New Year and Coronavirus

Happy Chinese New Year! Today is the beginning of the ultimate Chinese holiday. It means traveling home to see relatives, eating delicious food, handing out red envelops full of money as gifts, and generally relaxing. Many big cities are usually almost closed down as people gladly return to their villages of origins. ….except there is a coronavirus outbreak. 12 cities around the epicenter have been closed down and people everywhere are being told to just stay in place. One could easily wonder how a government could close down 12 cities with a cumulative population of about 35 million. However, having lived in Beijing for 3 years, I have no doubt at all that it is quite possible. Transportation will simply stop running. If there are no airplanes, busses, and trains, that pretty well leaves only cars, and although the number of cars has greatly increased they still are not usually used for long distance travel. So I have no doubts at all that the citizens in the Wuhan area are simply staying home this 2 week vacation. I just read that Wuhan is opening a 1,000 bed hospital dedicated to coronavirus victims. They will refurbish this location in 10 days to have it ready to open on Feb. 3. This is also completely possible and speaks to the motivation of the government.

We also just received word that our chrch services are temporarily being canceled. You have followed our difficulties in finding a venue that is acceptable. The week before we left for our break in the States, the chrch admin was packing up the current hotel location. They joked that if they had not found a new place, they would simply drive the packed vans around the city on the ring roads that circle Beijing until a place was available. Well, at the last minute they did sign a contract for a warehouse location and were able to move. The last few weeks they have successfully been meeting there. However, I received a notification from the leaders this morning saying that the authorities are canceling services indefinitely because of the coronavirus threat. To be fair they are also closing the Forbidden City and Shanghai DisneyWorld. Somehow though it just feels like an extension of the persecution that has been increasing the last few years. Waiting and prying.

So in the midst of all this, people are asking if we are returning on our scheduled Feb. 11 flight. Of course we are. In a country of many billions, 700 cases and 17 deaths hardly constitute an emergency. I am pleased that the authorities are taking it seriously and communicating about it, but the daily air pollution is more likely to hurt us. We will wear masks when outside, which is a common thing to do anyway. And we will generally stay away from large gatherings, which will probably be closed as well. But we are very hardy people. (Not withstanding Rick’s recent esophageal dilation which has solved his vomiting when food is stuck in his throat. That is not a communicable issue and has been pretty easily solved. Follow on FB to read about it.) I wonder if our classes will be affected by the closure of quite a few locations, but we need to be there and ready for whatever is decided. Our visas are being grandfathered through the exceedingly difficult process. If we are not able to be on time for teaching, we worry that we will never be able to enter again. We will follow the next 3 weeks of progression of the illness, but there is no reason to think it will really affect our return. Please continue to pry for all of these situations. It is only by our Father’s grace that we live and move and have our being.