Podcasts about david who

Episode 178: Social Media in MedicineDr. De Luna and Dr. Song explain the role of social media in medical education and how online journal clubs have become more useful in recent years.  Dr. Arreaza offers insights into our role as educators and sources of truth.Written by Patrick De Luna, MD. Comments by David Zheng Song, MD, and Hector Arreaza, MDYou are listening to Rio Bravo qWeek Podcast, your weekly dose of knowledge brought to you by the Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program from Bakersfield, California, a UCLA-affiliated program sponsored by Clinica Sierra Vista, Let Us Be Your Healthcare Home. This podcast was created for educational purposes only. Visit your primary care provider for additional medical advice.Intro to episode (voiceover): Get ready to listen to a great conversation between three doctors diving into the impact of social media on medicine. It's no secret that social media shapes our lives—not just as professionals, but also as humans and members of our society. Every second, new information floods our feeds, and with the rise of artificial intelligence, it's becoming harder to separate fact from fiction. As doctors, we have a crucial role in clearing up confusion and supporting evidence-based practices. You'll hear insightful tips from Dr. De Luna, Dr. Song, and Dr. Arreaza—but remember, you also have a role in spreading the truth, you must be a reliable source of online truth and correct misinformation quickly. Also, use reliable sources, recommend fact-check websites, including Snopes, and FactCheck.org, and avoid “back-and-forth” arguing about fake news online, because as you keep arguing, fake news will continue to spread.Social Media in Medicine.Patrick: Social media has helped both physicians and patients obtain and expand their knowledge of medicine. This role in medical knowledge expansion has been more prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the form of podcasts (like this one), medical content creators, and personalities.  This growing medium has helped physicians to deliver medical knowledge in an efficient, but layman, format which can become a great outreach and educational tool. Arreaza: This podcast was created 3 days before the lockdown. It has been an educational tool for those who record and hopefully for those who listen to us.Patrick: In today's episode, we will explore a little about how this more accessible approach to medical learning has shaped our medical education landscape. We'll explore a recent study that shows the breakdown of how social media is used among medical professionals and the concerns that physicians have about medical education through social media. We will discuss how platforms such as X/Twitter have “Journal Club” threads and their implications. Furthermore, will discuss how online personalities have been able to bring medical education discussion to the broader population, and what we can learn from their work. David: Who is your favorite medical educator?Patrick: Dr. Mike (YouTube FM), Dr. Glaucomflecken (ophthalmologist comedian), and HealthyGamerGG (gamer), and yours?David: Curbsiders (THE internal medicine podcast)Arreaza: I like Dr. Glaucomflecken as well. He is a comedian but he is becoming a little more political. The AFP podcast is my favorite.David: We will explore and discuss how we could make quality and accurate medical education content and, hopefully, mitigate concerns about creating future educational content for physicians and patients alike. Analysis of Healthcare Professional Social Media UsePatrick: Social media has traditionally been used to share about your social life (posting pictures of your cat and family vacation), stay up to date on news and what is happening among your peers, as well as (for some select folks) a platform for content creation and a means of a career. Healthcare professionals also participate in social media in the same manner. David: Some social media users are called “influencers”. Arreaza: The term “influencer” is becoming a somewhat negative term online because many “influencers” are giving a bad reputation to that term, to the point that many prefer to be called “content creator.”Patrick: In a recent study published in Taylor and Francis' Medical Education Online, 72.1% of the participants reported use of social media to some degree. Out of the 72%, 11.5% of the surveyed report using social media sites exclusively for professional purposes, 22.8% for strictly personal use, and 65.7% for both. David: The most used social media platforms among healthcare workers were Facebook at 70%, YouTube 58%, LinkedIn 52%, Instagram 42%, Twitter (now called X) 27%, TikTok 10%, and Reddit at 5% among those surveyed. Those are 6 different media, which ones do you currently use, Patrick?Patrick: [Add response]. 20.4% of the surveyed indicated they use clinically focused social media platforms as well. This same survey found that respondents specializing in addiction medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry were more likely to use social media for continued professional development as compared to other specialties. David: Social media among the participants was highly used for staying informed with medical news and actively participating in medical discussions online, especially about medical management and treatments. Of note, the data is based on a population that skews more toward physicians and medical professionals who have practiced for more than 15 years. Arreaza: Doximity is one of those platforms that I have used in the past, and it contains interesting articles but they have to be read “with a grain of salt,” because they are editorials.The “New Journal Club” OnlinePatrick: Multiple residency programs report using social media as a form of engagement about published journal articles and updates to medical practice. Medical education may benefit from the implementation of social media and similar platforms as a medium for professional development, according to an analysis performed by Medical Education Online. The use of social media among many physicians has changed from content consumption (passive) to active participation in furthering medical education. David: This is reflected heavily in how platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter), have become a forum towards a new form of “Journal Club”.Tweet Threads can now be utilized for further publication discussion in an open online space.  Good examples of this can be found among Twitter feeds from publication sites like the New England Journal of Medicine or #IDJClub (Before their move to Meta's Threads in November 2023). The Infectious Disease Journal Club, using the handle @IDJClub, published a study in May 2022 highlighting the impact of 20 months of journal club hosting through Twitter.Patrick: The authors of the study state that it may be harder for physicians outside of academic circles to have opportunities for well-scaffolded discussions and continued maintenance of critical appraisal skills. Due to an explosion of questionable medical literature during to COVID-19 pandemic (AKA fake news), they report a higher need for avenues to keep the practice of critical appraisal, thus we need to expand journal club access outside of academic sites.Arreaza: From May 19, 2019 – August 7, 2021, the @IDJClub account was followed by almost 9,500 followers from 114 countries and hosted 31 journal club posts and discussions. During the study, they found data that shows a decrease in participation in journal clubs use in residencies, as well as a lack of expert hosts to lead those discussions. Patrick: In addition to the increased accessibility, the survey makes a case that online interdisciplinary journal clubs can be an effective tool to update medical professionals and for practicing critical appraisal of the research studies. 75% of respondents believed that they learned more from these #IDJClub discussions than in their traditional journal club forums (if such forums were available to their respective programs). A case is made where it could be reflective of easier access, the make-up of how the publication is presented, and how the overall journal club is run. Concerns and Challenges to AvoidDavid: As well-intended and useful as these platforms for medical education can be, some authors from AAFP recommend that we be mindful of problems that can occur from misapplied use. Patrick: One problem that has been brought to the AAFPs' attention is potential society and licensing board actions. Medical boards, such as our own California Medical Board, can sanction physicians, uphold practice restrictions, or even take away physician licenses due to unprofessional behavior in social media content creation. This is especially worrisome if posting scientifically misleading or untrue claims.David: One example was an incident here in Bakersfield where 2 physicians used YouTube to post the results of COVID-19 tests at their urgent care during the peak of the pandemic. They misled the public in stating the disease did not have serious ramifications as the CDC stated. Due to the large number of viewers, the physicians were censured by medical societies due to their distribution of biased and unfounded information to the public. Patrick: AAFP authors suggest that for medical statements and discussions posted on social media for general patient education, it is recommended to add hyperlinks or direct sources with any online interaction in-so-that it better qualifies accuracy. If it's unverifiable, it would be best to add written caveats about the information's non-verifiability or that it is in the process of continued research. Patrick: At this time, there is some effort made by social media platforms to help indicate that the post is made by a reputable source. For example, when a licensed medical professional posts on YouTube, there are information panels that appear that will give context to the health content that is viewed. At the time of this episode, YouTube also currently allows channels to apply to be indicated as a licensed medical professional in the channel's posts. The applicants are examined by three different medical societies: the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), and the World Health Organization (WHO) to standardize how health education should be shared online. David: An example being Dr. Lin of Common Sense Family Doctor, an online medical blog for patients and physician education. In his statement to AAFP, he states that he wanted to post educational content twice a week, however, it required 3 to 4 hours a week to create. This can be time-consuming and distracting from other responsibilities.Arreaza: Social media can change mind. What other concerns do you think should be considered when physicians try to educate patients in an online environment?Social Media Platforms to Teach Medicine to the Greater Public Patrick: In general, social media platforms can be used to educate the public. One AAFP panel of authors wrote that some key points are important to consider when creating online content that is meant for public use.We must define our goals toward the subset population we are directing the education towards. Is it providing general health education? Is it promoting a practice? Is this used to advocate for a cause?We must consider who our audience is. For example, if our goal is to create a professional message to incite political or societal change towards public health policy, it would be best to utilize platforms that involve policymakers, political leaders, and/or patients that can inform them of what we want to achieve. Focus on general topics. These can include topics such as viral medical discussion trends on platforms like TikTok (ex. Ozempic), fitness and wellness, nutrition, or topics that you yourself have interest or expertise in. This can lead to the production of original content such as informatic YouTube series', podcasts such as this one, or discussion threads. AAFP recognizes that this can become a creative outlet for physicians and can reduce burnout.ConclusionPatrick: We can see the transformative impact of social media on medical education, and how it's further evolved since the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored how platforms like Twitter have redefined traditional journal clubs, making scholarly discussions more accessible across global medical communities. Moreover, we examined the role of influential medical content creators in bridging the gap between healthcare professionals and the general public. Patrick: While social media presents unprecedented opportunities for disseminating medical knowledge, our discussion also highlighted the challenges, including the need for accuracy in content, navigating professional conduct, and addressing algorithmic biases that can influence online interactions.Patrick As we conclude, it's evident that social media has revolutionized medical education by fostering broader engagement and democratizing access to knowledge. However, both physicians and content creators must uphold ethical standards and ensure the accuracy of information shared online. By navigating these challenges thoughtfully, we can harness its full potential as a powerful tool for advancing medical education and improving health outcomes in our local communities. ____________________This week we thank Hector Arreaza, Patrick De Luna, and David Zeng Song. Audio editing by Adrianne Silva. Intro by Raj Ajudia, MSIII. Even without trying, every night you go to bed a little wiser. Thanks for listening to Rio Bravo qWeek Podcast. We want to hear from you, send us an email at RioBravoqWeek@clinicasierravista.org, or visit our website riobravofmrp.org/qweek. See you next week! _____________________Links:Topf, Joel M., Introduction: Social Media and Medical Education Come of Age, Seminars in Nephrology, Volume 40, Issue 3, 247 – 248. https://www.seminarsinnephrology.org/article/S0270-9295(20)30043-7/fulltextNguyen BM, Lu E, Bhuyan N, Lin K, Sevilla M. Social Media for Doctors: Taking Professional and Patient Engagement to the Next Level. Fam Pract Manag. 2020;27(1):19-14. https://www.aafp.org/pubs/fpm/issues/2020/0100/p19.htmlIserson KV, Derse AR, Delpier M. Navigating the Hazards of Social Media. Fam Pract Manag. 2022;29(3):15-20. https://www.aafp.org/pubs/fpm/issues/2022/0500/p15.htmlVan Ravenswaay L, Parnes A, Nisly SA. Clicks for credit: an analysis of healthcare professionals' social media use and potential for continuing professional development activities. Med Educ Online. 2024 Dec 31;29(1):2316489. doi: 10.1080/10872981.2024.2316489. Epub 2024 Feb 15. PMID: 38359156; PMCID: PMC10877644. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10877644/Doctor Mike, YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@DoctorMikeDr. Glaucomflecken, YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@DGlaucomfleckenHealthyGamerGG, YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@HealthyGamerGGGet info on health-related content, Google Support, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9795167Apply to be a source in YouTube health features, YouTube Help, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12796915Theme Song: Works All The Time by Dominik Schwarzer, License #5924333, PremiumBeat.com.  

