by linda » Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:37 am
I should have said we are in south central Missouri, a state that is also trending in the wrong direction with rising cases and hospitalizations. And a governor that does not believe in mandates despite having had covid19 himself. Our county positivity rate has hovered right around 40% lately according to the newspaper.
Also we are in an area rather saturated with folks that are ardently anti science. They deny climate change is happening (not disagree with is it man made or how to handle it), are very young earth (I try to avoid that. Grew up with geology as dinner table conversation. Nuff said.), are anti vaxxers (oh please, sigh) and so as you can guess, going out wearing a mask is a risk of being harassed or worse. When our town debated a mask mandate (did not issue it) our pastor went public that he was adamantly NOT going to require them in church, or stop singing. The building is pretty small and poorly ventilated and he does preach loudly. Those all contribute to our not going.
AS of last night's numbers 1 in 27 in our county have tested positive, 1 in just over 1700 have died from it.
We have family involved in front line medicine through the pandemic. Their state has a mask mandate, they require social distancing, and the local county health had to sign off on the school's plans. Some schools are in person, some online only, some hybrid depending on their district meeting those cdc guidelines as to rates, etc. They are about 1/3 our population, but have had around 30 cases. If we had their rate, we would only have 90, not 1457, cases. They have had no deaths, despite being an older population. Medics think that is because if you catch it while masked you likely get a lighter viral load exposure, and that can mean a milder case.
On the up side, one church did outside in your car only during hot weather, now is doing inside BUT also airing the service on the radio and encouraging folks to stay home and do that if in any way at risk. Several are using facebook live to show the services. Our church does that, and that shows that probably around 12 people seem to be attending regularly. A few have suspended meeting BUT have very active phone check ins with members, on line sermons, and gotten very very active safely meeting the food, power, wood (lots heat with it here), diaper, etc needs of the community folks.
But there is another positive, and it is HUGE! Friends and neighbors who either do not know the Lord as Savior or who have not walked with Him in a very long time are asking about Him, asking for prayer, interested in the Bible and what it teaches, etc. So even staying isolated and safe a person can still have a witness for Christ, and still be about the business of evangelizing the lost.
So church here is very different than it was pre pandemic, but while some of that is not good there is a lot of good happening because of the pandemic. Different doesn't always equal bad.
Which has me wondering how folks are doing around the country. Thanks to all who reply--I know this time is very stressful for some, very busy for others, and very strange for us all.
Linda