed to stop associations or human interaction the bible says “…love one another as I have loved you - John 15:12. Jesus Christ didn’t love from a distance, He was with people preaching and healing and sharing. It has caused mass panic with people hoarding food in fear of lack. The Bible says “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power.” -  2 Timothy 1:7 and Men will not live on bread alone. Economies have declined due to whole industries being shut down and people not being economically productive. The bible says the Lord shall “…will establish the works of our hands.” - Psalm 90:17

I read a post on social media that said people are not even looking at each other in the supermarket and are practicing serious social distancing. I know some might argue and say it is just a disease. Yes, it might be, but still diseases are not from God. HE gives life and LIFE in abundance and yet the manner in which people are living now is existing not living. If your life has not been heavily disrupted by the Corona Virus, you are blessed. But I know the effects have been unpleasant on masses of people. However, God being God, He will enable one to see the positive in any situation because HE is GOD. I say in these turbulent times practice peace. You ask how? Well if you and your children are home please reconnect and do all the things that the “busy” of life stops you from doing. Do the gardening. Play games. Clean the house. Paint a self-portrait. Read a book. Read your BIBLE. Use this time wisely, in peace and I assure you, you will come out a much better person and a better family.