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT There is a lot of glass in public and commercial spaces, and the pro AV and digital signage industries have been applying all kinds of technologies to turn things like windows and dividers into part-time or full-time displays. In most cases, those jobs have come with compromises. There are films that might start curling at the corners, or discolouring. Mesh systems that look pretty good from the front, but terrible from the rear. And most recently, super-thin foils that need to be adhered to one side of glass panes. So what if the LED display was actually part of architectural-grade glass? That's the premise of a company called Clear Motion Glass - a Pennsylvania-based technology start-up that comes at the business from the angle of commercial glass. Clear Motion is a spin-out from William Penn Performance Glass, which has for many years been making and supplying laminated and tempered glass for commercial buildings. Unlike other products on the market, Clear Motion's LED displays are sandwiched inside sheets of laminated safety glass - so when a building goes up or is being retrofitted, the glass panels that go in are also active, highly-transparent displays. I had a good chat with Todd Stahl, a glass industry veteran who runs both the established and start-up businesses. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT David: Todd, thank you for joining me.  Todd Stahl: Hey Dave. Yeah, I appreciate you having us on. It's going to be a pleasure to talk about some LED glass with you.  David: Yeah, tell me about the company. I saw you guys at DSE back in December. You were busy almost the whole time. So I didn't really have the time or the chance to have any kind of a detailed LED conversation, but I know that the company has not been around that long, but it's grown out of a pretty well-established “performance glass company.” Todd Stahl: Yeah. A little bit about the history there. So, at Clear Motion Glass, we're making the LEDs inside of the glass. I came across the LED glass around June of 2022, so I've had it for just about two years. The parent company is William Penn Performance Glass, and that's another company I started in 2011. We deal with high-end architectural Glass.  So, a cliffnote version: We go to the top architects in the country, and they're like, “Hey, who are you designing for?” And they'll say to us, “Hey, we want some really cool glass to go in the elevators for the Empire State Building.” So we got into the architectural space with glass, and actually, we'll William Penn, who was just voted one of the top 50 glass producers in North of North America. So something that we're definitely pretty proud of around here.  Then I came across LED glass around 2022, I thought it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen put inside a glass, and I wanted to be a part of it. David: So when you say you came across it, what do you mean by that?  Todd Stahl: So, there's another product in glass, another glass product that's been around, I'm going to say right around since 2000. It's a glass that goes frosted to clear from the turn of a switch, Switchable glass. So there's a company called Smart Film Blinds, and they were an applied film company that would actually take that, what we would call switch glass, but they just took the film and applied it to existing glass, and it was owned by Alan and Tracy Ackerman, and then they had this connection with LED Glass they weren't quite sure what to do with it. They knew it was really cool. And it had a chance to be really something big, but they were more of a film company, and then he and I got introduced, through a need that we had for some smart film, the switchable film, and then eventually we had a partnership for a while. Then we decided basically that I'll stick with the glass part, what I'm best at, and he'll stick with the film part, which was what they were best with. But that's how I got introduced to it, right around two years ago.  David: What you're marketing now is Clear Motion Glass. Is that your own product or are you reselling somebody else's manufactured product?  Todd Stahl: We have partners overseas, such as a company called Filmbase. That's where we get the actual LED grid or LED mesh. We bring that to my facility in York, Pennsylvania, which is in the south-central Pennsylvania area, we're 20 minutes south of Hershey, close to Harrisburg, and then we actually fabricate everything as a finished panel here. So we'll make the glass, we'll get the interlayer components. We have a laminating machine that actually works by pulling a vacuum and heating it up to certain temperatures. After that, it comes out, and we have a clear LED glass display.  David: So laminated glass is something that's been around forever. So this is just basically sandwiching the mesh in between sheets of laminated glass?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. We're definitely making a sandwich component. We start with a piece of glass, say that's your component number one. Then, we start with the inner layer materials.  In a case like this, we use a couple of different techniques, but we use EVA, which is ethyl vinyl acetate. Then we'll actually put the LED mesh grid on top of that, then we put another piece of EVA, then we go with the finished component of the sandwich, another piece of glass, and we stick them in an oven, we run a certain cycle, and about four hours later, we have a laminated piece of glass, exactly how you described. It's a sandwich makeup for sure.  David: Was there a lot of R&D work involved in it? Because I would imagine if you're putting an LED mesh inside of an oven, then going to a very high temperature and all that, I'm thinking if I didn't know much about this stuff, I'd be wondering, what's all that heat going to do to this thing? Todd Stahl: Yeah. You know, we have to make sure that it can withstand certain temperatures, obviously, and if you don't heat, and just in general, if you don't get laminated glass hot enough, it doesn't bond, it does not bond correctly. What you have to achieve is cross-linking and cross-linking is basically the interlayer material to the glass itself, and that happens at a temperature of around 110 degrees Celsius, so it's not getting hot enough to cook a Turkey in there, so we're not really dealing with extremes. I think a lot of people might think when you're actually making glass out of what we call a batch, you know that's where the glass is heated up to 2000 degrees and you're really dealing with some extreme temperatures. It's not quite the same extremes at all when you're dealing with laminated glass.  David: So tell me what performance glass is, and what high-end performance glass is because I don't know the glass world terribly well.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, sure. So, so what William Penn performance glass is the performance name kind of all started because our glass looks great and it, but it's an all safety rated glass. So that's kind of the performance part of the glass. So, if you're looking at our glass, say that's used for glass handrails, that's a very specific glass that's chosen to withstand the certain load requirements of a structural application, and typically most of our handrails are tempered, and laminated glass. So there are two ways on this planet to make a piece of glass safety-rated. You either temper it or you laminate it. We happen to do both of those things in a lot of our projects, and it's kind of funny like obviously safety-rated glass is strong, but the only thing that's really taken into consideration when you're referring to safety glass are you automatically assume it's going to break and what happens when it breaks, right? So with tempered glass, you put a lot of stress on the glass itself through a heating and cooling process, and whenever that glass breaks, it breaks into small panels that would not be able to potentially cause a life-threatening wound, and then you have the exact opposite with laminated where if a rock hits your car, if that's ever happened to you the rock doesn't come through and the pieces of the glass, the shards don't come through, they stay together. So you got those two things to the requirements when you're thinking about what is safety rated glass.  David: With the Clear Motion product, is it an indoor product only, an outdoor facing product, or what are the use cases?  Todd Stahl: So what's really cool about our LED glass is that almost wherever you're using architectural glass right now, you can now use our LED displays. So it can be used in exterior applications, a building facade, glass canopies, and railings that may be exterior. All of the components are kind of encapsulated inside that glass, and that glass is making a nice, really safe, cozy home for the LED display inside of it. David: And it's bright enough that it can be on a glass curtain wall like an auto dealer?  Todd Stahl: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that's one of the really cool applications for it. In fact, you had mentioned at the trade show and boy, were we busy? I think I was just talking about this yesterday. We scanned around 450 people in that short show. Our voices were a little strained by the end of the evening. So, the brightness of our display at the show, Dave, was only running around 4%, and I thought that was one of the more amazing things about the product because it was still kind of bright at 4%. Later we started bringing that up because a few potential clients wanted to see it at 50-60% brightness. So yeah, you can totally use this as an exterior sign and get whatever brightness you need. I think some of the products are well over 10,000 nits depending on the needs, and I think one actually lasted up to 15,000 nits, so plenty bright for the outside.  David: Yeah, once you get to 3,500, you're good.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, exactly. David: On transparency. I see on your website that it says there is up to 90 percent transparency.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, so when you get to some of the pixel pitches that are viewed from say, a distance of around a hundred feet, I think the pixel pitch at a 20, I believe that one may allow up to 90 percent of light to come through. It's really cool. I mean, you have this really great display, and then you're just getting all this, and you're not cutting off any spaces so if you have a traditional LED display, you can only view that from one side and I think that's kind of what's really amazing about this product and a lot of times when you're looking at the product, you don't even realize that it's transparent until the image would say it's rotating from one image to the next. And you're like, Oh, wow, that's clear, there are people behind there. So I think, yeah, it's really cool in that application.  David: From what I saw, because it's this mesh material, with super thin wiring in between each of the LED lights.  The challenge I've had with a lot of trans or “transparent products” is that they look good from the front side, particularly at a distance, but when you look at the back end of the things, there's a mesh, like a metallic mesh or something like that, a grid system that kind of makes it look like crap. Todd Stahl: Yeah. With a lot of the applied films that have been out there before, and there's not a whole lot of them, but there are a few, certainly from that backside, it doesn't look at all like the front, and the same thing, with the LED actual metal meshes, again, they look phenomenal from the front, and you get behind, and you're like, man, what am I looking at here? So with our product, what's really cool about that is you get a little bit of the halo effect, from the image that's playing on it, that you can see from, say, the view side of the glass, and then you get a slight reflection off of that front piece of glass that kind of bounces back through. So you see a little bit of a glow or a halo in the background, but it is not an eyesore, and it looks pretty good. You can see out, and you have a very clear picture of the people that you're looking through or whatever object you would be doing from the back of the product. It looks really good. It's a good look from the backside.  David: Yeah, there are numerous products out there that now do this kind of foil mesh effect, and you have to adhere it to the inside of a sheet of glass, which is all fine and everything else, but it doesn't look that good from the inside, does it? Todd Stahl: No, it really doesn't. The concept here, we touched on hockey a little bit, earlier, but you know, we have, you have all these hockey nets in the arena to protect the fans that a puck doesn't hit them, and most of those meshes are black. It's harder for our eyes to kind of pick up the black mesh than it is for white. There are some that have whites, but not many, and the black is blended in a lot easier. I'm a big hockey fan, so I've been to a few arenas, and the white ones are a little harder to, I think it takes away from the image more, and that's why we're using a black LED mesh.  When we first started, it was white, and it just didn't have as good of a; again, I thought it took away from the product from the backside.  David: So presumably there are limits in terms of the size of a glass panel that you can do because you've got a laminate in an oven of some kind and that they're only so big. So if you have, to use the example I mentioned earlier of, an auto dealer's glass curtain wall where the sheet of glass might be pretty darn big. How do you put multiple units together? And what does that look like in terms of cabling and everything?  Todd Stahl: Yeah. So we're always kind of limited in size by a couple of different things. Sometimes it might be the actual raw product glass that we're using. Some sheets are available to us, bigger and smaller, the width of the laminating materials, and then our oven as well. So basically, in our oven here in Pennsylvania, we can laminate an LED panel roughly about 6x10 feet. You know, that's a pretty sizable piece of glass, and then what we can do, if you're doing a glass facade it kind of gets into a little bit more of how the glass is installed, but you're basically stacking the panels. there's a control unit. That attaches to each panel of glass, and then those control units are all tied together and then that gives you one cohesive image plane from one panel to the next.  David: Do you have much of a seam in between them?  Todd Stahl: So, if you remember, at the trade show, I think we had two panels out there and we had a seam in the middle. So I'll see the seam, you'll see the seam, but when the image is playing, you really don't even notice it's there. A lot of times, depending on the application, a glass facade is a little different, because you're going to have all most likely all four edges of the glass covered, but, we have a lot of applications where the panels are being butt jointed together and it's a nice polished edge there. So, yeah, with the image running and stuff, you really don't even see it unless you get within a couple of feet of it.  David: So we're talking millimeters, not inches, in terms of a gap.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. You know, a gap's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of three, three-sixteenths of an inch, plus or minus. David: So not much at all.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, not much at all. Like I said, it's pretty cool. When that image is going, you're like, it just looks like one big piece of glass.  David: And there are technical limits, like if, let's say, an airport curtain wall that might be like 80 feet high for the side of a terminal or something like that. Can you do that?  Todd Stahl: Absolutely. That can all be tied in. You'd have several zones there, and depending on how you're handling the programming from a laptop, and something like that, you just say zone one's the entire thing, and then you might break it down into individual zones if you want different things playing at different times, but yeah, we this is definitely designed to do entire glass facades or, curtain walls. David: All those little lights generate some heat. How does the heat get out?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, so we've been working with these products for about two years now, and I always expect when I put my hand on the glass to touch it, that it's going to be nice and warm, but it really isn't. The heat definitely dissipates quickly. There is some energy consumption, and we have charts for that. So once we get into a building design, we can get in there and say, “Hey, this is what you're going to need for your power requirements.” But it has very similar power requirements to current LED displays that have been around for a while. But yeah, it doesn't really create much heat. You would think it creates more, and I'm telling you, whenever anybody sees it, one of the first things that they almost always do is, “Oh, I expected that to be warm” and they touch it, and it really isn't.  David: Well, one of the criticisms or let's say what a naysayer might say about this, is, “All right, if I buy this, glass panel with the LED mesh embedded inside of it, what happens if there's a dead pixel? I'm stuck with that forever. It can't be repaired because it's sandwiched in between two sheets of glass.”  Todd Stahl: You know, it was my biggest concern. We spent a good bit of time.  I think the lifespan of the LED bulbs we're using is right under 11 years. So we found the biggest problem that we've encountered, and this took us a while before we were going to bring it to market because that's by far the biggest concern; anyone looks at that and goes, it's not the first time I've ever seen a bulb, you know? So there's a couple of things. There's been a lot of research and development to make sure when it comes out of lamination that we've already caused any bulbs to fail before those processes, and we actually have a little bit of a protocol we've developed. So, one of the biggest reasons a light bulb is going to fail is the heat and pressure in that vacuum. It's not so much the heat, but the pressure because there's a little bit of movement in there. So if all those connection points aren't just right, you're going to get a bulb that may come out after you've done all of the work, and then you fire it up, and you know, there's a lot of bulbs, and a diode and only one is bad, it's not good. So we actually have a pre-laminating process we run to actually replicate what is going to go through the stressors of the lamination process. And if we find a bulb or a diode that might not be working, we can replace it after that pre-cycle of lamination.  Now, on the flip side, let's say it's out there, it's in the field. If we use annealed glass on the front surface, so, annealed is not tempered, but the backlight would be tempered, so you're still dealing with a, fully safety rated tempered and laminated makeup. We actually have a drilling process where we can drill a core out of the glass, and we can actually replace that LED diode. What our experience is that once they come through lamination so far, with all the panels we've been working on we have not had one go out and we've put them in some areas of our glass production facility near our tempering oven, which is a really cool piece of equipment. It has a 600 horsepower blower that when the tempered glass comes through, it cools it to dissipate the heat, but it draws some dust, there's some heat back there. We've had a panel running there for two years in that condition without any issues. But yes, you can actually replace the bulbs if you need to, if one goes out.  David: So I'm curious when an architect and a general contractor puts a building up, they're thinking in terms of being there for decades, with maybe the exception of football stadiums, which seem to need to be replaced every five years or so. Is 11 years an acceptable operating lifespan for a sheet of glass for a builder or for a building owner?  Todd Stahl: Yeah. I mean, our interlayers, they last 20-30 years. The interlayers and the glass products, yeah, they're going to last a very long time. When we've been bringing this product to market I think, the event back to the switch light is one of the first times you're us glass guys are introducing electricity into the mix. And at first that back in 2000, I mean, it was really cool. It had the wow factor, but it didn't quite last as long for me. I didn't really get into the product until recently. But you know, that product will last around 10 years as well, and we don't get a whole lot of callbacks very often with any of our glass products.  But it seems like most clients are happy with a 10-year usage. That's been pretty good for the Switch Lite product. We talk about a decade out there to the architects and designers now that, that's a number that they all seem to be very happy  David: Let's say a car dealer goes in, they're fine, they're thinking in terms of the glass that they put in is there for 10 years, and they may switch it out anyways?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, I think you know that everybody wants to be fresh and new. So we found a lot of these high-end retail stores that we've designed with, for instance, a high-end jewelry line, and let's say they have started in California with a new design. They take that design and they move it east to New York City. By the time they get to New York City, whether that's been five to eight years, and they redesign the whole thing over again. So there's a cycle and I think, especially with retail, and a lot of these buildings, they always want to have a new, fresh look, and I think a lot of times they're redesigning in under ten years for a lot of applications.  David: I'm guessing I could be wrong here, but I'm guessing that there's hyper-competition from China for, what I would say is conventional LED displays and so on; you're probably going to have less competition for what you're doing because of the sheer weight of, even if they can make glass cheaper over in China, shipping glass panels over here would be just ghastly expensive, right? Todd Stahl: Yeah, definitely. It's pretty heavy to air freight glass, so it's always nice that there's this thing called the ocean between us and China, especially us being we've been a manufacturer forever, and thankfully, it is a little expensive to ship a finished product like that and take some time. So, yeah, and you know, right now, we're kind of pretty far ahead of the curve in how to actually laminate this properly. Our feeling was when we got involved with this, all right, we got the LED technology. Now we'll just throw it in some glass, and we got a home run and it wasn't quite as easy to just throw it in glass and end up with a finished product, you know? There are still some areas. We are not the only ones in the world laminating this product, but there are, from what I know, under five; we're the only ones who can do it with thin and large panels. We're the only ones that I know of that are actually doing some of the very specific things to make sure it's going to perform properly in these laminated glass applications. In our process, we are patent protected in our process where I think we're just like in the first phase, I don't know all the legal terminology, but we're going through the patent process for the way we laminate it.  David: Which will help you over here, won't help you with Chinese products, but again, there's that ocean thing in between. Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. We have a few intellectual properties here and I'm not one to get into too many legal battles, but we would have some type of recourse if someone does come and is trying to laminate in a similar technique the way we do it. David: I suspect you're kind of looking around the corner as to where this is going and the types of technologies that are emerging. Do you kind of see this as, what you have right now is Gen 1, and over time the light emitters will get smaller, the wiring will be even thinner and so on? Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's exactly the way I see it going. I mentioned earlier: I really am a glass guy, and this is a glass company by people who absolutely love glass. Now, that's a Will Penn. Clear Motion, we have that same feeling as well, but this is more of a technology company. And what we're talking about today, like you said, generation one. We're going to revisit this in under five years, and it's going to look, I think, a whole lot different.  David: Who's buying it right now? And are you in the field with this?  Todd Stahl: So we're working on probably over 50 to 60 current projects right now in the design phase. Almost everyone we're working with has signed NDAs. So we can't necessarily say the clients that we're designing with right now. But one's a high-end fast food restaurant. They want one of these in each restaurant and that's actually for an exterior application.  David: Are these proposals or purchase orders?  Todd Stahl: They are proposals right now, so a lot of verbal commitments. We have a project we're working on in the Middle East in the design phase right now, that's 18 months out, the funding has been approved. They're designing it in the UK and then we're working with the audio visual company, I think in Texas. So this is really brand new.  David: You're in startup mode!  Todd Stahl: We really are, and this is the third company I've started literally from scratch, and I think it'll be the last one because boy, it is challenging. It takes a lot of energy. There's this great energy when you're starting it, and this is a little extra challenging because this is brand new. No one has ever seen clear LED glass displays like they just did not exist four years ago.  People might've thought they saw something similar. Like you said, it was a film or a grid that was put behind the glass. But when people are seeing this now, we're creating a new market, we're educating people to that market, and we're educating ourselves.  David: I'm guessing when people come to a stand at a trade show, you're at, the architects and the people who design physical spaces are the ones who are going, this is more like it. They haven't really liked the idea of films or foils and all that because of how they look at the back end or they're worried about a film sort of, particularly if it's exposed to UV light and all that, it's going to yellow and on and on…  Todd Stahl: So what the feedback from the A&D community has been? We did an AIA show in San Francisco last June, and we had one or two clients, say, “Hey Todd, we have the budget for this. We have clients who want this product, and we've been looking for it for years.” Then we start designing the project with them, and that's the thing: once I shake hands with an architect, we might not actually have that project begin production for 24 months to a year. So, depending if the building's coming out of the ground or if it's just a remodel of an existing one, it's a very long cycle until we actually get orders placed, and you know, something I've been dealing with for 30 years. It's kind of the way the industry is.  David: Infrastructure projects are never quick, are they?  Todd Stahl: No, they really aren't, but the A&D world is kind of our background. It's where we've been for a very long time in that space, and we've definitely noticed that companies, individuals in the audio-visual world respond to this entirely differently. This doesn't have as many questions in their minds. They're more educated because we've been used to dealing with LEDs for a very long period of time. So it's kind of interesting how the two markets work together, like the DSE show where we introduced the product, I would say more to the audio-visual world if I'm using the right terminology there, it was received just as with that much energy, a lot of more understanding right away, not as many technical questions. David: It's a variation on stuff they've been seen before, but maybe a better variation. Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely, and the architects, like you were saying, and even in general, I think even though LG makes an applied film. The North American President of, I forgot the gentleman's name, he was in my shop a little over a year ago, and we were working with his film, and then we showed him our LED glass, and he was blown away by it. David: “There goes my business”  Todd Stahl: Well, I think he was like, I'm going to make that too. I don't think he was worried about his business, but that applied film that they had been using, again, from a very long viewing distance, the product looks great. It's not yet ready to be viewed in shorter viewing distances, but the fact that it's applied, I do think that there is something like when you're buying a high-end product, you don't want people to be able to come up and pick it off, and I mean that definitely happens with every piece of film, I think I've ever worked with in my life. The first thing people do is take their fingernails, and they try to scrape the edge of it. It's just something that is instinctual about humans. But I think if you take that film now, I always say, if you put a piece of film on glass, it's just film. Once you laminate that film inside of the glass, you now have a glass product that protects it.  It does what you were saying. It prevents it from being yellowed over time because the inner layer blocks out almost 100 percent of the UV rays. So I think it's a great home for the LED mesh.  David: So does William Penn and Clear Motion Glass, do they operate separately, or are you kind of in the same office, the same building, and everything else, it's just different business cards? Todd Stahl: No, actually, we are in the same overall building complex, but we're not connected physically. So Clear Motion, basically has the equivalent of its own social security number, which down here in the business and for business, the IRS wants us to have EIN numbers for our businesses. So Clear Motion has an EIN number. Will Penn has an EIN number, obviously, but they definitely operate as two companies but obviously very close connections.  David: And you are running both?  Todd Stahl: I am running both right now, and spoiler alert: two's a lot harder to run than one.  David: Yes, I bet. If people want to find you online, they just go to ClearMotionGlass.com?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, that's it. They can find us there. There are some emails there. They can shoot an email to us and we'd love to talk to anybody if this product's right for them we're really excited about it and definitely creating a lot of energy with it. David: Are you at a trade show anytime soon?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, so we're doing Infocomm, I believe. It's the middle of June out in Vegas. Are you going to be there?  David: Yes.  Todd Stahl: Awesome, man. We get to meet in person, then. We'll carve out some time for that, Dave.  David: Absolutely, yeah, and that's a good show for you. There are tons of pro-AV people there. Todd Stahl: Yeah, I love that. That's a new space for us. So we're a little extra excited cause that's definitely not like a glass trade show is.  David: All right. Todd, thank you so much for your time.  Todd Stahl: All right. Yeah. I appreciate it, Dave. It was a pleasure.  

