1 month in Rwanda

We had thought we’d spend 5 days in Rwanda before doing to DRC. We’ve now been here over a month. The family whose house we are staying in are still in Germany, and we figure that they will probably be able to travel back about the time we can leave and cross the border to DRC. We are still very thankful for the house and garden and the weather, although the spring rains have started meaning less time outside.

We celebrated Easter with a homegrown junior parkrun, a Zoom service with St Thomas with St Stephen, some chocolate and a trip to the ice cream ‘parlour’. We did bring some mini chocolate eggs and 3 chocolate bunnies with us - although we can only find 2 of them. So we did an Easter egg hunt in the house and garden for the kids and ate the bunnies when they had gone to bed.

This weekend Rwanda extended lockdown for another 2 weeks until April 30, and mandated wearing face masks in public from this Friday. Cases in Rwanda are still low (147) and climbing very slowly. There have been no deaths and there are now more recoveries (76) than active cases (71). DRC has more cases (332) with all but 11 in Kinshasa. In Goma there are 3 cases and they are all recovering. Different regions in DRC as well as different parts of the capital have different levels of lockdown and we will hear soon of any plans for extension. Our challenge will be that the borders may well be one the last things that governments re-open when restrictions are eased.

Covid-19 isn’t the only current challenge for the region. On Easter Day, DRC was all set to declare the recent Ebola epidemic over, with no new cases for 3 months. Sadly, a new case was reported on April 10, with two more since then and the likelihood of more to come. Ebola is therefore still considered a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Added to this East Africa is bracing itself for a second wave of locusts in 6 months, which is predicted to be much worse than the first and will cause widespread devastation to crops and massive food insecurity. 6 months ago Rwanda and DRC were spared, but this time they might not be. See more here.

How is Africa responding to Covid-19?

As in Europe, different African countries have taken different approaches to the threat of Covid-19. The worst affected countries have just over 3,000 reported cases each, but the totals are likely to be much higher. What most African countries have in common as they respond are limited testing ability and poorly funded health-services with little protective equipment and only a handful of ventilators. One danger is that the limited resources available are diverted away from the fight against malaria and other preventable diseases, and so the avoidable deaths are greater than the eventual deaths from Covid-19.

Then there is the impact from lockdown on the poorest, the daily earners and those who rely on the informal and service economies. In Rwanda the service sector accounts for 49% of the economy. Many are questioning the wisdom of following a European model of lockdown as well as the possibility of social distancing where people don’t have enough to eat, live in high-density urban areas and where countries rely on open borders to feed their population. Read more in the links below.

BBC Africa video of lockdown challenges, April 12

Telegraph article on Africa’s response, April 6

Oxfam blog on What African journalists are saying, April 16

Faith in uncertain times

Before we left the UK I had been thinking a lot about life and faith in times of uncertainty. We were leaving the security and familiarity of an area of London we knew and loved, a great house, a supportive church, very good local schools, and close to friends and family. To go to a city we had never been to, with no real sense of what life would be like, where we would eventually live, and what my role would be. And then throwing the children into a French-speaking African school.

I realised two things. Firstly, that life is never free from uncertainty. Although we often try to minimise the things we can’t control and spend our lives trying to reduce risk, we have far less control over our lives that we like to think. Covid-19 has taught us all that. And so, although the uncertainty and risks we were embracing by going to the DRC were fairly clear, staying in London would have in no way guaranteed a certain or risk-free existence, even before the current pandemic.

Secondly, uncertainty in life is something to be embraced. Here John Piper’s booklet, Risk is Right (free here!) has helped me enormously. Piper explores James 4:13-17. Citing James 4:14, ‘you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.’ he suggests that although most of us don’t like the fact of uncertainty, we should instead see it as woven into the fabric of our lives by God as his gift and his intention for each of us. And if uncertainty is a gift from God, then so is a significant element of risk.

Risk means taking chances with things that may and will fail. When Justin Welby went to Liverpool Cathedral he said he wanted it to be ‘a safe place to do risky things for Christ.’ This is exactly what happened as he saw the cathedral grow and flourish in surprising directions. And his parting words to his congregation were ‘If you don’t risk failure you won’t have any chance of success.’

Piper suggests that uncertainty is God’s gift to us because it allows us to do two things. The first is to learn to trust God and grow in our faith as we rely on God for the future. We learn to let go of the idea that we are in control of everything, and learn to rely on the one who is. The second is to give ourselves sacrificially to love and serve others – giving ourselves not knowing how it will be received, not calculating what we’ll get in return, risking disappointment in doing so, but in doing so learning what it means to love our neighbour.

Uncertainty has been forced upon all of us. What if we embrace it as a gift and use it to learn how to trust God and to love and serve others?

How can you pray?

• For governments across Africa as they respond to the pandemic

• For those hit hardest by lockdown in Africa

• For the threat of Ebola and locusts

• That we would remain healthy, positive and thankful

• That we will be able to get to Goma soon!

Thank you from Martin, Anthea, Silas, Zachary and Imogen