 Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. This video is as you can tell obviously a little different than normal we're in the middle of some lockdowns and everything so I'm with Matt Landis we're doing this virtually obviously I'm in Tennessee he's in Pennsylvania but yeah we want to talk about COVID-19 and some of the dynamics playing out there as it applies specifically to our people as Anabaptist. So Matt I know you've been involved in a number of different things why don't you start off with just introducing yourself tell us a little bit about who you are. Yeah Matt Landis I live in Ephrata Pennsylvania that is in Lancaster County Pennsylvania with my wife Rosalind and I'm a pastor at Calvary Mennonite Fellowship and I also am the owner of Landis Technologies we write software and do IT services. Yeah good so tell us specifically how you got involved in in working with this crisis I know you've been involved locally there with Lancaster County Mennonites trying to develop ways to respond help people think about this crisis in a positive Christ-like way I guess we could say instead of just ignoring it like so many people want to do or other responses that we've seen as well walk us through some of that journey and what is it actually that you're involved in? Yeah so probably like a lot of other people probably not unusual in going through the process of first of all COVID what and then next of all I'm thinking wait a minute I think China has a problem and then coming to the conclusion wait a minute I don't think the problem is isolated to China and it's headed our direction to thinking well maybe we're just gonna have to pause a few days to coming to the final conclusion this is not a two-week thing but probably a several month thing and then the question what do we do what should we be doing right now in Lancaster Pennsylvania it does not seem like you drive through the roads the only thing that's strange is that the roads are empty and that on a weekday afternoon I look out my window and see a family all together walking down the street happily which is a little unusual on a weekday afternoon or maybe any anytime they're not usually walking together as families to what should we be doing what as Christians what what should we what what can we be doing and what should we be doing and the other challenge of how do you find truth yeah this you hear that what what and how do we escape the thing of of having the news not not drive fear and not drive anger that someone isn't doing something right and instead get to our Christian duty of serving others how do we do that and how do you get started well I'm not a I'm not an emergency personnel I'm a businessman and I but I want to help I want to if there's a way to help get things going I want to do that I want to accommodate that and I I assumed you know we're a lot of business are pulling a lever to just kind of slow things down whether that means people working from home or closing your retail area to businesses that are entirely shut down and can we harness some of that wisdom that maybe is in slow gear right now so what we did is talk to some people and said why don't we as some business businessmen here in Lancaster and beyond just have a Microsoft Teams meeting and discuss what are possibilities what are options for the record we're speaking on March 31st so depending on what we reference when you're watching this may have changed I was on that call that we had and just to you know bouncing around some different ideas but can you describe a little little of what went into that call and then some of the results to that have come from that they're specifically with the group you're involved with now yeah right and that's very ad hoc it was not the standing emergency we didn't have the what we're experiencing now we did not have a trial run or we didn't do we weren't doing pandemic we call that fire drills pandemic drills but so this is we're learning as we go so first of all we just said are there businessmen are there are there leaders in the area that would have interest in just discussing ideas on what could be done and we we had a teams meeting it could have just as well been zoom but a remote meeting because obviously we're not gathering in big groups and just gave a couple people opportunity to give a little bit of the setting and then ask for input what what are people doing and a couple of things that came from that I I heard some very good business advice things like this is a time to be very generous with employees think about other businesses maybe not needing employees right now maybe you need them maybe there could be a temporary a temporary switch there was some interesting exchanges are related to how you handle your business and then more focused on things that can be done a couple things that came up that I really liked one of them was repurposing and maybe it's not redirecting or repurposing a business that is largely shut down because of what's happening to be doing something related to helping a couple examples that that came out of that and this didn't all happen that meeting some of them we learned that the business was down and and it could start from there it didn't all happen in that first discussion meeting but the one the one was a sewing shop that now is as I understand has has a lot of work sewing gowns for different medical organizations of different hospitals and they're doing a lot of them another one was a restaurant at least in Pennsylvania I'm not sure how all the other states are but restaurants are if you're not doing takeout you're shut down so a lot of the Italian pizza shops they're doing takeout so they're good to go but if you're the kind of business that didn't that kind of restaurant that didn't shift to take out very well then your business