Christ is KING! We remember that scene from long ago, that original "Palm Sunday" as Jerusalem welcomed her King. Yes, He is the Descendant of David Who faithfully rules as David never could. May our Lord Jesus rule in our hearts today.Romans 1:4 gives the explanation of what Palm Sunday was all about.

Christ is KING- We remember that scene from long ago, that original -Palm Sunday- as Jerusalem welcomed her King. Yes, He is the Descendant of David Who faithfully rules as David never could. May our Lord Jesus rule in our hearts today.Romans 1-4 gives the explanation of what Palm Sunday was all about.

Welcome to episode 58 of our podcast all about woodworking, making things and having fun. This week Andy Mr Electrolux has released Andy but it seems they infected him with a nasty virus so he's not well this week Pierre & Steve have both been globetrotting, Pierre the rockstar has been driven round Belgium in his own limousine. While Steve has been driving on the wrongs side of the road in Sweden. Pierre reveals Festools new top secret tool Shush don't tell anyone !! And the Big question on everyone lips is Did Steve and Pierre meet up????? Our Obsessions this Week Steves Has been obsessed with a YouTube channel called Dainer Made. Mark has loads of great videos where he uses Pallet wood and recycled timber to make some great things. Steve loved his video How I started and made money using Pallet wood. Mark can also be found on instagram @dainermade So go watch his videos and check out his instagram Pierre Is obsessed with a Guy he met in Belgium called David Who makes Rainbow plywood now we all like the sound of that. David has a YouTube channel called Atelier Qube and David can also be found on instagram @atelier_qube go take a look The Three Northern Makers Are Andy @potato_woodworks on instagram and Potato Woodworks on YouTube Andy who is Swiss now lives near Stockholm in Sweden Steve @stevebellcreates on instagram and YouTube at Steve Bell Creates Steve lives in North Yorkshire in the UK Pierre @theswedishmaker on Instagram and The Swedish Maker on YouTube Pierre lives near Gothenburg in Sweden We can be found on instagram @threeNorthernMakers so check us out We also have our own woodworking/makers community on Discord.com We will be releasing a new episode every Sunday morning so please subscribe like and leave a review to hear our humble ramblings about making things and all that life throws at us If you have any questions or comments please email the show at threenorthernmakers@gmail.com

David Who is an artist, Danny Shyman is a producer and together they are bringing back the essence of rock and roll. Living the life and committing to the music, they are finding huge success with their sound and message.This is their experiment Support them on Instagram @davidwhoareyou_ & @dannyshyman

About this series: Obviously we are always focussed on Jesus, but in our first series - Just Jesus - we're going to look, over 13 weeks, at some of the high points in the New Testament that show us who Jesus is, why he's so wonderful, what he's done for us and what it means to live in the light of all that. Sinclair Ferguson wrote, ‘We need to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing and extolling Jesus Christ' - that is precisely our aim in the Just Jesus series. The more we see of Jesus, the more we'll have to be delighted in and the greater will be our motivation to live for him in our everyday lives.So, come with great expectation that the Holy Spirit will be powerfully at work leading us to know and love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. About this talk: In this passage in Romans 1 Paul tells us the following things about the gospel (Gk. ευαγγελιον, euangelion), an announcement of good news): - It is the gospel of God - It was promised in the Old Testament - It is about his Son, Jesus Christ - Who was a descendant of David - Who, in the power of the Spirit, was raised to life and thereby declared as God's chosen Son for all to see - It was through him that Paul received grace and apostleship for his mission to the Gentiles - His mission was to call the Gentiles to faith that leads to obedience for the sake of Jesus' name - The gospel calls us to belong to Jesus and to be God's holy people - Such people are given grace and peace from God The gospel is essentially the announcement about what God has done for us in / through Jesus Christ. And it is not simply the way into the Christian life; it is the focal point for living the Christian life. Tim Keller says, ‘We never “get beyond the gospel” in our Christian life to something more “advanced.” The gospel is not the first “step” in a “stairway” of truths, rather, it is more like the “hub” in a “wheel” of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C's of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we all make progress in the kingdom. We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier.' It is in Jesus that we know we are loved by God and called to belong to him (v 6-7a) and through him that we receive “grace and peace” (v 7b). We look further into the questions: - In what ways do we tend to drift away from a reliance on the gospel? Eg. legalism, licence, pride, despair. - The gospel in contrast to ‘moralistic therapeutic deism' (you may have to search for that, but it's helpful). - How, practically, can people ensure that the gospel remains their A to Z?

Who wins this week – Melbourne or Brisbane?Mid-season stock take: Brownlow tip, premier and surprise All-AustraliansWhat had you forgotten about no crowds at the footy?Rising Star announcementWho's leading the NAB AFL Rising Star?How long until Adelaide is a genuine finals threat again?Why don't clubs take their maximum picks in the NAB AFL Mid-Season Rookie Draft?Thins that should happenRe-rank your top five of the new 'Super Draft'? What song will Bevo play the boys this week?Hang On a SecondListener question from David – Who, in your opinion, is the best player to NEVER be an All Australian?FeedbackGet involved Instagram & Twitter @AFLExchange

Leaders are readers and readers are leaders. It is time for this month's “Dave's Book Club” where I share interviews, lessons, and analysis from personal development and leadership authors.  Today, I am interviewing my long-time friend, mentor, and now first-time author, Tom Hammel. His book, "The Life You are Meant to Lead" is available for order on Amazon.  I talk with Tom about overcoming a rough upbringing, the process of transforming Tom's life, and how he learned to lead others along the path of self leadership. Show Notes: David: People only see you where you are now and have no idea how far you came. Tell the listener who you are. Tom: I grew up in the central valley of northern California in the town of Stockton. For the most part, it had the highest murder rate per capita in all of California. I grew up independent and had to make ends meet. I had to learn how to talk to people, manipulate and survive.  I started doing drugs in elementary school, got really into partying all through junior high school, dealing and selling drugs. Around the age of 14, I had a direct encounter with Jesus and it changed the direction of my life. It didn't change my past, I brought all that knowledge of who I was. While my life took a transformation, my knowledge and experience stayed with me and when I started to minister to other people, I brought that knowledge of pain, disappointment and fear to the table and made it really relatable to people. David: There may be someone listening who had a difficult past. Can you talk about what it took to lead that life that you saw God had for you? Tom: It takes some self discipline, and it's hard. It's a mindset shift of saying “I'm not going to be ruled or controlled by my past and the people around me.” It meant a mindset shift of seeing the world differently and taking the courageous step of pursuing a different identity. It takes reading books, changing the people you are around, changing what you put into my mind. David: Who inspired you and continues to inspire you?  Tom: I've been hungry to develop as a person so there's a long list. It's like climbing a mountain. My spiritual transformation was a 1-moment awakening, this journey of transforming has been progressive where new possibilities arise and new influences come into my life. There's so many voices in my life, I've been diligent to always have a mentor. My epiphany moment came one Sunday when I put on the Golf Channel. As Tiger Woods was hitting the ball, the commentators mentioned his swing coach and I realized the No. 1 golfer in the world wasn't in competition with everyone else, he was in competition with himself and his development. I realized I'm not the top in any area of my life and needed coaches. David: You're 20 years into this journey and you feel like you need to share what you're doing. Walk us through the vision and implementation of your vision. Tom: I was leading a large convention and I'm challenging people to change their lives and as I was walking the stage, I noticed a guy I didn't recognize anymore — it was me. I had allowed so many things in my life to get out of whack, I was so busy in the grind I wasn't taking care of myself. I felt like a hypocrite because I was failing to lead my own self. I started with my health, I lost 80 lbs., and in the process of leading myself, I realized there's not a lot of self-leadership. I realized we've got to do some things to awaken the possibility and set others on a journey to lead themselves. David: I have seen so many people using the pandemic as an excuse to not do things, so self leadership is needed now more than ever. So, let's talk about resources that are available in the form of books and their value. Tom: I love books. I try to mix it up a lot as far as what and who I'm reading. My current all-time favorite book is “The Atomic Habit” by James Clear. It's simple to understand and profound that these daily habits in my life determine my destiny. We're about to embark on Season 4 and that is tied to another project you're going to launch. Can you give us a hint about Season 4? Tom: I wrote a book, “The Life You're Meant to Lead” and it will come out in the fourth quarter of 2020. The book is about unpacking areas where we take the steps to lead ourselves and take responsibility and being intentional. Season 4 is about unpacking those things I didn't have enough room to unpack in the book. The podcast is going to be about the application of that book, seeing it come alive.

