COVID-19.
This is probably the most talked about term in 2020 both locally in Singapore and on the global platform. Not a day goes by without a news report on something related to this virus that has been plaguing the world. I first heard about it when I was in Taiwan at the beginning of January 2020, but didn't think much of it because it was only contained in China. I thought it was just another one of those viruses that will go away quickly. (Also, the news was in Mandarin so most of it just flew past by mind without being processed.) Little did I know that it quickly made its way to Singapore and blew up in our faces when Chinese New Year came and everyone gathered as per usual. I must commend Singapore for their efforts in containing the first wave of virus migration. We managed to get our numbers down quickly through contact tracing and even had several days when there were no cases at all. I thought that was the end of COVID-19. However, South Korea, Italy and Iran had sudden huge spikes in their numbers just about that time. Since we hadn't placed any travel bans, many Singaporeans who travelled to these countries started to get affected too, and the spread increased. Not only that, because these countries also rely heavily on tourism, the rest of Asia and Europe started to be greatly affected. Then, the global lockdowns started happening, and many things went downhill from there. Let me write about how that directly affects me, and my reflections through it all.
Our wedding has been planned for 5 April 2020 for quite awhile now. It was supposed to be The Summerhouse, and we were supposed to have an evening garden wedding, followed by a dinner under the moonlight in their restaurant. We wanted something more rustic and cozy, so we stuck to about 130 guests. When COVID-19 first started, I thought it wouldn't last till April, or even if it did, it would be at the tail end of the epidemic (as it was called earlier this year). Having lived through SARS, I was predicting about a 4-5 month duration. But the global numbers started to jump and travel advisories started to come up. Just as a precaution, we did a travel declaration form 6 weeks prior to the event to ensure that our guests weren't travelling. We had to make painful decisions to cut people who were travelling to affected countries.
Then, new situations started to arise. 3 weeks prior to our wedding, we found out that Australia had placed a 14-day quarantine on all travellers entering Australia. As our honeymoon destination was Tasmania, we were forced to cancel the entire trip - we got refunds from our car rental, Airbnb (that required multiple requests and dealings with very unfriendly case managers), and SIA. We are very thankful that in the end, we managed to get lots of help from these organisations who either refunded us in cash or through coupons that we can use again when we book with them. So, though we were disappointed and it took awhile for us to get over it, we were thankful that at least we didn't have any money losses.
Alas, 2.5 weeks prior to the wedding, another new advisory came. Events were supposed to have less than 250 guests (no problem), but the guests had to be seated 1m apart from one another. Now, that was a problem because our venue was supposed to be cozy and hence, didn't have sufficient space to hold 130 guests 1m apart. We had to re-work the seating arrangement with our wedding venue coordinator and thankfully, we were also able to compromise till we were all happy with it. It was a bummer for us, because some of our guests started to become uncomfortable in attending gatherings and hence, decided to pull out of our wedding. We thought we were good to go, because it was just 2 more weeks to our wedding, right? What more could happen?
Well, the very next day after we re-worked the seating arrangement, a new advisory came. Gatherings need to be 10 people or less. We were "advised to avoid" holding weddings/parties. Honestly, when this first came, I panicked. Was it compulsory? Could I then ignore the advisory since the words used were only "advised to avoid"? However, after much discussion as a couple and with family and friends, we made the most painful decision to postpone our wedding celebration and have a simple solemnisation instead. And, as we had to keep to 10 people, we couldn't officially have my future brother-in-law as a part of our solemnisation. My heart ached and I cried buckets those few days. I was furious with the situation and felt helpless because I couldn't do anything about it. However, we were still very thankful that our venue allowed us to postpone our booking with them up till 1 year. So, we had to send a message to all our guests that we would be cancelling our wedding ceremony for now. We still have no idea when it can actually happen.
I've only described the events that happened and my preliminary feelings when we received one advisory after another. My story is only one of the many describing how COVID-19 has affected our lives. I look at the restaurants, shopping centres, taxi drivers, travel attractions, airlines, the tourism industry, and many other people, whose lives have been greatly disrupted due to this virus. I felt extremely sad when I saw more than 10 taxi drivers queuing up at an empty taxi stand, when I saw an empty Putien on a Saturday evening, when I saw how places that were once filled with people empty out. So many businesses are affected. I can't imagine the overhead costs they have to still fork out even though their stores remain empty. From 7 April to 4 May, Singapore is closing all non-essential businesses. People can no longer dine in but are forced to do takeaways and eat at home instead. This would affect them even more. Perhaps the bigger organisations would take a hit but still be able to bounce back because they would have sufficient revenue generated previously to support them through this period. I think of the local businesses, the small ones who run just one store and have lives depending on the revenue from that store. A month without business might make a difference between survival and the loss of their income. True, the government is trying their best to support them, but it will never be enough. When I think about them, I feel sad.
But I want to give a reason for why I can still say that I rejoice despite my disappointments, why I remain hopeful even when the situation seems hopeless. That is because I have a relationship with God. In the bible, in the book of Genesis, humans completely screwed up - we were so wicked that our thoughts were wicked continually. Honestly, I feel that this is the same now. The origin of this virus is because of some human screw-up. The spread of the virus is because humans cherish their freedom to go out even when they are unwell and therefore, infect others. In Genesis, it also talks about humans trying to build their own tower that reached the heavens. We depend a lot of on our self-sufficiency, and we forget that we are very much limited. We can't even control what happens in the next minute, but we want to be in control of our lives and our situations. But God didn't give up on us. Throughout the entire Bible, we see the whole pattern of humans rejecting God, screwing up, and then God stepping in to show mercy and grace to save them from that situation. This is all because of love. 1 John 4 says that God is love, and verse 10 writes that "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Of course, we humans won't love God, we keep rejecting Him, and we keep thinking we're so damn great and we don't need God. We survive fine without Him. Yet, while we rejected God, God sent Christ to die for us, so that we don't have to pay for the penalty of our wrongdoings. See, God is holy. He can't stand wrongdoings. (I mean, can you? Even parents hate it when their kids disobey them.) So, our wrongdoings need to be punished somehow. But God loves us so much that He doesn't want us to bear the punishment. So, He sacrificed His Son instead. Jesus is perfect, without sin, and therefore, the perfect candidate for that. Jesus is God, but He came down to earth in a human form, so that he can identify and empathise with us. Yet, because He is perfect, He can take the punishment on our behalf - He died on the cross. But the story doesn't end there, if not His death would have been useless. Since He is perfect, death has no hold on Him. He overcame death and resurrected 3 days later. And that, is the crux of the whole story. And if you just believe in Jesus and what He has done for you, you can also have a relationship with God! Believing in the God who created the world, who is sovereign, who is in control of EVERYTHING is honestly very liberating. I still worry, I still get disappointed when things don't go my way, because I am human. But I am able to pray, to commit all these worries to God and to tell Him "You know God, all these bad things are happening, but I know that You are still in control and that You love us and that Your plans are somehow the best for us, even though I don't understand why at this moment." I see the little things that I can be thankful for - that I got back my money from the trip, that I don't have to pay a cancellation fee for the wedding, that I am able to still go ahead with the solemnisation. These are little blessings that I have seen. I continue to pray for God's mercies upon us as the world battles this virus. I pray for God to remember us just as how he remembered Noah and subsided the flood over the whole earth. I pray that God will have mercy even though we deserve all these consequences of our wrongdoings and selfishness.
Our wedding is tomorrow. As we say our vows, "in sickness and in health", "for richer, for poorer" mean so much more. We start our marriage in uncertain times, but that will only make us trust God more. Only He is capable of seeing us through.