is down and there was one men and I who had a business like that who is down and they could kind of shift to match a need and I didn't say that before but one of the things we in our meeting we said what do we have what are the resources we have and what are needs trying to think about those two sides and one of the needs that we discovered in the last few days was in New York in Bronx there's hospitals that very much could use lunches for workers that are very very busy hardly have time you know to go get food and bring that together so on the one side we have a sewing shop that might be kind of not so busy doing other things and now can be working on the gowns that are highly in demand at the moment at some time at some point corporations might spin up their capability to do that but right now there's a need and on the other side providing those lunches for people that are needing them so kind of diverting someone has a business that is down and kind of fit that need another thing that we discovered is there's a lot of comments about you can make masks and I'll admit it's skeptical right you hear as well I was like yeah right sure there's no way yeah you're gonna be sewing these you know someone's gonna be sitting in their house sewing one of these and I was a bit skeptical but in talking out of that that same meeting there was connections made to people other Mennonites and a Baptist that are living in New York City who are meeting the medical personnel in New York and they're saying wait a minute we need masks like not just a few either because I was on that call as well and they were saying we're talking thousands of masks one hospital they're desperate desperately needed and so yeah and then out of that started some interesting conversations so then kind of kind of where did it more from there because that seemed like a pretty specific need at the moment that y'all as a team were able to latch on to you mm-hmm yeah so we do now have a a lot of people were thinking so number one our masks really needed at the moment today March 31 yes they are needed and then the other problem was well what exactly we do we do well we have we have a very we have a we have guidance on exactly what you need to do so what we've worked through is making the contacts in New York City getting exactly a very a very good mask that is is is you can just use the guide and make it or use the pattern and make it get the paper you can do it and it works mm-hmm the other thing that another idea that came out of that and this this came pushed not from us that direction but it came from New York one of the one of the churches in New York they really had a burden that there's people that are in the hospital because families can't visit there's the separation they're having real hardship I mean there some of their family members are dying and they're isolated is there somehow we can connect with them or that we can help in some way and there was a vision for a I'm gonna call it a support and encouragement hotline so that's another thing that is in the works that that seems like there could be it could be a benefit and the need there was people to actually answer the phone phone lines and we're finding both people that want to do that and people that are able to get the technicals going but during the this time when people are what they're they're in the hospital their families are separated they're isolated can and there be a way to give some encouragement so that's another thing that came out of that and no one person on that phone call that we did the brainstorm would have had all the connections but between them just making the connections finding out what the on-the-ground truth is and being able to connect with that so what do we talk about the small business switching we talked about the mask need and determining that there is indeed one and this was not only not only let's say you know a nurse or a doctor on the floor saying hey I need it but it actually came from the the executive director of the hospital so this is not a worker saying hey I need it but in discussing it and meeting with them it was a it came from the executive director so it is and I think that was one of the things to keep in mind in these things especially as this is a very fluid and dynamic situation it's talked to the people that are actually there you know I think in that case it yeah it was it was talking to nurses and doctors and executives you know in the hospital that said we don't have any masks we ran out of masks so we're literally using we're improvising like bandanas or just anything we can use I'm just thinking can you imagine you know your doctor coming in to treat you and for protection he can't even he doesn't even have a surgical mask available to him puts the patient at risk but then it also puts the doctor at severe risk and if you have your doctors being sick who's gonna be treating all the patients and it is just struck me as like wow this is a really dire situation and like you were saying this would probably change in the coming weeks as the man met but in the moment now March 31st where we are today this is a real need in a specific place so talking about specific hospitals in New York City specific con you guys have made first off how can people get involved in this particular project but more than that how can churches that watch people who watch all over the world how can they get involved what are things people can do right now that want to serve yeah so I'm thinking right and you can help me out Reagan but I think you're gonna have some information on Anabaptist perspectives that will give them details about what's happening right now in ways that you can just help right yeah but thinking in the broader in a broader way what what what can what can you do on the ground