Parenting is tough enough without all the chaos in our culture right now. There is hope to still effectively lead our children and direct their hearts towards Gods truth and wisdom. The guys talk about how to lead your kids effectivley to walk with wisdom according to Gods word and be who God created them to be in this current climate. Episode notes: How to lead your kids while buildings burn They were created for such a time as this Teach them about biblical courage - Examples of scripture - Joshua, Moses, Daniel, David - Who were they? What kind of family did they come from? - What trial did they face? - How did they conquer the trial they faced? 2. Teach them they are salt and light - We will always come in contact with an eternal being John 3:14-18, Revelation 21:8 3. Teach them to be bold - They are the ones who will share hope with the world 1 Timothy 4:12, Daniel 6:10 For questions or comments email us at info@knownlegacy.org

Parenting is tough enough without all the chaos in our culture right now. There is hope to still effectively lead our children and direct their hearts towards Gods truth and wisdom. The guys talk about how to lead your kids effectivley to walk with wisdom according to Gods word and be who God created them to be in this current climate. Episode notes: How to lead your kids while buildings burn They were created for such a time as this Teach them about biblical courage - Examples of scripture - Joshua, Moses, Daniel, David - Who were they? What kind of family did they come from? - What trial did they face? - How did they conquer the trial they faced? 2. Teach them they are salt and light - We will always come in contact with an eternal being John 3:14-18, Revelation 21:8 3. Teach them to be bold - They are the ones who will share hope with the world 1 Timothy 4:12, Daniel 6:10 For questions or comments email us at info@knownlegacy.org

Psalms and Wisdom: Psalm 34 Psalm 34 (Listen) Taste and See That the Lord Is Good 1 Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away. 34   I will bless the LORD at all times;    his praise shall continually be in my mouth.2   My soul makes its boast in the LORD;    let the humble hear and be glad.3   Oh, magnify the LORD with me,    and let us exalt his name together! 4   I sought the LORD, and he answered me    and delivered me from all my fears.5   Those who look to him are radiant,    and their faces shall never be ashamed.6   This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him    and saved him out of all his troubles.7   The angel of the LORD encamps    around those who fear him, and delivers them. 8   Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!9   Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints,    for those who fear him have no lack!10   The young lions suffer want and hunger;    but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. 11   Come, O children, listen to me;    I will teach you the fear of the LORD.12   What man is there who desires life    and loves many days, that he may see good?13   Keep your tongue from evil    and your lips from speaking deceit.14   Turn away from evil and do good;    seek peace and pursue it. 15   The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous    and his ears toward their cry.16   The face of the LORD is against those who do evil,    to cut off the memory of them from the earth.17   When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears    and delivers them out of all their troubles.18   The LORD is near to the brokenhearted    and saves the crushed in spirit. 19   Many are the afflictions of the righteous,    but the LORD delivers him out of them all.20   He keeps all his bones;    not one of them is broken.21   Affliction will slay the wicked,    and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.22   The LORD redeems the life of his servants;    none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Footnotes [1] 34:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet (ESV) Pentateuch and History: 1 Samuel 25 1 Samuel 25 (Listen) The Death of Samuel 25 Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. David and Abigail Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’” 9 When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10 And Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David’s young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage. 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.” 18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs1 of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David2 and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.” 23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal3 is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, because the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince4 over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.” 32 And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34 For as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” 35 Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.” 36 And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And about ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died. 39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The LORD has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40 When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” 41 And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” 42 And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife. 43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim. Footnotes [1] 25:18 A seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters [2] 25:22 Septuagint to David [3] 25:25 Nabal means fool [4] 25:30 Or leader (ESV) Chronicles and Prophets: Daniel 6 Daniel 6 (Listen) Daniel and the Lions’ Den 6 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. 3 Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. 4 Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him. 5 Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.” 6 Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement1 to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever! 7 All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 9 Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction. 10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. 11 Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God. 12 Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the injunction, “O king! Did you not sign an injunction, that anyone who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 13 Then they answered and said before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.” 14 Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. 15 Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.” 16 Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared2 to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” 17 And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. 18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him. 19 Then, at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. 20 As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish. The king declared to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” 21 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! 22 My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.” 23 Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. 24 And the king commanded, and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. And before they reached the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces. 25 Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you. 26 I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel,   for he is the living God,    enduring forever;  his kingdom shall never be destroyed,    and his dominion shall be to the end.27   He delivers and rescues;    he works signs and wonders    in heaven and on earth,  he who has saved Daniel    from the power of the lions.” 28 So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Footnotes [1] 6:6 Or came thronging; also verses 11, 15 [2] 6:16 Aramaic answered and said; also verse 20 (ESV) Gospels and Epistles: Luke 3:23–4:13 Luke 3:23–4:13 (Listen) The Genealogy of Jesus Christ 23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,1 the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. The Temptation of Jesus 4 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,   “‘You shall worship the Lord your God,    and him only shall you serve.’” 9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,   “‘He will command his angels concerning you,    to guard you,’ 11 and   “‘On their hands they will bear you up,    lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” 12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Footnotes [1] 3:27 Greek Salathiel (ESV)

With family: 1 Samuel 25; 1 Corinthians 6 1 Samuel 25 (Listen) The Death of Samuel 25 Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. David and Abigail Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’” 9 When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10 And Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David’s young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage. 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.” 18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs1 of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David2 and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.” 23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal3 is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, because the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince4 over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.” 32 And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34 For as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” 35 Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.” 36 And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And about ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died. 39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The LORD has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40 When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” 41 And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” 42 And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife. 43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim. Footnotes [1] 25:18 A seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters [2] 25:22 Septuagint to David [3] 25:25 Nabal means fool [4] 25:30 Or leader (ESV) 1 Corinthians 6 (Listen) Lawsuits Against Believers 6 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!1 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous2 will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,3 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Flee Sexual Immorality 12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined4 to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin5 a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Footnotes [1] 6:8 Or brothers and sisters [2] 6:9 Or wrongdoers [3] 6:9 The two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts [4] 6:16 Or who holds fast (compare Genesis 2:24 and Deuteronomy 10:20); also verse 17 [5] 6:18 Or Every sin (ESV) In private: Psalms 40–41; Ezekiel 4 Psalms 40–41 (Listen) My Help and My Deliverer To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. 40   I waited patiently for the LORD;    he inclined to me and heard my cry.2   He drew me up from the pit of destruction,    out of the miry bog,  and set my feet upon a rock,    making my steps secure.3   He put a new song in my mouth,    a song of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear,    and put their trust in the LORD. 4   Blessed is the man who makes    the LORD his trust,  who does not turn to the proud,    to those who go astray after a lie!5   You have multiplied, O LORD my God,    your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;    none can compare with you!  I will proclaim and tell of them,    yet they are more than can be told. 6   In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,    but you have given me an open ear.1  Burnt offering and sin offering    you have not required.7   Then I said, “Behold, I have come;    in the scroll of the book it is written of me:8   I delight to do your will, O my God;    your law is within my heart.” 9   I have told the glad news of deliverance2    in the great congregation;  behold, I have not restrained my lips,    as you know, O LORD.10   I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;    I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;  I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness    from the great congregation. 11   As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain    your mercy from me;  your steadfast love and your faithfulness will    ever preserve me!12   For evils have encompassed me    beyond number;  my iniquities have overtaken me,    and I cannot see;  they are more than the hairs of my head;    my heart fails me. 13   Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me!    O LORD, make haste to help me!14   Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether    who seek to snatch away my life;  let those be turned back and brought to dishonor    who delight in my hurt!15   Let those be appalled because of their shame    who say to me, “Aha, Aha!” 16   But may all who seek you    rejoice and be glad in you;  may those who love your salvation    say continually, “Great is the LORD!”17   As for me, I am poor and needy,    but the Lord takes thought for me.  You are my help and my deliverer;    do not delay, O my God! O Lord, Be Gracious to Me To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. 41   Blessed is the one who considers the poor!3    In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him;2   the LORD protects him and keeps him alive;    he is called blessed in the land;    you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.3   The LORD sustains him on his sickbed;    in his illness you restore him to full health.4 4   As for me, I said, “O LORD, be gracious to me;    heal me,5 for I have sinned against you!”5   My enemies say of me in malice,    “When will he die, and his name perish?”6   And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words,    while his heart gathers iniquity;    when he goes out, he tells it abroad.7   All who hate me whisper together about me;    they imagine the worst for me.6 8   They say, “A deadly thing is poured out7 on him;    he will not rise again from where he lies.”9   Even my close friend in whom I trusted,    who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.10   But you, O LORD, be gracious to me,    and raise me up, that I may repay them! 11   By this I know that you delight in me:    my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.12   But you have upheld me because of my integrity,    and set me in your presence forever. 13   Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,    from everlasting to everlasting!      Amen and Amen. Footnotes [1] 40:6 Hebrew ears you have dug for me [2] 40:9 Hebrew righteousness; also verse 10 [3] 41:1 Or weak [4] 41:3 Hebrew you turn all his bed [5] 41:4 Hebrew my soul [6] 41:7 Or they devise evil against me [7] 41:8 Or has fastened (ESV) Ezekiel 4 (Listen) The Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized 4 “And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem. 2 And put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it. Set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. 3 And you, take an iron griddle, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel. 4 “Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment1 of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. 5 For I assign to you a number of days, 390 days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment. So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. 6 And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah. Forty days I assign you, a day for each year. 7 And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city. 8 And behold, I will place cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege. 9 “And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer,2 and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it. 10 And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels3 a day; from day to day4 you shall eat it. 11 And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin;5 from day to day you shall drink. 12 And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” 13 And the LORD said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.” 14 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I have never defiled myself.6 From my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth.” 15 Then he said to me, “See, I assign to you cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” 16 Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the supply7 of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. 17 I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment. Footnotes [1] 4:4 Or iniquity; also verses 5, 6, 17 [2] 4:9 A type of wheat [3] 4:10 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams [4] 4:10 Or at a set time daily; also verse 11 [5] 4:11 A hin was about 4 quarts or 3.5 liters [6] 4:14 Hebrew my soul (or throat) has never been made unclean [7] 4:16 Hebrew staff (ESV)

On this episode, we discuss the collect and propers for the Third Sunday after Trinity. On this day, we focus in on divine mercy, humility, pride, and spiritual warfare. We are the sheep of Christ’s pasture, and He is the Good Shepherd, the Son of David Who interposes Himself between us and the ravening lion. May we not fail to ... Read More

Episode 11, Introduction: "David WHO, Exactly? And How Do You Pronounce That Name?" by Spoken Word with Electronics

Old Testament: 1 Samuel 24–25 1 Samuel 24–25 (Listen) David Spares Saul's Life 24 When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.” 2 Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Wildgoats' Rocks. 3 And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself.1 Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave. 4 And the men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe. 5 And afterward David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe. 6 He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed.” 7 So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way. 8 Afterward David also arose and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage. 9 And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David seeks your harm’? 10 Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the LORD gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you.2 I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD's anointed.’ 11 See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it. 12 May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you. 13 As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’ But my hand shall not be against you. 14 After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea! 15 May the LORD therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.” 16 As soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. 17 He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil. 18 And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, in that you did not kill me when the LORD put me into your hands. 19 For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe? So may the LORD reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. 20 And now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. 21 Swear to me therefore by the LORD that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father's house.” 22 And David swore this to Saul. Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold. The Death of Samuel 25 Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. David and Abigail Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’” 9 When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10 And Nabal answered David's servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage. 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.” 18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs3 of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David4 and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.” 23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal5 is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, because the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince6 over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.” 32 And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34 For as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” 35 Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.” 36 And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And about ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died. 39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The LORD has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40 When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” 41 And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” 42 And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife. 43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim. Footnotes [1] 24:3 Hebrew cover his feet [2] 24:10 Septuagint, Syriac, Targum; Hebrew it [my eye] spared you [3] 25:18 A seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters [4] 25:22 Septuagint to David [5] 25:25 Nabal means fool [6] 25:30 Or leader (ESV) New Testament: Acts 11:19–30 Acts 11:19–30 (Listen) The Church in Antioch 19 Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. 20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists1 also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, 24 for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. 25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. 27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers2 living in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. Footnotes [1] 11:20 Or Greeks (that is, Greek-speaking non-Jews) [2] 11:29 Or brothers and sisters (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 119:81–88 Psalm 119:81–88 (Listen) Kaph 81   My soul longs for your salvation;    I hope in your word.82   My eyes long for your promise;    I ask, “When will you comfort me?”83   For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,    yet I have not forgotten your statutes.84   How long must your servant endure?1    When will you judge those who persecute me?85   The insolent have dug pitfalls for me;    they do not live according to your law.86   All your commandments are sure;    they persecute me with falsehood; help me!87   They have almost made an end of me on earth,    but I have not forsaken your precepts.88   In your steadfast love give me life,    that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth. Footnotes [1] 119:84 Hebrew How many are the days of your servant? (ESV) Proverb: Proverbs 16:8 Proverbs 16:8 (Listen) 8   Better is a little with righteousness    than great revenues with injustice. (ESV)

Old Testament: 1 Samuel 24–25 1 Samuel 24–25 (Listen) David Spares Saul's Life 24 When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.” 2 Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Wildgoats' Rocks. 3 And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself.1 Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave. 4 And the men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe. 5 And afterward David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe. 6 He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed.” 7 So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way. 8 Afterward David also arose and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage. 9 And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David seeks your harm’? 10 Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the LORD gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you.2 I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD's anointed.’ 11 See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it. 12 May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you. 13 As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’ But my hand shall not be against you. 14 After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea! 15 May the LORD therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.” 16 As soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. 17 He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil. 18 And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, in that you did not kill me when the LORD put me into your hands. 19 For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe? So may the LORD reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. 20 And now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. 21 Swear to me therefore by the LORD that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father's house.” 22 And David swore this to Saul. Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold. The Death of Samuel 25 Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. David and Abigail Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’” 9 When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10 And Nabal answered David's servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage. 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.” 18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs3 of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David4 and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.” 23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal5 is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, because the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince6 over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.” 32 And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34 For as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” 35 Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.” 36 And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And about ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died. 39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The LORD has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40 When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” 41 And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” 42 And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife. 43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim. Footnotes [1] 24:3 Hebrew cover his feet [2] 24:10 Septuagint, Syriac, Targum; Hebrew it [my eye] spared you [3] 25:18 A seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters [4] 25:22 Septuagint to David [5] 25:25 Nabal means fool [6] 25:30 Or leader (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 119:81–88 Psalm 119:81–88 (Listen) Kaph 81   My soul longs for your salvation;    I hope in your word.82   My eyes long for your promise;    I ask, “When will you comfort me?”83   For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,    yet I have not forgotten your statutes.84   How long must your servant endure?1    When will you judge those who persecute me?85   The insolent have dug pitfalls for me;    they do not live according to your law.86   All your commandments are sure;    they persecute me with falsehood; help me!87   They have almost made an end of me on earth,    but I have not forsaken your precepts.88   In your steadfast love give me life,    that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth. Footnotes [1] 119:84 Hebrew How many are the days of your servant? (ESV) New Testament: Galatians 5–6 Galatians 5–6 (Listen) Christ Has Set Us Free 5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified1 by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers,2 still preach3 circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves! 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Keep in Step with the Spirit 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,4 drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do5 such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Bear One Another's Burdens 6 Brothers,6 if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load. 6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Final Warning and Benediction 11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which7 the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. 17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. 18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. Footnotes [1] 5:4 Or counted righteous [2] 5:11 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 13 [3] 5:11 Greek proclaim [4] 5:21 Some manuscripts add murder [5] 5:21 Or make a practice of doing [6] 6:1 Or Brothers and sisters; also verse 18 [7] 6:14 Or through whom (ESV)

