Some thoughts from Rev Ruudz

Having taken almost a three year sabbatical from writing, i thought now could be the right time to striating writing again once in a while. And with all the hullabaloo surrounding the discussion of COVID19; with some even renown preachers whom i have followed for a long time suggesting the end is nigh, others saying COVID19 will wipe us all out and with different medias both small and big pushing their own versions of “breaking news” and “exclusives” on the subject, it almost takes a miracle to remain sane and “normal”. Yes, that word “normal”, i don’t know how normal i am right now and i don’t know how many of you are still “normal”.

Ahaaa…i wonder how each of you is coping up with this isolation and social distancing thing from wherever you are. For us here and for me in particular, i don’t know what to even think of or make of it. 

On one hand i was glad when our president made the call when he did to shut down schools and big gatherings. At that time we had less than 5 cases i think (hopefully my memory is still holding) and i thought that was brilliant because if the thing had spread to our schools, the effects would be devastating considering the status of our limping health sector. The president gave genuine reasons and for the first time in my lifetime i saw both ruling and opposition politicians agreeing that was the right thing to do. But then gradually, the shut down kept biting different categories of people until it came to an almost grinding halt bar a few “essential service providers”.

Things really started dawning on me when i started seeing our young people come back from school one by one. When our eldest came back from University, he was not particularly happy. After interacting with him, he told me he did not want to leave school because he’s already too old to be at school and didn’t want to take a time off. he actually stayed in his hostel for almost 5 days after the shut down and i kept calling him to come home because rumour was circulating that public transportation was going to be closed and he would have been cut off. This rumour became a reality less than 4 days after he came!

Presidential addresses soon became something all of would look forward to with some dread, wondering what was coming next and indeed each address always came with “new measures”. And just like a good teacher does, the president would recap all the previous measures, give the latest number of those who are positive, make a few jokes in between and the towards the end, announce new measures. I actually came to believe that the president himself enjoys these briefings and appears not to want to end them, otherwise, why would he spend over two hours each time addressing us, sipping his drink occasionally (still a mystery what it is that he sips from his mug), cracking jokes and even answering a few questions from his social media followers? 

The bite of the measures soon started taking their toll and we are all still reeling from these measures. I could say i am still dazed. A few days from our grand opening of our “Airiamet (Meeting Place) Coffee Shop”, the president announced a total lock down! I had just finished recruiting 6 unemployed young people and they were all excited to start work, then boom, no customers! then came banning of private transportation except cargo trucks, then motor cycle taxis known as Bodas except for deliveries but not passengers, then a curfew from 7pm to 6:30am each day, etc. The markets and people reacted to these measures with panic. Prices of some essential basics like salt increased by more 200% in one of the days. The social media was awash with nail biting stories of the effects of the shut down; from women giving birth on their walk to the hospitals, some security forces beating people and raping women (the president later called them pigs, which is a new name people call them now), a photo of a bleeding old woman who was thrown down on the turmack by a boda that was taking her to hospital when police started chasing them down, a nurse using a wheel burrow to wheel a patient to the next hospital because the one she worked in didn’t have the medications, to a boda being shot dead by security forces for carrying a passenger, another boda knocked off a traffic police officer who tried to stop him because he was carrying a passenger, women sleeping in the markets because the president said all market vendors and factory workers should camp and sleep at their work places  to avoid bringing the virus to their homes and yesterday i saw another touching photo of a man trying to scoop maize flour that had poured down on the road to take home. The worst is a couple of people that i heard committed suicide because they could not feed their families; one teacher who lived hand to mouth could not feed his family for two days and couldn’t bear looking at his wife and kids helplessly, he hung himself!….there are many heart wrenching stories that i cannot write all of them. Two days ago i watched a video of a heartless drunk young man beating his 70 year plus old mother because she did not leave for him food!

I miss our little church family, i miss seeing everyone taking tea and chatting and our Sunday school kids blowing candles and cutting cake each month when we celebrate birthdays. It breaks my heart that i cannot see them like before, and it’s harder because most cannot afford the luxury of social media because most are struggling to put food on the table. So for us, the idea of online services or virtual meetings is a luxury and too expensive a cost for our members. Hearing them tell and testify on the phone of how God provided a meal for them and how they are having faith in his word keeps warming my heart, but at the same time breaks my heart. There are particularly 3-5 families that i know are struggling and our church collections were all used up for the purchase of church land and i keep praying for their sustenance.

