Cross-Cultural Fears During a Time of Pandemic

March 13, 2020. I remember that I was in the middle of serving my kids lunch when I heard that Kenya had diagnosed its first case of COVID-19 in a traveler returning from America. There was palpable anxiety in the air as news spread across radio waves and TV screens. Soon after this announcement, I started talking with some of our Kenyan hospital colleagues about ways we could get information out to our community before rumors and misinformation began spreading. As a nurse, I volunteered to go out with our hospital chaplains to share about the virus and talk about God’s unchanging nature during a time of global upheaval. 

Unfortunately, our national friends did not feel like that was a safe idea. “You can not go into the community right now. You will be seen as the one who brought COVID here, and it will not be safe for you,” is what they told us. This was an idea I had not even considered. Me? I would be seen as one who brought COVID here? “It’s not even to our community yet, and I haven’t even been to the US in over 2 years,” I thought. That fact did not seem to matter, nor did the fact that Patient #1 was actually Kenyan and not American. I was now a target of suspicion. We were now targets of suspicion. I’ve seen before how fear and suspicion can overturn a rural African community in a heartbeat. It’s just that I had never felt the prejudice of being that target myself, and it was quite unsettling.

In the days to come fear spread quicker than locusts on the land of central Kenya. We started hearing reports of civil unrest in different parts of the country. Hoarding of resources. Police brutality. County shutdowns. Strict curfew. Price gouging on staple commodities like flour, rice, and sugar. We started getting daily emails from the US Embassy saying that if you wanted to leave the country you needed to do so immediately. There would not be evacuation flights. There would be no contingency plans. You either leave now or plan to stay where you are indefinitely. This was new territory for us. As our mission agencies began requesting written evacuation plans (in the event we needed to use them), it brought back memories of when we were living in Uganda and had to emergently evacuate due to tribal warfare. At least then there was the safety net of an embassy flight if need be. The reality that we would be on our own during an unprecedented time of pandemic began to sink in.

What were we to do? Foreigners were seen with suspicion within the broad public, the developing situation seemed shaky, and we soon would have no way out. We were already scheduled to go back to the US soon. “Do we just pack up and go early?” we thought. We sought the Lord, we sought counsel, and ultimately we chose to stay. We are in a low-risk area, in a low-risk health bracket, and if COVID did make its way to our region, our small hospital would be overwhelmed with patients. My husband’s services would be greatly needed. Indefinitely surrendering our plans and embracing uncertainty, we were reminded that God is still on His throne, and He holds us in the palm of His hand. There was grace for whatever we decided to do, whether that be to stay or to go. Is there any safer place to be than in His will? Psalm 139:7-10 was a balm to my soul in those days of surrender:

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”

Since our decision to stay, the spread of COVID across our country has miraculously occurred at a slow rate. Considering the near impossibility for low-income and impoverished communities to practice social distancing, this is nothing short of the hand of God (and an amazing public health effort). In spite of this divine protection, fear still remains a stronghold. There is fear in our lack of personal protective equipment; fear in our lack of treatment services; fear in our lack of financial resources and the ability to keep our doors open after this storm passes. There is fear of healthcare professionals- that they will spread COVID within the community. There is fear of police- that they will inflict brutality if you are caught out past curfew. There is fear of health ministers- that they will hoard resources or pocket vital funds. Fear and mistrust hang like a storm cloud that refuses to retreat in the rainy season.

Having lived in East Africa for nearly seven years now, I have grown to understand to a greater degree how deep these cultural layers of fear really go. With a history of brutal colonization, of widespread corruption, of chronic injustice toward the poor, and a traditional religion that is steeped in appeasing false gods, I often feel overwhelmed with to how to even enter in with light and hope. I can’t empathize with the generations of hardship that many here have endured. I can’t relate to a worldview of idol worship and sacrifice. Or can I? Could it be that there are more similarities between my own heart and those in this fear-based culture than what I have previously thought?