Maybe you're like me and you're matching energy all 2020.We've all seen the quotes floating around warning people of how they should "keep that same energy" when the tables turn or of how we're "matching energy", giving them only what they give us. And I have to admit that adapting that frame of mind is tempting. A lot of us can relate because no one wants to be played, played with or taken advantage of.In this episode I tell a story of when I was heavily into matching other people's energy and how I am stopping myself from going down that same path these days. The truth is ultimately it did more harm than good for me.Listen in to hear why and how. You know who this reminded me of? Abigail. When David was on the run from King Saul, he and his men were in the neighborhood of this rich guy Nabal. It was a time of celebration, Nabal had plenty and David sent word asking Nabal to share some of his resources. He was basically calling in a favor since he and his men had protected Nabal's sheep and shepherds a while back. Well Nabal was mean and surly, disrespectful and ungrateful. He asked “who is this David? Who does he think he is?”, along with some other insults. Like, he went in on David. In front of David’s boys. He had no intention of helping David and didn’t care about what happened in the past. This was now. The messengers came back and told David what Nabal had said . “Get your swords” was his reply as he strapped on his own. David was about that life. He was about that matching energy life. He squadded up 400 men and they were going to see Nabal. When she learned about what was about to go down, Abigail, Nabal's wife, acted wisely and quickly and ultimately saved Her husband and his household from David's wrath. She made peace and basically convinced David to match her energy.You can read all about this story in ‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭25:20-35‬ ‭(NLT)‬‬.If you’re like me, you still struggle with not matching the negative energy of others, with not making them feel like they don’t matter to you, or like they can’t hurt you, or worse like their dead to you. But we must fight that urge. We’re leveling up to look more like Christ, after all, not dumbing ourselves down and dimming our lights to look more like the world. Instead let’s be our own Abigails, shining light of love, peace and good sense into our darkened, hardened hearts and those of our enemies so that they might wake up and match our energy as we match Christ’s. Let's match God's energy all 2020 (and beyond).On a related note:If you want a jumpstart on setting boundaries, this book is a crowd favorite.We might be more alike then you think...Grab my new book to see what I mean *wink wink*: Secret Donuts: a Journey to Getting Over Your Weight, Aligned with God and into Your PurposeConnect with Alicia on Instagram and let her know what you're thoughts on this episode. Thanks for listening!

David - What is your name and what do you do at KijabeLilian - I’m Lilian and I’m an Ob-Gyn in Kijabe, for the last four years, but been here a lot longer.David - When did you start?Lilian - 2007, internship for two months, elective term, 2009 internship for one year. I left for 8 months and came back in October 2010. Then residency, and I came back fully in 2015.David - Who is your husband and when did you meet?Lilian - He’s George (Otieno) – we met in undergraduate in our third year of medicine and surgery. When we came to Kijabe from the first time we were already dating.David - Lilian is head of Ob-Gyn at Kijabe, here you say obs/gyn, is that right? George was head of internal medicine, but now he’s promoted right? He’s inpatient subdivision head. Both do so much for the hospital, they’re amazing.What we’ve been talking about lately, and working on, are some of your needs for the OB department. Some we’ve gotten sorted and some are in process. Two years ago, we were having a big problem with the delivery room. And now that’s done.Lilian – Thank God. Now we can walk in and smile and not be embarrassed. That used to be my nightmare. For example, patients come, they don’t know where the delivery room is, and they walk into this ugly room. That used to be a very big problem for me, it was nothing for a woman delivering her first child. I’m happy.David – And now it’s really nice.Lilian – Thank you for spearheading that process for renovation.David – It’s night and day different. I think there is a process we are going through, not just in Kijabe, but in Kenya, where the bare minimum is not acceptable anymore.Lilian – No it’s not. We have to give the best to our women. . .and to any patient who walks into any hospital. I think we have gotten used to the poverty mentality to the point that we are not willing to go the extra mile to make things better, as opposed to just living today.David – We were just talking with a doctor who wanted to come visit a clinic doing more open surgeries than laparoscopy. Which is reality for a lot of places. But here in Kijabe, I feel like we have the option to do things with excellence. That’s why you’re here!Lilian – That’s why we are here. To make a difference, and to live our purpose too, which is to do everything with excellence.David – What we’ve been talking about is how as Friends of Kijabe, we can help with the Obs/gyn department – what is feasible to do, and in some ways, what is the Christian thing to do.Why don’t you tell me about the patients or populations/demographics that have been the most stressful, and that we agree these might be able to most easily address their needs?Lilian – Among the patient populations we’ve been concerned or have special interest about have been cancer patients who come and need urgent care, yet they’re not able to pay for the services offered. These are patients who are coming and don’t have National Insurance Cover. National cover requires three months to mature, even if someone was to apply as soon as the diagnosis is made, but that is too long to wait.David – Because with cancer, usually they’ve waited too long anyway right?Lilian – Yeah, so by the time they are coming, we need to make radical decisions at that point. As much as it may be a small population, we feel like the care they deserve should be accorded to them, regardless of their financial status. That’s why we feel they need support.David – So for gynecology-oncology patients, do they require surgery and chemotherapy or sometimes just surgery?Lilian – It depends on the type of cancer and the stage or the spread. Early cervical cancer patients might require only surgery and that is it, unless they have evidence of spread, like in the lymph nodes in which case they need chemo-radiation. In case of radiation-therapy they have to be referred out of Kijabe.David – Chemo, you can usually do here now?Lilian – Ovarian cancer, most of those cases will go through surgery, then eventually will require chemotherapy after, which can be given to them in Kijabe.Some cases are strict referrals, for example, advanced cases, which are not operable. We will refer for the combined chemotherapy/radiation therapy. The few we are able to handle here require chemotherapy and surgery.David – This is becoming a big issue in Kenya, it’s all over the news.Lilian – It’s all over the news. I think, partly because of improved diagnostics. There is more advocacy for screening and early detection. There are over 3,000 deaths from cervical cancer every year.Our joy has been able to sort patients at an affordable cost compared to what they would have to pay in Nairobi.In 2016, we had 11 cancer surgeries for gyne. In 2017, we rose to 31, in 2018, we had 41. We hope this year we can have an even higher number that are detected early to get surgical management. There is more awareness and people are coming through referrals and we are doing aggressive screening for cervical cancer.David – I don’t know if it would directly relate to your patient population in Kijabe, but life expectancy in Kenya has grown 1 year every year for the last 15 years. Fifteen years ago, life expectancy was 48 and now its 63.Lilian – Yes, it’s 63 now.  It’s an improvement. As much as we know many are still dying, I really think there is something positive happening as far as improving primary health care and advocacy for many things, with health being a big agenda for the president. We are seeing a lot happening even in the country places. We appreciate that they are doing something.David – That’s gynecology/oncology, what’s your other patient demographic that you personally stress over? This isn’t something out there, it’s something very close to your heart.Lilian – For gyne-onc, I’ve also lost family through cancer and I think there is so much we can do in terms of primary prevention and early detection, which is not really emphasized so much. I think for Kijabe that’s one area we could do well in.A second type of population we see are young pregnant women who need emergency care and they can’t access to the point of saying “don’t admit me.” We know that whatever happens on the other side, the care they will get is substandard.For example, a patient who comes with preeclampsia in the 7th month of pregnancy, the baby requires newborn ICU admission and the mom require HDU or ICU care, clearly you can’t refer those patients because of finances.There are teenage girls with unplanned pregnancies coming with no insurance cover, who require emergency, comprehensive obstetric care. That population is at very high risk for mortality and morbidity for both mothers and babies. They may be few, but those few deserve to live.David – you’re concerned specifically about abortion or if the baby does come, what happens to the baby afterwards.Lilian – We’ve had different encounters with primary school, high school girls coming and wanting a termination, and we’ve said no. But even if we say no, we are supposed to be giving them solutions, alternatives. Who is going to help with the clinics? They are already high-risk by virtue of age, by virtue of them wanting to terminate. Who takes care of the clinic bills, who takes care of the delivery, who takes care of the child afterward in postpartum clinic reviews? If baby requires specialized care, what happens? These are young girls who are prone to depression, psychosis, suicide, and I feel like they deserve better because that’s a point of ministering to them. I think those few hours we spend with them are enough to actually change their lives, not just because of their condition, but even in terms of eternity.These high-risk patients that come to us and they don’t have better options, I think they deserve more. Especially those who come with unplanned or what you call crisis pregnancy.David – There is precious-few resources for things like that.Lilian – One, young people are condemned by society for making wrong choices. Two, there are no options given to them. If they are given, they are poor options, like terminations, which means going to the backstreets to terminate. It is cheaper of course and it won’t be known. That has resulted in high mortality for girls.Among the top 5 [maternal] killers in our country, we still have abortion. Beyond hemorrhage and hypertension, have abortion topping because of girls going to the back streets for termination of pregnancies.As we take care of them and do abstinence and user protection, when all those steps have been bypassed, we need solutions for these girls.David – I’ve seen Kijabe babies be placed in homes.Lilian – There are many options, it’s just I think we don’t take that time that has to be spent walking with such, there is the financial aspect that must be considered from way before, during pregnancy, delivery and thereafter. We have a few rescue homes that do a job for these girls, but not all go to the rescue homes. So, can we be a sort of rescue home in terms of the medical care that we’re giving.David – And we can make sure that they are not making bad decision for lack of finance. A delivery in Kijabe is $250 or $300.Lilian – That could be all it takes for them to actually see there is hope.David – Who is the one you were telling me about that came with the grandmother.Lilian – At least a happy one. This was a sixteen year-old, who got pregnant while in form 2.  For you guys, that would be 10th grade. Every time she would come for a clinic, she would be accompanied by the grandmom who would pay the bills for the clinic. And the grandmother would make sure she was okay.This was a grandmother who lost her daughter, and her daughter left her with a grandchild who became pregnant. She was taking care of the great grand-child after the delivery.I think what really made my heart feel warm was the love, and the fact that she was there to support her and tell her, I’m here, I will pay your bills, and I’ll take care of my great grandchild, and you’ll go back to school after the first few months.That love shown to this young girl who may have opted for termination if there was no other option.The grandmother was able to afford some coins to walk through the journey. No fancy clothes for the babies, but maybe, some coins to buy a packet of chips, to say, “I’m here for you.”David – One other one that was very special for several of us and for me personally, the first time I walked through this process, was a teenager who came in with a pregnancy, I think it was twins and they lost the first twin. I think it was 30 or 32 weeks. I heard about it from Dr. Mary Adam, “Hey, there’s this little baby and the mom has gone, she has abandoned.” All the nurses and the doctors at the hospital, said, “this is our baby.” That was the first person we ever crowdfunded for individually. The way it happened was amazing. I walked through the NICU one day with a camera. She raised her hands up to me. "You want this picture don’t you? You want people to take care of you!" In that picture she was wearing a diaper that came up to her neck, and now when you see her, she is two years old, she is round and chubby.For what it takes to do the right thing, in my mind, it’s such a tiny amount of money, to take care of the mother and the baby.We do have some general funding coming in toward this. We hope that can increase over time, as some of our obgyn’s become involved. Also, any of you guys who might be listening to this, anyone who gives to the Friends Fund, a portion of that goes to vulnerable patients. Basically we want to say yes when someone needs something. That’s the goal.Anything you would like to add?Lilian – Just requesting humbly for support wherever it comes from. Of course we are very grateful for those who have had Kijabe in their minds, and for whichever way they support, whether by been human resource, whether it’s financial, whether it’s prayers, whether it’s encouragement.David - AbsolutelyThe Estimated Incidence of Induced Abortion in Kenya: A cross-sectional study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4546129/

Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled vand mourned for him, and they buried him win his house at xRamah.David and AbigailThen David rose and went down to ythe wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in zMaon whose business was in aCarmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. bHe was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; che was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal bwas shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: d‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, eand they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come fon a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”9 When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10 And Nabal answered David's servants, g“Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? hThere are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take imy bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to jmen who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And kabout four hundred men went up after David, kwhile two hundred lremained with the baggage.14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, nand we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were oa wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, pfor harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such qa worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs1 of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, rso that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has sreturned me evil for good. 22 tGod do so to the enemies of David2 and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried uand got down from the donkey vand fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, w“On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard qthis worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal3 is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.

