Total Lockdown

I heard the news of a total lockdown as I reached the church at 8.20pm last night for prayer meeting. For the first time I was late as I took my wife to dine at Pizza Hut one last time before the end of dine-in and we were overwhelmed by bumper to bumper traffic for about 7kms. I wasn’t surprised with the lockdown announcement as we expected it a few weeks ago and last Sunday I actually said over the pulpit that God would give us one more Sunday (tomorrow) being the Kadazan-Dusun Harvest festival just after Pentecost Sunday which was also a harvest festival in Israel and in the Bible. At least the Lord heard my prayers for a couple more Sundays before cessation of church services.

I was furious that even during mid-April many were talking about lockdown whenever Sabah’s Covid 19 cases were approaching triple digits. Even then the Lord heard my prayers so that the Love and Romance seminar could be held on 24th April, the very day I was born again 39 years ago in Christchurch. We had one last Supper after last night’s prayer meeting and when one member wondered how long this pandemic would last, I said at least for another 2 years until mid 2023 which makes it a total of three and a half years, a Elijah like period of testing, famine and no rain. Common sense tells us that in Malaysia with the slow rate of vaccination it will take at least 18 months to vaccinate 70 percent of the population to achieve herd immunity. As for the lockdown period I shall have weekly Bible study over Google Meet and recording sermons on Saturday or live stream on Sunday. If the Lord so wills, I might consider writing the 2nd volume of John’s Gospel commentary.