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Never Had I Experienced…
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Never Had I Experienced…
One of the many famous sayings in Korea is “never had one experienced…” The current president of Korea had said such quote during his speech in inauguration.
During the early stages of Wuhan Corona Virus (Covid19) many of the infected Chinese or people coming through China were not very well cut-off from entering the country.
After that point, whenever a night passes, in the news there would be hundreds of new cases would rise out of nowhere, also of how the lack of face masks caused people to line up long outside pharmacies and so on. After such long wait, many people who couldn’t obtain a mask would sigh and leave while saying to the media “This is unprecedented of all places…”
Thankfully through the works of the medical experts and of the civilian support the infection rate did slow down and many were getting healed.
In the news I read an article saying that the cult “shincheonji” was not the center of the new infection involving 40 people but of regular church who were attending Sunday service. Along with that article, I read a painful article of what is going on with churches in Korea as of this moment.
Because of this incident, almost 40,000 churches in Korea would be in financial difficulties and would have problems in the future holding services. The current mentioned churches were also renting out a place to hold worship.
About 10 days ago the President of US had issues a “national crisis” from the virus.
Many scientists agreed that should the virus spread, about 70% of the population would be infected and about 1.7 million people would perish. This was a very shocking report.
Because of this, many of the people who are coming from Europe are being regulated and many of the countries were forbidden from traveling.
Usually the Republicans and the Democrats would be arguing but they both accepted the policy, and both sides had come up with many different scientific solutions – medical supports, developing a vaccine, helping people with job impact, controlling interest rate, etc. countless policies were brought up and enacted.
Every state, county and major cities had gathered in numbers to enact the ideas and asked citizens to participate strongly in the crisis. Many places where people gather such as theaters, stadiums, entertainments like bars, clubs, and churches had ordinances created.
Several American churches and Korean churches had not held services together in the worship hall – but instead stayed home and did the service online. The times had become so strange to the point in order to stop the spread of this virus that churches would stop worship and that “this was the first time ever experienced” would be said.
Even if a nation or a local government is to have an ordinance, if there are no supports from the citizens, the effect is very minimal. But from this experience, I had experienced that the Americans during the times of crisis would cooperate in their utmost power.
Yesterday (March 16th) I went to Trader Joe’s early in the morning. Since they open 8AM I had arrived a bit earlier. But the time to open had shifted to 9AM instead. Instead of heading back to the apartment, I decided to wait somewhere. Since there was nowhere I looked and saw that in the same complex of buildings there was a Starbucks.
Since I had some leftover balance in the card that my daughter gave me while ago, I decided to get a warm cup of coffee. When I entered it was quite odd and unfamiliar. All of the chairs and the tables were pushed against the wall. Many of the guests were talking with a space of 2 meters or so – and if their orders came they just grabbed and went outside.
Something I remembered short after was many of the people who had gathered – there was an order to keep the social distance. All of the usual pots of milk and other substances were in fact being used by the employees to prevent others from touching it. Restaurants were also mostly doing take-outs or doing deliveries only.
After leaving the coffee shop it was around 8:30AM. I had noticed there was a line forming in Trader Joes. I thought it was strange as people can just go in and shop – even up to 10 minutes before the opening time I had decided to line up. At this period of time there were about 60 people lined up so it was very long and distanced. About 5 minutes prior to opening an employee came out and said that up to 25 people may enter and shop – then the next 25 can go in!
If that is the case, I did not know how long to wait. I was thinking about wife being worried that I had left early so I was going to call her, but my phone was off. I thought she would’ve thought something went wrong and decided to head home. But fortunately around 4PM my daughter (who lives only about 20 minutes from our place) dropped by with food and other care packages.
The CDC had announced for people to stay indoors and refrain from visiting from April to June. I was just happy and thankful that my daughter had brought all the necessary items without me waiting in a long line.
During this time of crisis there are people who will need help. Namely of the elderly, children and those who are financially in difficult situation. Many schools had suspended and companies had their employees stay and work at home. It is because the children need to be taken care of by the parents.
As of current time (Midnight of March 14th) many of the elderly people residing in Northern California now has mandatory stay-home policy. But what happens if they need to get food and medication supplies? How long must they spend their time alone? Our town mayor announced that if there are such cases within the neighbor – take care of each other. Bring food / care packages, bring medications. Also from supermarket deliveries was available along with medications being shipped via mail service.
In a TV program I saw that through Youtube many famous singers would sing songs for elderly, some students would visit elders in towns and (with some distance) would perform music. Not only that, a famous basketball player volunteered to pay 1million dollars to help support the crisis with their team. Another even surprising was of a student group who vouched to support for 10,000 students who receive food from school and those students can eat at home. This was such an “unknown experienced thing ever to happen in this country”
One reporter in Korea said after visiting Daegu which was most severely impacted by the virus wrote this - “Heaven is not a golden carriage that one rides as the last destination. It is the fatigued medical teams trying to save the lives of many of infected… to help those in the medical services to function – carrying gallons of water, meals etc… nurses on constant watch with little to no sleep… those who are helping each other in this mess… is the real heaven.” This was something very touching to read.
Despite America being hit with the virus causing the stocks to fall, social distancing – if a families are to survive, the elderly and the children would be in the most difficult position, but in this time, let us love each other, care for each other and encourage - which is a great relief and encouraging, something that we can rely on to survive this pandemic.
(March 17th, 2020)
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Never Had I Experienced…
“Meeting the Youth Born Again”