FULL EPISODE EPISODE SUMMARY Conversation with Dr. Mardi Steere about Mission, Leadership, Emergency Medicine and Ebenezer Moments from her 8+ years at Kijabe Hospital. EPISODE NOTES David - So today, I'm talking with Mardi Steere. This is a conversation that I don't want to have. It's about leaving about memories, and about Kijabe.And I don't want to have it because I don't want you guys ever to leave. That is the hardest part of life in Kijabe. But amazing people come and amazing people go and you're gonna do amazing things and stay in touch. First, why don't you give the introduction you gave at the medical team the other day. Mardi - So this is bittersweet for me as well. We came to Kijabe in 2011 and planned to stay for two years and here we are eight and a half years later, taking our leave. And in some ways, it's inevitable. You can't stay in a place forever. It's been a real opportunity for me to reflect. David - Let me pause you real quick there. So when you first came, who is we? And then what did you come to do? Mardi - In 2011, I was a young pediatric emergency physician with an engineering husband looking for a place where we felt like God had said "To whom much is given, much is required," and we knew our next step was to go in somewhere with the gifts and the passions and the exposure and education that we've been given. And so I came as a Pediatrician, and the hospital hadn't had a long-term pediatrician in quite a while. Jennifer Myhre had just joined the team in 2010 and my husband Andy is a civil engineer and project manager, and now, theological educator as well.We moved here with our then two-year-old and four-year-old to do whatever seemed to be next. David - That's amazing. So give the theological introduction to the Ebenezer. Mardi - It comes from first Samuel Chapter 7 verse 7-12, where there's a battle between the Philistines and the Israelites and Samuel lays a stone to God for being faithful and to remember what God has done. When Andy and I got married in 1998, actually, it was a scripture that was read at our wedding. And we were encouraged when these Ebenezer moments come, take stock of them, step back, and acknowledge what God has done . Those moments will be key moments in your marriage. As I was talking to the medical division the other day, I felt like it was just another reminder that, as we have our professional lives and we work in a place like Kijabe and we serve, it's really easy to get caught up day-to-day in the daily struggles that we all have - with life and death and bureaucracy and not enough money and not enough equipment and team dynamics and conflict. But there are these moments when we take a step back and we see what God has done. This hospital has been around for 100 years, and I've only been here for a little over eight of them, but there are so many moments where I look back on where we've come from - and the journey that we've been on - and I see these landmark moments of God intervening. David - How do you see the balance here between medical excellence and spiritual - I don't know if excellence is the right word - between medical excellence and spiritual excellence. I think the origins of medicine were very intertwined with the spiritual, but at least in Western medicine, it's very divorced and I feel like in some ways, what I see happening here is not taught in classrooms anywhere else. Mardi - This is one of those things that I am going to be taking with me for the rest of my life. I don't know who's listening to this, but Americans have a cultural Christianity where it's acceptable in medicine, I think, to ask medical questions and maybe you ask a spiritual question and saying God bless you and bless her heart, and praying for people is somewhat accepted but still it's a parallel track to medicine. In Australia, it's completely divorced. There's almost a cultural fear of discussing the spiritual in Australia, a very agnostic country. So to be a Christian in Australia, you have to make a choice. But then when you go to medical school, it's taught to you almost don't bring that in. This is a science, and one of the things that I love about Kijabe is that they are inextricably intertwined. There isn't a meeting that we start here without prayer. When I'm covering pediatrics, as a clinician, we start with team prayer and depending how busy things are, if you're trying to see 30 patients on rounds, you might pray for the room, as you start. We ask the parents how they're doing, and then we pray for the mom with her permission, and for the baby or the dad or whichever caregiver is there. We ask God to intervene, we ask God to give us wisdom, we ask him to be a part of the science. We ask him to be a part of the conversations. When it comes to the even bigger picture, when it comes to strategically planning the hospital, and our core values again - they're inextricably intertwined, and it's a gift. One thing that I'm gonna take with me as a leader and as a clinician, is that it is not difficult to ask anyone, "What is your world view and what is your spiritual worldview? Because all of us have one in Australia. That world view might be... "I don't believe there's a spiritual realm." That's so important to know. But what if the answer to that question is," I believe in God, but I don't see him doing anything." What an opportunity we miss. What if we have immigrants in our population in our community, and we don't ask them "What is your spiritual and cultural world view? What do you think is happening beneath the surface?" and we don't give someone an opportunity to say without derision, "I think I've been cursed" or "There is a generational problem in my family," and we don't open up the opportunity to intervene in a way that's holistic, much we miss by not intertwining the spiritual and the physical? The fact is every one of our communities has a spiritual world view, and shame on us if we don't explore it with them. David - Amen. It's fascinating here because before coming here, I thought of missions as giving. The longer I'm here, the more I think of it as receiving. When you stop and pray for a family, the encouragement received from those family members is huge. The trust and the love, and you do see people who come in the halls and you ask, "Why are you here?" "Because my doctor will pray for me." Mardi - So what's interesting to me is there are some conversations going on in medicine around the world right now about this "innovative new concept of Compassionomics." And really it's exactly what you're saying, it's not new and it's not innovative. I think that Compassionomics is our fearful way of re-exploring the spiritual. It's taking the time on rounds to say, "How are you doing as a family, how are we doing as a team," and to take the opportunity to draw comfort from each other. It comes from a spiritual foundation, that I think that we've lost, and I think a lot of it comes from burnout and from the way that medicine has become a business and a commodity. We're starting to re-explore through Compassionomics, and I pray through exploring the spiritual, the deeper side of medicine that around the world I think people really miss. David - Right on. Mardi - And if that's not reverse innovation, I don't know what is. David - It's fascinating, this space that Kijabe fills and how we think about it and how we talk about it. I use a phrase - World class healthcare in the developing world - but when I use that, I don't mean that I want Kijabe to be the big hospital in the big city in the West, because there are certain aspects that we don't want to lose. Yes, absolutely, it would be super-cool to be doing robotic surgery, and some of these wild technological things, but really I feel like what Kijabe excels at is not fancy and not glamorous. It fundamentals of medicine. I remember Evelyn Mbugua telling me this one time. I asked her, "What do you think about medicine in general?" "When I have a challenge or when I'm stuck on a patient, I go back to their history." It's fascinating that that's fascinating! Some of the basic fundamentals of medicine are practiced here, just looking at your patient and laying your hands on them and touching them and talking to them. A conversation is both a diagnostic tool and it's actually medicine. If the numbers are true, I know it's different from orthopedic surgery than for outpatient, but, if half of medicine is actually placebo, this stuff is really important to healing. And it's not anti-science. It actually is science to care about people. Mardi - It's interesting when you mentioned the placebo effect. I think that the placebo effect is considered as nothing, but it's not the placebo effect, is actually a real effect. It's that time and conversation and compassion, truly do bring healing and the point of a control trial is to see in a drug-do better than that. But the thing we're doing, already makes sense. It's interesting to me that medicine around the world is getting faster and faster and more and more advanced. Time is money. I think that around the world, we wanna save money in medicine, we wanna do more with what we have, but we're willing to sacrifice time, to make that happen. And why is that the first thing that goes? Burned-out physicians in high income countries, the thing that they love, is when they have to see more and more patients in less and less time because they know what they have to offer is beyond a drug, and beyond a diagnosis and beyond a referral and beyond a surgery. The one of my favorite phrases in medicine that I truly don't understand but want to spend the rest of my life working on it, is a "value-based care." I think to define value you have to define what we're offering. If value is time, then one of the things I think that Kijabe and mission hospitals can continue to pioneer the way in is, "how do we cut costs in other areas but refuse to sacrifice the cost of time and make sure that our impact is helpful for our patients but that also helps our team members and our clinicians receive the value that comes from being a part of a meaningful conversation. I think that's what patients want too. They don't want the robotics, they come to us because they're helpless vulnerable and afraid, and those are the things that we're treating. They trust what we tell them and if we don't have the time to build up that trust, we've lost a lot of the value that we offer. David - What have you seen change about team? You guys have been part of this big culture change process, but I think it's something that's started long before long before either of us. What do you see is the arc of Kijabe and the archive teamwork and the arc of culture? Mardi - So, Kenya is an incredibly multicultural and diverse country and Nairobi is high-powered and it's fast and it's a lot of white-collar and highly educated people and Kijabe is not so far from that. I think we operate more in a Nairobi mindset than a rural, small town mindset, but that's actually been a huge transition, I think, is going from presenting ourselves as a rural distant place to a part of a busy growing rapidly advancing system, and so that comes with leadership styles that become more open and more I guess, more modern in style. And so that's been the first big thing that I've just seen a huge jar over the part of the decade that I have been here is that leadership is no longer just top-down, enforced. It's participational leadership and I'm a massive fan of that. Leaders do have to make hard decisions and make things happen, but the input of the team has become a much, much higher priority in the last decade. And that's huge because our young highly-educated, highly-aspirational team members have got some great ideas and shame on us as leaders, if we don't take the time to listen to their approach to things. So that inclusive style of leadership has has been a huge arc. And then I think the other thing is just our changing generations, millennials are not confined to high-income countries. We have a young generation of people here who aren't gonna stay in the same job for 40 years like their parents or their grandparents did, and that's the same globally. And so we've had to question, over the last decade, how do you approach team members who are only gonna be here for a little while? Do you see that is, they're just gonna go, or do you get the maximum investment into them and benefit out of them in the time that they're gonna be here and then release them with your blessing? And so that's been something that's been huge for me is when we've got these new graduate nurses or lab staff radiographers, to not be on the fact that three years after they come to us, they go it's to say, "You know what, we've got these guys for three years, let's sow into them, let's get the most we can out of their recent education... Let's do what we can to up skill them with the people that we've got here and then let's release them all over Kenya to be great resources for health care across the country and across the region. David - I would say, for healthcare and for the gospel. I've been wrestling a lot with what does it mean for Kijabe is to be a mission hospital. I think the classic definition - I don't know if we define it as such, I don't often hear people say it out loud, but I think it's an unwritten thing - that what makes a Mission hospital a Mission Hospital, is that it cares for the poor. Hopefully on some level, or on a lot of levels, that will always be true at Kijabe. But I'm really excited about the possibility of what you just described, that if these guys are here for three or four years and we are to training them with the attitude that they are going out as Christian leaders and as missionaries to these parts of Kenya that honestly, you and I will never touch. And a lot of the places I've never even heard of. But if we're equipping them to be the light that's the huge opportunity that Kijabe has to be missional. Mardi - This is a much, much longer podcast, but defining mission is really really important, isn't it? I think that there's a couple of things that stick out to me as you're talking and one is that, I think mission has a history that can be associated with colonialism. And one thing I love about my time in Kenya is seeing that we are a globe of missionaries. The church that we attended in Nairobi, Mamlaka Hill Chapel, these guys would send mission teams to New Zealand, which is fabulous. It's not that lower middle income countries are receiving missionaries anymore. All of us need the gospel, all of us need the full word of Jesus and when you're spreading the gospel, what are you spreading? I think that this is a much longer conversation, but I believe that we are called to go and make disciples we are called to serve the sick, we are called to serve the poor, we are called to serve those in prison. I focus on the parable of the sheep and the goats, it is one of my life scriptures, "when you are poor and sick and needy whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me." And what I hope for Kijabe does is that for whoever passes through our doors, whether it be patient, whether it be staff member, this is who we are, we love Jesus and we want you to know this incredible King who gave so much for us and who has an eternal life for us that starts now. And eternal life starting now means making an impact and restoring that which is broken, and it means restoring it now, wherever you are. As our team members go out to work in other hospitals, I would hope that one of the indicators of success for us would be a lack of brain drain, because it would show that we've shown people, "You know what there are people here that need you in healthcare. And this is why I'm here." If I had wanted to be an evangelist rather than a health care missionary, I should have stayed in Australia, for less people in Australia know Jesus that in Kenya. But I felt like my call in mission was to serve the sick in a place where I could help other people do the same. That's been my passion here, but I'm called to go back to Australia now. Does that mean my mission life is over? Absolutely not. It means that I'm going back to Australia to love Jesus and serve sick there and to do it in a different way. And I think that understanding that all of us, whoever is listening to this podcast right now, wherever you you have a call to mission, it's that sphere of influence that God's put you in. It's to take care of the poor or the sick, or to love the wealthy, who are lost around you that are never gonna step foot in a church but need a love of Jesus every bit as much as one of our nursing students here in the college. David - Amen again, that's fantastic. So back to Ebenezers, back to the the stones. What are things come to mind as you look back over on your time at Kijabe that were hallmarks or turning points? Mardi - There's a few of them. One evening sticks out to me because it's so indicative of the bigger picture and what we've been working towards. I'd been here for about nine months or so. . . One of the things that Jennifer Myhre and I noticed is we started out on pediatrics was that our nursing staff were incredibly passionate about their kids, but no one had really had the time to teach them about sick kids and how to resuscitate them, just basic life support, because they were so overwhelmed. You know, there was one nurse who was taking care of 12-15 patients at a time. That ratio is now one to eight, so it's much easier. But they just hadn't had the opportunity to learn some of the basic life-saving assessment in resuscitation skills, and so we started doing just weekly mock resuscitations with the nurses and as we got to know each other and they got to trust me and to know that I wasn't there to, to judge them, but to try and help them, we would do mock recesses every week, and people would stop being scared of coming and would come with by interested and actually came to test their knowledge. When I started in 2011, about once a week I would get called in, in the middle of the night to find a baby blue and not breathing, who was dead, and there was nothing that I could do. But what we worked together on was setting up a resuscitation room, and setting up the right equipment. And so after about nine months of this, I was called in for yet another resuscitation in the middle of the night, and by the time I got there, the baby was just screaming and pink, and I asked the nurse is what had happened and it was the same story as always, this baby choked on milk, they had turned on the oxygen given the baby oxygen done some CPR and they resuscitated that baby before I got there, they didn't need me at all. And the Ebenezer for me was the was the pride on their faces. "We are experts at this and we know what we're doing." That has just escalated leaps and bounds. Now we've got outstanding nursing leadership and they're being equipped and taught and up-skilled every day. But that was an Ebenezer moment for me that the time taken to build relationship and team and invest doesn't just bring a resuscitated baby and life is important, but it builds team and it builds ownership and pride in "this is what I've been called to do, and I'm good at it." It's interesting because it's what you would do is individual doctors with your teams and doing the mock code. But it's also very much a systems process for Kijabe hospital, right? A big part of solving that challenge was getting the right nursing ratios, but also setting up high dependency units to where children you're concerned about could be escalated. Did that happened during your time here? Mardi - So when we started here in 2011, children weren't really admitted to the ICU at all unless they were surgical patients who just had an operation, and then the surgeons would take care of them and transfer them down to the ward. So the pediatrics team wasn't really involved in any ICU care, extremely rarely. We didn't have a high dependency unit. And our definition of high dependency unit, here, is a baby that can be monitored on a machine 24-7. This is something that shows you how reliant we are on partnerships, David. So for example, the nursing and the medical team together decided, "Look, we think we need a three-bed unit, where at least the babies who were the more sick ones can be monitored on machines." And so, Bethany kids were the ones who equipped... We turned one of our words into a three-bed HDU in the old Bethany kids wing, and that was the first time we could put some higher risk babies on monitoring so that if they deteriorated we knew about it sooner. And we saw deaths start to drop, just with that simple thing. The other thing was that pediatricians who worked here in the past weren't necessarily equipped in how to do... ICU care. And so Jennifer and I said, "Well I'm a Peds-emergency physician, and she is an expert in resource-poor medicine, between the two of us, we can probably figure this out." We started putting some babies in ICU who we knew had a condition that would be reversible if we could just hook them up for 24 hours to ventilator. So we started ventilating babies with just pneumonia or bronchiolitis. Or sepsis, that was the other big one, something that if you can help their heart beats more strongly for a day or two, you can turn the tide. And so we just started working with the ICU team to say, "Look, can we choose some babies to start bringing up here? And four years later we were overtaking the ICU at the time and that's why we had to build a new Pediatric ICU, which opened in 2016. All of these things are incremental, and we stand on the shoulders of giants. The Paeds ward existed because a surgeon said "I don't want babies with hydrocephalus and spina bifida to not get care." And then we came along and said "We think that's great, but we think that babies with hydrocephalus spina bifida, who also have kidney problems and malnutrition, should probably have a pediatrician care for them." And over time, that degree of care, that we've been able to offer has just grown and grown. And we had Dr. Sara Muma as a pediatrician join us in 2012 then Dr. Ima Barasa - she was sponsored into pediatric residency long before I got here. That was the foresight of the medical director back then, to say "We are gonna need some better pediatric care". And then I stepped into the medical director role and people like Ima and Ariana came along and they've just pushed it further and further and further. None of us are satisfied with what we walk into, and we keep saying we can do better because these kids deserve more. David - That's fantastic, I think that's another way when you think about the influence and the impact of Kijabe, it's that refusing to settle. It's to say, "Yeah this is possible. Let's figure it out." And for all the team members to say that and commit to it, and for the leadership to support that I think that's what makes Kijabe special. I read something that the other day, it was just an interesting take, someone said [to a visiting doctor] "Why are you going to that place? It has so much." But Kijabe only has “so much” because the immense sacrifice of so many people over so much time. None of this showed up without the hours and the donations and years and years and years of work. I remember you saying that about Patrick with his ophthalmology laser? How did you phrase that? Mardi - Patrick, he's such a wonderful example of the kind of person that doesn't look for reward, but sees a need and just walks to the finish line. He started out, I believe, on the housekeeping team in the hospital. He's been here for 20 years at least, I think, and then went through clinical office or training, which is a physician assistant level training, and then received higher training in cataract surgery. He started our ophthalmology service in 2012. Since then he had nurses trained around him. He's been doing cataract surgery, and then he said, "We've got these diabetic patients and the care we offer isn't good enough, we need a laser." He went to Tanzania, and got laser training, and now he's going to start doing laser surgery on patients with diabetic retinopathy. He refuses to be satisfied with the status quo. And that's the heritage that we have here. You know, talking about even a moment I feel them enormously privileged to have been here in 2015 as we as a hospital celebrated our centennial. It took us a year to prepare for that, and I know you were a part of that process, David. David's job was find all of the stories and all of the photos and interview all of the people and make sure to document everything that might be lost if we lose these stories now. Being a part of that process... I was in tears so many times when we would hear one more story about somebody's commitment and sacrifice. We've been able to write down that story from 2015, with the Theodora Hospital as we were known then. The stories of not just these missionaries but these extraordinary early nurses, like Wairegi and Salome who worked here for decades, who were initially trained informally, because we didn't even have accreditation for the nursing program. David - We didn't even exist as a country. Mardi - That's a really good point! To hear those stories and to see our very first lab technician was just amazing. And then when these 80 and 90-year-olds came over and saw the scope of the hospital as it exists now, it just gave me a glimpse into whatever we do today, we have no concept of 100 years from now, the fruit that that will bear. And I think a missional life, is like that, isn't it? It's being okay with not seeing fruit. There's foundations positive and negative, that all of us lay in the interactions and the work that we do and I think all of us, our prayer is that those seeds that we plant would bear fruit. We have to be okay with