Stuck at home!

So it's Day 11 of the coronavirus restrictions in Rwanda....

There are now 40 confirmed cases of coronavirus in here. None of which are Chinese, by the way.

On the first day, March 15, we were told that the restrictions would be in force for two weeks. Then, last weekend, they were extended until the first weekend in April, for the time being. The authorities have strictly enforced limited travel. Within the city you can go only for essentials, such as food and medical care. Out of town trips are prohibited. Almost all flights are cancelled, except for two specific outbound flights, one on Qatar Airways and the other on KLM, on a specific day, for those foreigners who need to get back to their country of origin. Otherwise, too bad!

Bethel is under a lockdown, which means no one can go in or out. This means that commuters have to stay home and work there, if their job allows some type of remote computer assignment. During the siege of ancient Jerusalem, no one could go in or out also. Is there a parallel here?

What is it like staying at home and not being able to go anywhere? Our household is composed of me, my roommate Jacques, and his teenage Bible student Diamant (who by the way is a good kid, quiet, doesn't make much trouble, and knows how to cook). Well, it's basically like this: read or study, get on the computer, eat, and then take a nap. Rinse, repeat. All day long. After a while you don't even remember what day it is, sometimes even what time it is. But there is one discovery I have made: when you spend more time with the people you live with, you get to know them better and become closer. Also, I've decided to take a walk of at least a half-hour every day. And you know what? Now I'm looking at birds, clouds, nature. It's a great experience! We should have these restrictions more often!

So today we had to go out in the car for the first time because Jacques had a couple hundred euros sent to him by the family in Belgium that he had to exchange for Rwandan francs at a Forex (foreign exchange) in order to pay property taxes on two houses the family owns. Forget about going into town to this Forex that he says has the best rates. We decided to go as far as Remera (Bethel, Kingdom Hall, stadium), which has quite a few Forex locations. Also, we needed to go to the market to buy food.

Do you know that in the 4 km (2.5 mi) we drove till we got to the only Forex open in the neighborhood, we were stopped no fewer than 6 times by police! They pull you over and ask where are you going, what is your purpose, etc. The streets were virtually deserted, like a ghost town. Some people were running around wearing face masks. One policewoman told us that because we had three people in the car, which violated some rule requiring that everyone be at least one meter apart, one of the passengers had to get out and walk. So Jacques got out, I drove on for about a hundred meters and dropped Diamant off at a bus stage, picked up Jacques and then returned to get Diamant. What we didn't say (but only because I don't speak Kinyarwanda) to her was that all three of us have lived in the same household for months, and if any of us were infected, we would have gotten sick by now. Come on!

Returning from the Forex, we stopped at the Kimironko market, which had a long line of people and a couple of handwashing stations at the entrance. The inside of the market had undergone an amazing transformation. Instead of the bustling, claustrophobic place that open-air markets usually are, many stalls were empty. All vendors who sold anything other than food were conspicuously absent. The ones selling food were mostly around the perimeter. I said to myself, I'm not breathing in here, I'm not touching anyone (which is pretty hard to do). We bought our stuff and hightailed it out of there, passing by the bus park, which was completely empty.

Last Saturday we successfully used Zoom to videoconference our meeting for just the Watchtower Study. It's kind of neat: you control your video and audio and can comment by pushing this button that says "Raise Hand." Then, a little icon of a hand shows up next to your name. The only drawback with Zoom is that the free version only gives you 40 minutes for each "meeting." When the meeting is cut off, everyone has to "join" again using the same meeting ID number. For Saturday's meeting, though, the brother who was the host got a popup with a promotion giving us uninterrupted service for our meeting. Unfortunately, for Tuesday's midweek meeting, we didn't have the promotion and so we had to reset 3 times.

My understanding is that Skype doesn't have a time limit on meetings but the number of participants is limited to 50 (Zoom is 100). That's no problem for us, because we have only 22 publishers. We may switch to Skype after doing some testing.

Oh, something else about the meetings. We decided that talks, parts, or comments can be given in any language you want. The whole idea is that of mutual encouragement. Most of the two meetings we have had have been in Kinyarwanda, because that is everyone's mother tongue (except me). So, I don't know, should I switch to the English congregation?

What about preaching? Since these restrictions started, the only means of preaching allowed are letter writing, telephone, e-mail, and text. But here in Rwanda, those methods of preaching are almost never used. So this is an opportunity for all of us (especially the pioneers, who are affected the most) to step out of our 'comfort zone.' Last week I wrote my first letter in Chinese characters. I read characters all the time but never write them. I used the sample in the be book with a few small changes. It took me an hour and 20 minutes! Handwritten letters are more personal than printed ones, and besides, they take longer to produce. We can leave these letters, along with a tract or invitation, at confirmed Chinese homes where the residents are hard to reach.

Also, this coming Friday, Jacques plans to conduct a Bible study with Diamant, starting in the morning and going all afternoon! Six hours of preaching time!

And here's my final comment to anyone burned by the stock market (tanking 30% in a month): Zoom is a very fitting name. Look up the stock.