 Hello, how are you? We are not yet completely interrupting the normal programming. What we are doing is making an international call to somebody somewhere out there in this world. So we can find out a little bit about what lockdown means for the rest of the world. My name is Valentine and you're watching Y254. Hi there, Pastor Dave. Hi. We have a funny thing. When you guys find your eyes disappear. It's really cute. That's funny. So where are you and what time is it? Right now it's 1.30 p.m. and I'm saying hi to you from London, UK. It is a beautiful spring time right now. It's really sunny outside but we can't go out. Wow, the irony. Okay, yes in Kenya but I think mostly in the counties that have been affected by the pandemic we have a 7 p.m curfew. So we're supposed to be at home by 7 p.m. and then we get to leave the next day from 5 a.m. So what's going on with you guys? Do you guys have lockdown? What does lockdown mean? What's your curfew like? What's actually happening? So well London is a huge city with like millions of people living in just this city. So it is on lockdown and what it essentially means is that everybody is to stay home. So nobody is allowed to go out except if you are working in the health care or if your job is deemed as an essential service and this could be different different jobs. You know sometimes people in the FMB that's an essential service. Sometimes people are working you know in the hospital or helping with transportation that's essential service but if you're not essential service everyone else you are advised to stay home and we are not allowed to go out except for two things. To buy essentials and that is something that we are only encouraged to do when we desperately need it. So we are to reduce it if we can go out once a week that would be great. But other than that you are only allowed to go out for 30 minute exercises and that's it. And so yeah so it's I think you guys have it much better. Yeah so over here is everyone is working from home work from home otherwise just stay at home so that we cut the spread of the virus and only go out to the shops if you need it and when you do go to the shops everyone is expected to have two meters distance from each other so you're not allowed to crowd. There is a queue to go into the shops to buy your essentials and even the queue is two meters apart so sometimes the queue could be very long and that's why people only advise you to do it once a week so that we don't overcrowd the shops and yeah and apart from that it's just 30 minutes of exercise every day and the police are patrolling and so if they notice you staying out for far too long they will come and they'll have a word they'll politely tell you to maybe go home or they'll ask you and usually that's it I think nobody has had to be arrested or fined so just a gentle telling off from the police. I think I kind of like your police. How is it how is it working out with your family? Yeah me neither I can't even take it further than that but I really like your police over there so what how is your family dealing with it? Well my family is small it's just me and my wife no children so that helps my wife is a lawyer she continues to work from home and I continue to work from home I work as a pastor so all of our worship service now is broadcast online and what we do is that we prerecord over summers we prerecord over worship and we get it all edited and ready to be uploaded on Saturday so that people can watch it on Sunday over here and my wife continues to work so for our family it's easy to adjust it's tougher I imagine with some of my friends with children and because school is out so it's basically having out with you 24-7 and while that is a blessing I'm sure sometimes parents need a break yeah they are no lots of you know usually they have the open outdoors to just run off the energy but now they are literally bouncing off the door and the thing is the UK is that the houses are small flats are small so sometimes space constraints but yeah but as for me at my house I have just one last question maybe how would you advise maybe the people who are being anxious because I think it's quarantine or mandatory staying at home because kind of robbed people of their peace so maybe the plans that they had or things that they had planned to do maybe in the next three five six months a year they can't do now so we've seen the uprise of a lot of negative things so we have things like cyber bullying and because people have time and they're on their phones you know basically nothing else to do except wash your hands and sanitize things but maybe how would you help us alleviate some of that anxiety well some practical advice would be to limit the amount of news I think like you said with a lot of free time sometimes we our minds wander and with just you know the internet at the tip of our hands you know we sometimes fixate it and we get overwhelmed with bad news we all get overwhelmed with conspiracy theories and and all these kind of things and so I think for your own mental emotional health I think it's best to maybe limit your news intake maybe limit it to you know that one website that you can trust so that you know that they're just reporting facts so I think that helps to reduce your anxiety otherwise you're just feeding it with a lot of bad news as for the whole quarantine yeah it's not easy but I would advise people to make the most out of it maybe pick up a hobby pick up a skill maybe parents will usually be busy this is a good time to spend some time with your children and hopefully one day we get to look back and and be thankful for wow we I know children will one day get to look back and go like you know what I got to really know my dad I got to really know my mom in that quarantine season so I think there can be a lot of positives that come out from it but apart from that I think we all know quarantine is something that's happening around the world so it's not a punishment for any one particular country or city nobody is trying to lock you down I think this is just everybody around the world as the world gets smaller doing the socially responsible thing staying at home to try to cut off the spread of the virus and maybe practicing some good hygiene you know wash your hands you know in our household we instead of singing happy birthday twice what we do is we recite the Lord's Prayer because it takes about the time of two happy birthdays and yet it gives you more peace you know simple things like you know deliver us from evil you know do not lead us into temptation and and and and things like that you know it becomes whether you have faith or without faith I think focusing on some of these things can have you know meditating on the good things whether it's faith whether it's prayer I think can help calm a lot of our nerves and give us a lot of peace as we allow those in charge to do the best they can to get everyone out of this all right my last question absolute last question so we've had a couple of cases and this is not rampant this is very very random and and they're very very very if not minute cases yeah so we have a couple of people who don't really believe that COVID-19 is an existence that they're just believing it's a some type of conspiracy theory I don't know somebody made up somewhere so following directives is not really primary for them simply because they don't feel there's a threat is real so what would you like to communicate because as it stands as of yesterday we have 303 active cases we've had 83 recoveries and 14 fatalities versus the rest of the world that has thousands thousands and deaths thousands and in recoveries and thousand in active cases so maybe lastly what would you like to tell my fellow fellow Kenyans okay well um I would say that you know this this you know anything like a virus or bacteria you know it's not something we can see with our physical eyes and because of that I think human nature we tend to find it hard to trust things that we we can't touch we can't see and so it's easy easy to give in to some of these conspiracy theories I think it's also our human nature wanting to be in control because if I can convince myself that this is not real then I don't need to be afraid so I think the issue is really about you know it's really about the unseen and just because we can't see it kind of like faith just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not real doesn't mean the effects of it is not real and my encouragement is for you know people to even if you are maybe a little bit more fearless let's put it that way it's not nice to call people conspiracy theories but maybe you're a little bit more fearless you don't think that this virus is a big deal you think you're strong enough well good on you maybe you do have better genes but unfortunately not everyone around the world has that and so I would say that for those that are stronger that you would limit yourself so that we can you know maybe maybe think of other people and even if you're not doing it for your sake maybe just socially distance so that for the sake of other people so that everyone can can come out of this helped okay past the day I've been very rude I'm so sorry I haven't even asked I've been checked up on you I know yes you're in London but I know where you're from so how is your family how is your extended family how is everyone doing is everyone accounted for is everyone safe is everyone faring on okay how are you communicating with them yeah well I'm originally from Malaysia right now I am working in London planting churches here in London serving as a pastor so my family both yeah my extended family on both sides of my family they all do well so thank god for that all of them are safe and nowadays you know we communicate you know through a phone call through whatsapp call we are thankful for technology that can keep us close like like like even this even though all of us here are far away so yeah but everyone is healthy and so yeah thank god for that okay would you like to do something personal I've done the spot haven't I yeah no problem well you know Kenya Kenya is a beautiful country I wish that I can visit it one day sincerely so I have many friends in Kenya and I would just like to wish people in Kenya you know really God's blessing I pray that this thing will blow over soon and and I believe that you know peace time will come back again almost he will resume so just an encouragement that if you're socially distanced don't be afraid you know if you are you know just proud to God and allow his peace to come your your nerves and we are able to go through this