not seeing the fruit with saying this has been my contribution. I've stood on the shoulders of giants and now I hand over the baton to you, who will come after me. Make of it what you will. It's not my dream and it's not my goal, I've done my part, and let's see where God takes it through you. David - And so, very shortly, you're about to become a giant. [laughter] I really appreciate you, I appreciate you bringing that up. That was one of the most important things that could have ever happened. It was in the 2015. It was before we started Friends of Kijabe. The realization for me I always come back to how long life is. It's both amazingly short and amazingly long. Watching Dr. Barnett and realizing that he worked here for 30 years, and then went back to the states, so now he's... I think he just hit 102 years old. It really does bring in a clear view what is legacy, what does it mean and what are we building? But also that this is very much outside of us. We get to pour everything we have into it for a time, but then others will take up that work. And it's both humbling, and amazing and... Mardi - And I think it's helpful to as many of us have a sense of calling on our lives, I think that this is what God has for me now. But we have to hold that with open hands because our view and our understanding of what God is doing is so small and what he is doing is so large. I think sometimes in this kind of setting, you come in with a dream and a passion and a goal, but you see that path shift and change during the time that you're here and that is good and that is okay. I think a danger is when we come in and think that we have the answers or we know exactly where God is going, and then things don't work out, and we burn out or are bitter or disappointed. To come into a sense of mission and calling... Saying "not my will but yours be done," and to just obey in the day-to-day and to see where it goes and to be okay with the direction being different at the end than it was at the beginning - I think that's how we lead a life led by the Spirit. We hold these things with open hands and say, "God take it where you will" and if it's a different place, let me just play my part in that. David - Okay, I gotta dig into that cause. How do you balance that? I would frame it as vision. I feel like a good example to look at, I don't know if it's the right one, so, you can choose a different one if you want to, but the balance between vision and practicality and reality. Because you say that, and you are walking in the day-to-day, but I just think of the Organogram that has been on your wall, which was on Rich's, wall, which is now your's again, which is about to be Evelyn's wall. And you had this vision back in, "this is how I think the organization should work to function well." But there's a four-year process in making that come to pass. How do the day-to-day and the long-term balance? Mardi - I think we're talking about spiritual and practical things combined aren't we? I think that anyone who's in organizational leadership knows that you, your organization as a whole needs a trajectory and a long-term plan. We make these five-year strategic plans which are based on the assumptions of today and every strategic plan. You need to go back every couple of years and say, Were those assumptions right? And just to be a super business nerd for a minute, you base things on SWOT analyses and you base things on the current politics and economics. David - What does SWOT stand for? Mardi - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Then you do a PESTLE analysis, you look at the politics, you look at the economy, you look at the social environment of the day, etcetera etcetera. In technology everything is changing quicker than we can keep up with. And so I think that when you're looking at a place like a happy, which is large and complex, you set yourself some goals, and you work with them, but, you know, so something's going to change. Politics are gonna change, the economy's gonna tank, maybe there's gonna be a war on the other side of the world and we’re the only source of this, that, or the other?Maybe India falls into the sea and we start doing all of the surgeries that India was doing? I just don't even know. One thing for me, I've been enormously privileged to have been the medical director for two different terms that were separated by two years. And so I think I have a slightly unique perspective because from 2013 to 2016, I set the way I thought that our division would work and I came back into the role, two years later and already it had changed, but Rich had made it a better. It's funny, I when I came into the role, my predecessor. Steve Letchford said, "Look, you're gonna need a deputy, you can't do this by yourself." And I looked at my team and said "Um, No, I need four deputies, four sub-divisional heads because this is too much for one or two people and I can't keep my ear to the ground without it. I came back after two years away and there were five deputies and my initial gut reaction was, "You changed my structure!" And then I realized that Rich and Ken had made a really wise call. It did have to be five deputies for lots of really good reasons and that team of five has been my absolute rock this year. David - Who is the team of five? So the team of five, I've got a head of inpatient medicine and pediatrics, and specialties and this George Otieno. There's a head of Outpatient Department, and Community Health and Satellite clinics, and that's Miriam Miima. I've got ahead of Surgery and Anesthesia, and that's Jack Barasa. There's a head of Pharmacy, and that's Elizabeth Irungu. Then there's a head of what we call Allied and Diagnostic that incorporates the Lab and Pathology, Radiology, Physiotherapy, Nutrition and Audiology, and the head of that, it is Jeffrey Mashiya who is a radiographer. What's amazing to me about that is when I instituted this framework in 2014, there were four people and they were all missionaries. And I've come back in 2018 and there are five people and they're all our Kenyan senior staff and they're extraordinarily talented and any one of them can stand in for the medical director, when the medical director is away. What a gift that has been. David - I can't imagine how important this is for continuity. Because you think right now, you're handing off your responsibilities to Evelyn, but she has five people that...those are the executors and they actually get to groom her in leadership. That's amazing and for the strength of Kijabe and the stability, it's indispensable. I don't think there's another way to build a strong, stable system other than to build that. Mardi - Yeah, that's actually one of the things that brings me so much joy as I leave is the team isn't going to notice too much the change in senior leadership because that level of day-to-day practical strategic and operational leadership is just so strong. I think it made Ken as my CEO, I think it made his job easier to say, "Look, who should fill the position that Mardi is vacating?" He was able to say, "Who's got institutional memory and who's got leadership expertise and wisdom, and who knows how the senior leadership team works?" Whoever that person is, they're gonna have a team around them that will mean that no voices get lost in the transition. When I took the job in 2013, hearing the voices of specifically missionaries and surgeons can be really noisy and you hear their voices, but who's listening to the head of palliative care and who's listening to the head of laboratory who's listening to the head of nutrition, which is a tiny team of four people, those voices are well represented by wise people who all listen to each other and make the system work around them. It's a tremendous gift and there's no way to do this job without a team of people like that around you. And you know what, that's one of my other Ebenezers, David. Thursday, we installed Evelyn as the incoming medical director. Seeing those five sub-divisional heads praying for Evelyn and as that took off, I will never forget that. David - Absolutely. I wasn't here the first time, but I remember I should print out a series of those [pictures] because I remember you handing the hat to Rich and I remember it going back to you and then watching you give Evelyn the hat and stethoscope. There's this legacy of people that care. It's interesting to think about... 'cause you are, I mean you’re building this remarkable team and your system and things that operate independently of you. But at the same time, you're unbelievably special, and have given a ton over the past years and you. As Rich phrased it, you walked in shoes that not many other people will get to walk in. It's special. I imagine is what it's like when the former presidents get together for their picture. There's things that only only you guys will know and only you guys will have experienced. Mardi - You know, one thing that is really special is I think a lot of leadership transitions come through pain, brutality and war. And one thing that I noticed on Thursday, is that in the room as I handed over leadership to evil and were Steve Letchford and Peter Bird, who have both been here for decades and who've previously been the medical directors. I think there's a beauty about the transition of leadership here in the clinical division that it hasn't come through attrition, war and burnout. I'm leaving with a lot of sadness, and I'm not cutting ties with this place to see. . . there has been a cost. Rich. I know, I would still love to be here in this position as the person who is my predecessor…but to see such strength of leadership that is here and sowing into the next generation rather than leaving when they died. They've stepped down and gone into leading other areas to ensure that the team that follows them is strong, I think that's a tremendous gift and something unique about Kijabe. People love this place and they love this team and they wanna be a part of its ongoing success in its broader mission. David - And they love and they love that above their own glory and their own desires. I think it's what makes an organization great, it’s what makes a country great. I think it's probably gonna be easier in a place of faith, honestly, that this is God's ministry, not our own, not any one persons's. FPECC What is FPECC? I think it's important for people to know a little bit about how hard is it to create a training program or anything new in Kenya? Mardi - So FPECC is the fellowship program in pediatric emergency and critical care. Ariana [Shirk] and I are pediatric emergency physicians, we trained in pediatrics, and then we did specially training in how to take care of emergencies and resuscitation. And were the only two formally trained pediatric emergency doctors in Kenya. Critical Care is taking care of kids in ICUs and currently in the country, there are four pediatric ICU doctors for 55 million people. I don't have the stats that my finger tips, but it's extraordinarily low. I think of the city where you live and how many ICU beds there are, and how many children's hospitals you have just in your own city if you're based in a high income country. For 55 million people, there's kids just can’t access that care. David - Recently, I'm sure it's gone up, but two years ago, it was 100 beds for the country. Mardi - For adults and kids. . . In the country, there are a 12 pediatric ICU beds. Actually no, that's not true, there are 16 and eight of them came into existence, when we opened up our Peds ICU here three years ago. David - And keep in mind, this is East Africa, of the 56 million people. . .33 million of those are under age 18. So 16 beds. Mardi - That's right. Think of anything that can cause a critical illness. Trauma, illness, cancer, you name it, that's not enough beds. So when I came to Kenyo, I had no dream of starting a training program that wasn't even remotely on my radar. But sometimes things just come together at the right time. It was actually University of Nairobi, where they have the only other Peds ICU, they had been working with University of Washington in Seattle to say, “Look, can you help us start some training?” This is really important, because in East Africa there is nowhere that a pediatrician can learn how to run an ICU. Think of the US, where every state has got multiple training programs, where pediatricians will spend three years to learn to be an ICU doctor. There is nowhere for 360 million people in this region to learn how to do ICU care for children. Just think about that for a second. 360 million people... No training program. There's one in Cairo, and there's one in Cape Town, but that's for 600 million people. So I'm just taking a few of them where there's nowhere to go. University of Nairobi was talking to Seattle. They've got two Peds ICU doctors in Nairobi and they were thinking of starting a program. Then just through several contacts, actually through the Christian mission network, one of University of Washington's ICU doctors grew up in Nigeria but she's involved with the Christian Medical and Dental Association, and so she knew about Kijabe. The University of Washington team came out to Kenya for a visit, and they said, "Hey we heard you doing some ICU care caring Kijabe. Can we come out and see what's happening?" That was in 2013. They came out and said "Hey what are you guys doing here?" And we showed them around, and their minds were blown, they didn't know there was any peds ICU happening outside of Nairobi at all. And so, we rapidly started some conversations and said "Look, why don't we start a training program in Pediatric Emergency Care and Critical Care and our trainees can train at both Kijabe hospital and Kenyatta hospital in Nairobi and they can get an exposure to two different types of ICUs. They can also take advantage of the fact that Ariana and I are here as Peds Emergency faculty, and we can split the training load. Training programs in the US have dozens of faculty for something like this, to rely on just two doctors in Nairobi was an incredible risk even though University of Washington is supporting with visiting faculty. So we said, "Look, we've got all these people in the country at the same time, let's just try and do it." So we started that process in 2013. We took our first fellows at the beginning of this year. It's taken us six years. That's how things work here. You've got to form relationships. University of Nairobi didn't know us real well when it came to our pediatric care. We had to get to know each other, we had to develop a curriculum. We had to let the Ministry of Health know. We had to get the Kenya pediatrics Association on side. The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board, had to approve the program. The University Senate had to approve the program. We had to try and get some funding in place. None of that happens quickly. It's all relationship that's all a lot of chai. That's all a lot of back and forth and making sure that you don't try and skip anything to get through the hoops, any quicker than you need to, because if you try to go to quick it falls apart. And if University of Nairobi and Kenya doesn't own this program, it's not gonna last. And I think that's probably the first thing to take away for me is this program exists because University of Nairobi and Kenya wanted it I didn't come in here and say, "We need this.” University of Nairobi wanted it, and we said, "How can we support it?" And so Arianna showing up here for a short-term visit - which we rapidly recruited you guys as long-term - it was God's timing because Ariana and I couldn't have done this independently from each other. It's taken both of us to build those relationships over the last six years. Arianna and I are so proud of this program. Our first two graduates will finish this training at end of December 2020, and we hope and pray that we can recruit them to stay at Kijabe and University of Nairobi as our first home-grown faculty. What's been lovely about that, too, is that we've connected with people all over the world who want to support this kind of thing, they just didn't know how. David - Not did they not know how, there wasn’t a way. It literally did not exist until February 2019. Mardi - So now, we're actually talking to colleagues in Uganda and Tanzania, and colleagues in Sudan and other places about... “Hey, is this a good model for you?” I've got some contacts in Nigeria, they've got how many million people, 30 million people or something ridiculous? And there's no way to get this training there either. And people all over the world want to be able to support what a country wants to start in its own strategy. So that's something that I'm just thrilled to be leaving. Even as we leave next month, I'm hoping and planning to come back at least once a year to teach in the program for the forseeable future and to support Arianna from a distance in continuing to connect people all over the world to say, "Here's a way that your global health desires can interface with a local country's needs." David - You two are the only Peds Emergency Medicine doctors in the country and there's a realization. . .What actually is Emergency Medicine here and what is the difference between what it looks like here versus America? Mardi - Yeah, it's a really great question. First of all, Ariana and I trained in a country where there are multiple children's hospitals per city. So, Pediatric Emergency Medicine is the Emergency Department attached to a children's hospital. There are less than 10 children's hospitals on this entire continent, I think. So there are no Pediatric Emergency departments. What is really great is that Emergency Medicine combined adult and pediatric is a growing specialty here. There's been so much great work that's going on in so many countries around the region. Rwanda last year, just graduated their first class of emergency residents. Uganda just on the cusp, the great advocate there, Annette Allenyo is leading the charge for emergency medicine. Ben Wachira is an Emergency Medicine trained doctor here at Agha University, and they're on the cusp of starting an emergency medicine residency training program. You know Emergency Medicine's a funny thing. Emergency medicine in a high-income country, is a part of a functioning system. Emergency medicine in the US means that you've got ambulances that get your people to you and you've got an ICU at the other end that you send sick people to. Emergency medicine here is. . . people showing up on our door step, we don't know how to get them here and then where do we send them? I think that Emergency Medicine training here is so much more broad. We're training people not only how to provide Emergency Medicine, but how to be advocates in a broader system. And I think if you live in a high income country, you can't understand how much medical training is not about medical training. It's about advocacy and building access to care for people, no matter where they're at. What I see emerging here is…from the start, it's collaborative. Emergency Medicine training here isn't just training a doctor in a specialty to give you a certificate and leave you there. It's connecting you with people who are trying to get paramedic systems going and people trying to build ICU care. That's one of the reasons we realized that our Pediatric Emergency and Critical Care program had to be both. There's not enough places to work where you've got the luxury of staying in the ICU. Our graduates are gonna go out and work in hospitals where they will be expert trainers for the pediatricians running the ICU and the family medicine doctors running the emergency department and the surgeons who are doing pediatric surgery with just general training. Our graduates are gonna be those advocates drawing teams together asking "How can we improve the system from arrival at our doorstep till the day we send them home." It's a different focus in our training. Yes, the skills are necessary. You need to know how to run a ventilator and keep a heart pumping when it's not. But it's about building a team and being a part of solving systems issues and hopefully in a way that is affordable and sustainable. David - I love that word, systems. For me, this is the year of systems. Thinking broadly about each of these individual parts because it’s another way that healthcare here is very different from healthcare in the US. The US is just sub-specialization, that's what it's all about. And here, there's not a fine line between. . .for an Emergency Medicine doctor, you're not sitting out in casualty waiting for a kid to come in, right? If you want to find the emergency, you just walk around and lay eyes on every kid and there's gonna be one out of 70 children in that building, who is in trouble. So it really is a bigger and broader way of thinking about things. Mardi - I think another thing that's interesting to me just as we come back to the missional aspect of who we are... I think 00 years ago, a missionary was someone who would go into deepest, darkest wherever and be whoever they wanted to be. I think as we consider what is global mission, our question needs to be, “What is that country looking for, what systems are they trying to develop and how do we help them in it?" And that comes down to health…if you're a missionary, what does the local church want to do? What is their mission and how can we assist them? I think we need to ask better, what system is someone trying to build and how can we be a part of it. Because that's the key, isn't it? We're here to serve God who is restoring creation and he's doing it in lots of different ways already. We don't need to necessarily think we've got the answer, but to say "God, where are you working and how can I be a part of it, and what does it look like?" I think Mary Adam in her community health project, is a really lovely example of that. Community Health growth is a priority of Kenya. So she's gotten grant funding and she is just sowing in it, she knows every county Governor in the country, I'm suspecting. She knows how to get into the system, but how to be salt and light, and how to be the love of Jesus in making things functional and making all things new. I think that's one thing that I think Kijabe is doing well. We are looking at health strategy and saying How can we be a part of it and love that our FPECC program is in partnership with University of Nairobi. I love that our clinical offices have a program that we got accredited for called the Emergency Critical Care Clinical Officer program, that actually wasn't a part of hell strategy, but we did see a gap, and as soon as we trained people in that we went to the Clinical Officer of Council and said, "Hey you want to accredit this? This is a really good program. And they did, and now the Kenya Medical training training college has taken that program and they're doing their own program. I think those are lovely examples of saying “We're here to bring restoration but we don't want to be separate from the system. Where are you going and how can we help” David - What does that mean for friends of Kijabe? How do you see that working with Friends of Kijabe as an organization? Mardi - What's been really lovely, about Friends of Kijabe in the last year, and I know you're excited about this, David, is in what the core the Friends of Kijabe vision and mission. I think a core part of Friends of Kijabe that we've got the CEO, the CFO and the Director of Clinical Services on the Friends of Kijabe board. One question that I've heard you ask so many times in the last year is "Where are you going and how can we help, what are your priorities? Friends of Kijabe exists to help the hospital further its strategy, but also exists as a bit of a connector between people in high-income countries who really want to contribute and who have passions. Where does that intersect with the hospital strategy? So Friends of Kijabe is not going to take the whole hospital strategy and try and piecemeal help every part of it. They're gonna say, "Hey you're a part of your strategy that are happy resonates with and that's become very clear. A lot of Friends of Kijabe funding currently goes towards whatever the hospital thinks is important. The hospital has prioritized the theater expansion project this year and that's great. But, at its core, Friends of Kijabe also says, "We support the needy. We support education. We support sustainability. How can we get there?" And so [FoK] has prioritized putting money towards each of those areas which happened to align with the core values of Kijabe Hospital. So a large proportion of what Friends of Kijabe hospital is doing this year is helping us with an infrastructure project. But every year we're going re-ask "What are your priorities, and how can we help that?" But we're also going to say, "Here is where our heart beats. Can we help with this too?" I think one of the things about Friends of Kijabe is the trust that's developed since its inception. As Friends of Kijabe, we trust that the hospital leadership is following a strategy that is meaningful, that is sustainable, and that is in line with where Kenya is going and where the African Inland Church is going because that's who we're owned and operated by. As long as our missions intersect, I think Friends of Kijabe can trust that at the hospital is taking us in a good direction. David - Awesome, anything else I should ask you? Anything you'd like to add? Mardi - No. It's been an extraordinary eight years and it's been such a privilege to be here, and it's lovely to leave with joy, even as there's associated sadness. I really can't wait to see what the next few decades bring, and I'm gonna be watching both from a distance and also up close, when I come back to visit. David - Thank you Mardi.