When the president announced an extension of the lock down for 21 more days last week, there was a sense of desperation, hopelessness, despair, name it, from those personally know. I cannot even name the number of calls i get per day from relatives and friends asking for help to have food. My relatives and many others particularly had a very poor harvest last season because of rain fluctuations which have continued up to this year. They already had a famine even before this pandemic surfaced and they are now struggling even more. They all look at us as rich people, which we are, compared to many others and they always get startled when i tell them rich is relative because when we also go to the States, we are poor and have to get government insurance! Many cannot wrap their minds around that. So these volumes of calls for help have started taking a toll on me personally. I have my own family of 12 and a half to feed, and yet all these calls are calls of genuine need of people in need of food. I have struggled with depression for a while and the beginning of this lockdown worsened it. But i am grateful that when i started doing exercise (which i started after the president stopped people from jogging and instead asked all Ugandans to exercise from their houses and even went ahead the next day to post a video of himself exercising in his office, i was challenged to start), i feel a little better now.

I have also noticed a couple of our young men are struggling. I talked to them recently and it all comes down to the feeling of hopelessness. They have both had traumatic pasts and felt hope being at school and the extension of the lock down didn’t help matters. They want to be at school and are worried the whole year might end up getting “wasted”. And the realist in me is not good at coming up with hopeful encouraging words because we do not know how long this is going to continue and we are torn between acceptance of this new life and hope for a return to the previous normal. So please, spare some time and pray for Edgar and Jorem, they need it and the rest of us as well.

The thinker in me has been tossing around in my bed wondering how powerful this virus is. That powers and empires, with wealth and science and technology that cannot be compared to any other in history have been reduced to their knees! Who knew that the enemy would not require the atomic bombs and missiles and war planes and name it…how powerful is this tiny virus to close the aviation industry and temporarily (hope so) disrupt every country in the world! It makes the words of apostle Paul ring true that “…for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God…”Hopefully now that the foolishness in us has been exposed, it’s time to seek for true wisdom from God. This is my prayer that all the world leaders and scientists and all those powers that may, can seek for true wisdom and i am glad to read about the increasing number of people who are searching about Jesus and confessing him as their Lord on their own. This is significant because many of the so called great pastors and prophets of our time, who have been stealing money from the unsuspecting flock as “seed” for healing, prosperity, blessings, etc have been found out. Many announced this year to be a year of this or that and the congregations cheered with hopeful glee not knowing God had other plans. A comedian i follow on twitter recently made fun of some of the pastors we have here in Uganda and around the world and he was showing clips of their “New Year” messages and many were claiming “God told me this is the year of…” and it went from property, wealth accumulation, health, double portions, blessings, etc and the congregants shouted  “i receive” and many said seal it with your seed of faith. Of course i am not saying all of them are fake, but from my knowledge from my own background of this type of things, i can tell that many of them are in this for money. Hopefully Corona will shape all of us into seeking him in ways we have never done before and that we will all use this darkness to shine his light so that when the world sees this light and salt in us, they will praise our Father who is in heaven and not us.

I better sign off from here, i already feel better because i have got some things off my chest. Maybe it’s a great idea to keep writing after all. In my next writing, i will try to compare the current situation to the one of the great famine of 1993 that had such life changing devastating effects. Please let us keep praying for one another and i pray for the Lord to touch all of you who might be sick, anxious, worried or whatever it is. We will come out of this stronger and better than we went in. Just take off this time to reflect and pause. Reevaluate, refocus, repurpose. For me the brightest thing during this time is that it has helped me and our son bond more. Before i would run to town in the morning and race back in the evening to try to see him before he went to bed and many times i always arrived late and i would feel bad. Now he has all of us and we have bonded more and his true personality is starting to come out. He does not know what’s going on or why everyone is at home but he sure enjoys the attention and the time. Now he calls me to pray with him before he takes his nap and before he goes to bed at night! So my friends, find something to be thankful for during this time, till we meet again whether in this life or the next, remain in his shalom. Be better and not bitter. Bless you.