Coronavirus: An On-the-Ground Update from Washington State

3-2-1…I just push the button on our brand new washing-machine, spinning yet another load of dark towels filled with vomit and feces. The world is far from “normal”, here in Washington State.

“Coronavirus” has stolen the limelight of information…from schools, to churches, national news, to businesses and corporations. 

A friend who works for corporate Starbucks was sent home yesterday. She and her collegues were asked to work from home, not for days, or weeks, but for a month. Thousands, including Boeing and Microsoft employees, are also being sent home from their jobs.

Businesses are closing.

My daughter’s drama class in a small local church was cancelled yesterday due to the directors family being sick and fears of this virus spreading.

Every day parents get automated messages from their schools telling them the state of emergency their region is in and whether school will be canceled due to diagnosed cases of the virus.

School after school report their latest cases. Many parents are receiving messages, “Due to a confirmed case of Coronavirus, the schools will be closed tomorrow for cleaning.” Entire school districts are shutting, directing 20,000 pupils to online learning.

My third daughter’s district just received a reported case of Coronavirus last night. However, due to the student’s inability to be tested, the case cannot be “confirmed”, so thousands of kids will sit in class in our district this morning.

Friends I know are sharing on Facebook, they have taken themselves, their kids or their whole sick families into doctors, but due to not enough testing kits, only the elderly or most threatened by the virus are getting “officially” tested and diagnosed.

Others are being sent home with fevers and infection, untreated, although many people’s illnesses meet textbook Coronavirus criteria.

The stores are being stripped from resources. Everyone knows someone, or multiple people, who are infected.

The joke lately is why we haven’t been able to buy toilet paper for a week. Not only has toilet paper disappeared from the shelves, things like hand santizer, diapers, medicines and other daily necessities, cannot be found….anywhere.

The New York Times calls Seattle, “America’s Coronavirus Capital”. Not a title any city wants, especially with thirteen known deaths confirmed as of today, March 6th.

The accounts of people getting sick keep spreading daily.

This weekend, I was eagerly anticipating babysitting a friend’s foster daughter so she could attend the well-known foster and adoptive parent’s conference, “Refresh”. As of yesterday, it was reported the conference, which is in the middle of the epicenter, Kirkland, just got canceled. Thousands of people turned away. Refunds for struggling foster families will not be issued.

Yet, in their defense…”Cancelled” seems a popular word lately. Business meetings, cancelled. Places of employment, cancelled. Schools, cancelled.

My husband just sent me a photo of him with our two-year-old at the walk-in clinic. She has had loose stools, but last night she was up all night vomiting.

Her facemask so big, you can barely see her eyes. My heart aches, because this whole thing is getting a little too close to home for me.

And then there is the brave people like our other friend Andrew. He used to attend our small group before he met his wife and had three beautiful children. He is a firefighter and already risks his life daily.

Yet, when a nursing home guilty for the spread of the virus to other states came down with Coronavirus, this group of twelve firefighters were the first on the scene. Our friend Andrew was not exposed, yet is on a two week home quarantine, like eleven of his friends, some of who actually caught the virus.

These firefighters and nurses, wearisome doctors both here and in China, are the bold and the brave, and apart from God are the ones our world needs to admonish and look to with admiration and praise.

Most of us are trying to go on like normal despite text updates telling us of the latest death toll or the latest statitics on the virus.

I was at ballet with my three-year-old yesterday and it was just so refreshing to see the innocense of children who were spinning unaware that people in their community were struggling.

Children are our hope, they are filled with life and don’t let fear consume them. While adults often just idolly scroll the list of friends and school closures and church posting warnings of what is going with the virus.

My coffee girl is pregnant. She is such a joy and smiles and asks questions. She simply brightens so many of my mornings. Yet, yesterday she told me, her husband couldn’t find milk for her and her baby, or the toddler she had at home that was aching for nutrition.

If I ever thought United States would struggle, I never in million years thought it would have happened here, in Washington, in the exact very county where me and my family live.

I never thought it would be my baby I hold as she hurls all over me, at two in the morning.

Or that cleaning up diarhea would be painless compared to the thought of your baby crying because her tummy keeps hurting.

And then there are needs like entire families asking for prayer. (Please see their Facebook post, here)

I read everywhere from the “outside” about how the “regular flu” also kills people and how us in America shouldn’t panic. Yet, shelves at grocery stores are bare, friends are quarantined and it is easier when your own baby isn’t up all night, clinging to your chest and crying…

This flu, this Coronavirus the world is talking about is exposing us all to what’s most important.

As I look humbly to my God, my Savior. The Father of all of Heaven and earth, who has always been so good to me. He came before this whole thing spiraled and whispered to me at 5:00 something in the moring, “Do not worry.” (Find the post, here)

And if the God who I know as Soverign and Supreme knows our hearts and meets us in our fears, we can trust.

He see the tiny sparrow, but He also sees us. He clothes the fields with fine and shining Lilies…and He also covers us whatever our need or worry.

So, I will rest in peace today. Peace because I know, this earth is not my home. Peace because today’s problems are nothing compared to the glory that is waiting for us.

While my baby wears a Mickey Mouse face-mask and is being treated at the local clinic….I sit in the hope that He is still good and faithful, despite what my eyes see, regardless of what my flesh feels.

Let’s put our trust in Him.

** Update: My husband just got home from the doctor moments before I post this. Our baby is fine. She was given medicine and just has the flu. We were told it could continue for two weeks, but there is nothing to be worried about.  I kiss her little face and thank My Heavenly Father from above.