At the time of this writing, this coronavirus, now classified as COVID-19, has officially resulted in over 60,000 proven infections with more than 1,300 deaths. The true numbers are without a doubt much more, as many have died at home and no report was made to the authorities, and the numbers will probably exponentially increase before it is brought under control.
In Hong Kong, while there have been 50 proven infections with only one death to date, the whole city is on lockdown and probably over 99% are wearing face masks in public places including church meetings. The borders to China have been effectively closed and everyone coming from China, including HK citizens, must be quarantined for two weeks; all schools have been canceled; and all civil servants and many in other professions such as those working with banks work from home.
There has been panic buying and illegal price increases of face masks, which are in short supply, and other items such as toilet paper, sanitary items and even rice. These are not in short supply, but fake news and false rumors resulted in panic buying.
But for the church, this has been a blessing in disguise, and a great opportunity to pray and spread the gospel. There have been many citywide prayer meetings in which Christians from all groups and different denominations gather to pray and worship, thus resulting in more unity. Prayer meetings in most churches are much better attended than previously.
Many Christians and local churches are using this as an opportunity to help many in the panicking society, and to share Christ with others. Several weeks ago, when face masks were in short supply in Wuhan, many Christians were on the street freely distributing them to the people with a gospel message and prayers for the people.
Revival Christian Church has a ministry to provide free-of-charge small bottles of disinfectant alcohol, which are in short stock in the stores, and through this, share the gospel with the people in our district.
While many other churches canceled their services last Sunday, RCC had services as normal. But the temperature of everyone was checked at the door, and the whole congregation wore face masks. The attendance was actually higher than normal as many from churches that had closed the meetings came. There was a record of over 1,900 who watched on Facebook live. When the altar call was given, in both services, dozens came forward to rededicate their lives to the Lord, to accept Christ and receive healing.
This is an exact repeat of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in 2003, which killed 774 worldwide and 299 in Hong Kong. At that time SARS resulted in a massive economic depression to the Hong Kong economy, property and stock market crash, massive unemployment, yet revival in the church. Due to the fear of possible death resulting from infection by the virus, many came to church and became Christians. It is possible this will be repeated in this COVID-19 epidemic.
SOURCE: Charisma News
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