It was March, which is the end of summer in South Africa, and we sat on our veranda listening to the somber words of our president: Schools are closed; theaters are closed; no public gatherings are allowed; borders are shut down; all travel and tourism are immediately stopped. 

While my two “tween” children ran and skipped for joy that school was out for the foreseeable future, I stared into the distance, not knowing what we would do. How would we pay our bills? How would we put food on the table? How would we live? I knew from experience that I could trust God, our loving Father-Mother, to meet all our needs; however, the fear seemed overwhelming.

Both my phone and my husband’s had been beeping all day with cancellations. We are freelance actors and also have small businesses in hospitality, catering, and educational theater. In this unexpected turn of events, all of our sources of income had vanished for at least the next three months. So, there we sat, staring into the darkening summer sky and wondering how we would get through this. We had no savings to draw on and bills that wouldn’t suddenly go away.