because this is a kind of thing where it's it's on the ground help is probably where it's at in my thinking is brainstorm the way to start brainstorm and see how you can put your resources and they're gonna be different than Lancaster Pennsylvania perfectly fine brainstorm to see how you the resource you have can be matched to actual needs I'd say that's a that's one thing to do the other thing is remember that the the conditions are very dynamic right now this is March 31 we're talking about New York but that may change in a few days it could be a different place very dynamic now masks might be needed in two weeks Proctor and Gamble or whoever the other organizations are that are gonna ramp up their capacity that might not be needed anymore the other thing maybe to think about is sometimes we think great we want to do good so we're gonna go out and buy a bunch of things to give to somebody a thing I might give to consider is think about a business that's already down that you can pay to do what you want so in other words give your gift to a business maybe a small business that doesn't have the the finances to to be out of business for a while so source your things through someone who already is down and they have capacity don't go remote and get it somewhere else the other thing I'm thinking about pray and look to God for wisdom this is think we said it before none of us have had a trial run or a drill on how to do this so I think as Christians look to God for wisdom on what we should do and in what ways there might be some dangerous sacrifices we need to do and I think ask God for wisdom when we should be to know when we should be involved in that and when we're being foolhardy yeah that's a good point like and as an example of that there may be some risk involved because out of these meetings that literally just as we were starting to record this I was getting messages from a team with an with a nonprofit that I work with that they're sending or three people together to actually go up into New York City right into the outbreak zone to these hospitals work with churches there contacts there and serve the health care workers you know bring them lunch you know they don't have time to stop and go get lunch they just don't they're they're at capacity in these hospitals find creative ways like that to serve and you know that is at a risk for these people if anything they'll have to be quarantined when they come home so you're talking time off work you're talking a lot of different things we don't know how that's gonna work out creative solutions it sounds like is what you're what you're asking for here is that right yeah and maybe another another thing to say is let's let's not do the risky things let's not do unnecessary risky things if we're gonna do something let's not just be meeting you know having a group get together to just hang out if we're gonna get together as a group take precautions but have it be something that's serving others so running the thread through through this whole thing that we're discussing because we've covered a lot of different angles it's basically let's find ways to love our neighbors in the midst of really unprecedented events I mean we've never really faced anything quite like this before you know it's unique is that maybe a good way of saying it yeah people are complaining about the unprecedented word but really it is you know when when have we had hospitals that didn't have the supplies they needed in the United States in the 21st century it's just unusual that's a good point so maybe find you know maybe just practically thinking you know maybe call up your hospital people could talk to their local healthcare providers and say what you need how how are ways we can prepare and I think you mentioned this too you know we're going to have a web page on our website linking to the group that you guys are you know that you're involved with to that specific project and then you hopefully our audience can can see what you all are doing model that in their own communities and inspired to maybe do something similar maybe their hospital needs hospital gowns for example where I am in Tennessee the hospital currently one of my friends who works there was saying they're out of hospital gowns so far they've only had one COVID-19 patient so it's like oh my you know what if an outbreak would happen here there's no way they would be supplied so that's something my churches is looking into doing and and hopefully other people watching this can can get creative with solutions like that as well yeah and one one thing that we've noticed in working with employee level workers at hospitals and healthcare places you sometimes if you're helping them you you may get a connection to let's say an executive that has happened so you're giving something you know directly to workers and you know someone hire up in the hospital say wait a minute I'd like to get connected and help with this so yeah help where you're at hope if you know a need help it yeah wonderful well that's all the questions that I had I feel like we've covered an awful lot there's probably a lot of things we missed so if people have questions they can email us or comment and check out what you guys are doing through our website is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap it up no I just think this is a time a critical time for Christians for the church for Mennonites to to really be serving there there's a time to be isolating and I also think there'll be a time for us to really serve and serve others I think that's a great note to end on I really appreciate it Matt and hopefully this has inspired a lot of people to go and help their neighbors in creative ways yeah I really appreciate your time appreciate the work you're doing and blessings in that yeah thank you