One thing that this season has done for me is exposed my own idols of safety, security, and control. It has allowed me to grapple with fear in a way that many around the world live with on a daily basis. The marginalized don’t have the luxury of escape that I have always known. When my safety nets are pulled out from under me, and my husband is heading into a potential battlefield with very limited resources, I fear. When our parents have health conditions that make them high risk and we are a world away in lockdown, I fear. When the community around me swirls with anxiety and unpredictability, I fear. All of a sudden the previous chasms between my Western worldview and that of the African culture I live in are now being bridged through the mutual fragility of our humanity. As Paul writes in I Corinthians 2 

“… when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom…I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” 

Those who live in cultures steeped in fear do not need another message filled with lofty speech or wisdom from someone who has experienced very little outward troubles or hardship himself. On the contrary, they need to see in a very tangible way Jesus in the pit of lions with them. They need to see Christ in the fiery furnace with them. They need to see the God of the universe in the storm-tossed boat with them. Now more than ever, the global church has the opportunity to join hands in mutual solidarity with those in their communities and boldly proclaim that fear does not have to control us. Yes, we are the target of the enemy’s rampage, but that does not mean that we have to run from his attack. There is One who cast out fear when he conquered death, and we no longer have to live in its grip. Even if that means surrendering fear’s stronghold upon us day after day until He comes again, the fight is worth it. Our days rest in the hands of a good and loving Savior, and the truth of that fact is worth persevering and even suffering for.

So, the question begs asking: “How can we as a church communicate to fear-based communities across the world that Christ is with them, that He is for the brokenhearted, and that He is fighting on their behalf?” Now more than ever, the message needs to go forth in order to dispel fear, but how do we do that when the means we would normally use to communicate have been taken away from us? We can’t visit people in their homes. We can’t hold church services. The virtual means being used across the Western world to build connections during isolation is something nonexistent in our rural African context. We are grateful to just have a day in which the power doesn’t go out and we have decent water pressure. 

Thankfully, I’m used to feeling handicapped when it comes to communicating in another culture (and that’s just to get some tomatoes, let alone telling someone that God actually cares about them). Ask any missionary who has had to struggle with language learning, and they will attest to the same frustration. What this lesson in humility has taught me over the years is what I keep coming back to during this time of social isolation: the importance of prioritizing prayer.

Prayer has always been the language that connects us with the Father and connects us with one another across this world. We see in multiple accounts throughout Scripture that Jesus chose to retreat from people to spend time in prayer (Luke 6:12, 22:41-46). Isolation with His father was a privilege! Prayer also was a central tenet in the call to apostleship (Acts 6:4), and always an exhortation throughout Paul’s epistles (Eph 1:6, Phil 1:19, 4:6, Col 4:2, 1 Thes 1:2). We see in the account of Pentecost (Acts 10) the Holy Spirit falling on those who heard the word preached and His language connecting all others, clearly demonstrating that it is the Holy Spirit who hears our prayers and communicates the Gospel message through us. The early church was built on prayer (Acts 2:42), and every successful missionary effort from that time has had prayer as its lifeline. In Him, we have all the tools for communication that we need. Do we trust that His message can go forth when all we do is pray? Do we trust that His grace is enough to rid our lives of fear and cause us to walk boldly toward the Red Sea, even when an enemy is approaching from behind? Do we trust that He is still in complete control when our world feels like an upturned apple cart?

March 13, 2021. I can say that I honestly have no idea where our family will be in the world on that date. I’m not sure what our community or world will look like a year from now or what struggles will still persist. However, I do know one thing: God will still be on His throne. He has already planned the events of that day, and will give me the same manna that He does today- “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer” (Rom 12:12). Wherever we are, I will still be pushing back fear, in my own heart and in the hearts of those around me. Until His return, we will press on with the assurance of hope and the confidence that His purposes will prevail to the end.