Pastor Rusty milton1 Samuel 25:1-13God often interrupts and intercedes for us when we are on the road to folly. In 1 Samuel 25, we see two characters juxtaposed by the choices they make: one foolish, and the other wise. In Verses 1-3, we see Nabal, who, due to his greed, refuses to help David in his time of need. In comparison, in verse 14, we see his wife, Abigail, innocent of her husband's folly, but taking the guilt on herself and interceding for her husband, despite his lack of contrition. God, like Abigail, intercedes for us and shows us grace through the indwelling Holy Spirit, through Christian families, through providential protection, and through his Word.David and AbigailThen David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite.4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”9 When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited.10 And Nabal answered David's servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs[a] of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David[

Guest this week is Matthias Guntrum one of the 4 people that helped bring the great indie game In Between on Xbox One last month. The game is also available for mobile and PC, and well worth the time for such an amazing story. Hosted by David (Who had to answer the door during the interview) and Chris.

Want to turn your website into a greeting card? I've got an inexpensive plugin that can help. I also talk about a great service for sending greeting cards. Your Website as a Christmas Card eCard and it has a lot of interesting features such as GoogleFonts support for your text 10 sound files included 16 backgrounds included Handy panel of settings Preview in admin control panel Ability to write your own greeting text Ability to edit styles of text Ability to set a text position (in the settings and in preview mode) Ability to insert a link at the page or to open the eCard automatically Ability of the eCard to be displayed in fullscreen mode You do have to upload this Wordpress plugin via ftp because of the large amount of music files. It's $14 I Love SendOutCards.com But What Are They REALLY Selling? I found a GREAT service that allows you to send quality greeting cards (with our without a gift) for next to NOTHING. I was AMAZED at how easy it was. Then I saw time and time again how I could make money with Soundoutcards.com I was thinking to myself that apparently have an affiliate program. I thought COOL cause I REALLY loved their service. It was super easy, super affordable. WOW. I accidentally purchased some credit for more cards thinking I had to be a customer to be an affiliate. When I was in my account I couldn't find a link to refer friends anywhere (there are links all over the website about money making opportunities). I got on the chat and found out the whole "make money with sendoutcards.com is a scam" if you compare it to your typical affiliate program. I have changed the name of the tech support person (who did try very hard, but they are shackled by poor policies). Chat session started at 19:06:56 Please be patient while you are being connected with an operator ... You are now chatting with Jughead Jughead:Welcome to SendOutCards! How may I help you today? David:Jughead, I just sent my first card, and signed up for the "Pay as you go" plan for being a referral. I'm assuming I get some sort of link to pass on to potential clients, but I can't seem to find it. Am I on the right track? Jughead:That is a great question. You did not sign up as a distributor so you will not get your own link to refer others to but if you would like to, you can provide them your sponsor's link which would be www.sendoutcards.com/theirID#. David:Awesome. Thanks I think thats all I need. have a great night. so in my case it shows my Id as rxxxxxx so it would be www.sendoutcards.com/rxxxxxx ? I see that is my username... Jughead:No, it would be your sponsor's ID number which is xxxxxx. You are not a distributor so you do not have your own personal retail site to refer others to. You would have to become a Marketing Distributor for $395 to get that website of your own. David:so to make money at this you need to spend $395? or at least $50? Jughead:Yes. Your account is just a customer account which is a user of the system. To be a distributor of the system and to earn money with SendOutCards you would need to join as a distributor. David:OK. is it possible to get a refund for the amount I just deposited in for future cards, and put that towards a $50 indie distributor? Jughead:We can't do that unfortunately. The points are non refundable. You can upgrade your account for $50 at any time but the points would not be applied towards that. David:so I've given you $31, and if I want to make money with this system I need to spend an additional $50 (not 19). For the record, I'm becoming very upset, and feel I was misled. Jughead:The $31 you paid was for points to send out cards. To become a distributor you have to purchase the Distributor package. I really do apologize if you were mislead by your sponsor but the $31 that you paid for was for points to send out cards. If you would like, I can stop your subscription as you did set up a monthly charge so that you do not get charged each month for points. David:Please stop that subscription. I thought it was pay as you go. I was getting ready to get on the microphone and broadcast and refer people to your service. It will be a completely different show tonight? What kind of company doesn't offer refunds? Is there a number I can call to talk to a supervisor? Jughead:I really do apologize about this David. If you want to cancel your entire account then we can possibly see what we can do about a refund but we cannot apply the $31 that you paid for points to your Independent Distributor package. I really do apologize if this is upsetting you as that is not my intentions. I am trying to clear everything up and make sure that you have the correct information. If you want to close your customer account we would need an Account Cancellation form signed by you. That form can be faxed, emailed or mailed in. I will make a note on your account to approve a refund once we have your Account Cancellation Form. The form is available at the below link: David:OK. I get you can't transfer my $31 toward a ID. Can you just refund it back to me? (and I'll apply it toward an ID). Jughead:Once we get your Cancellation Form we can close this customer account, refund you the $31 and you can then sign up as an Independent Distributor. (So to offer a refund, they have to cancel my account - anybody else think that's weird). I'm glad this was not able to happen as I would've absolutely lost it when I learned that I don't get a referral link (something I get for free with every other company) for $50. David:I want to be a customer, I just don't want the points right now. I need the cash more than the points. Jughead:Well we cannot refund your initial order unless we cancel your account. Also, earning money with SendOutCards you cannot do that on a Customer Account. You would need to sign up as a distributor account. David:Did you cancel my subscription? Jughead:I did cancel your subscription. (here again, Jughead did his/her job). David:Ok. If I sign up for an ID. I will get a link to give out to my audience, and if they buy cards I make money correct? (By ID I meant Independent Distributor) Jughead:You will not. Like I mentioned earlier, you will only get that if you join as a Marketing Distributor for $395. David:So what is the point of being an ID? Jughead:You can earn money and sign people up with the $50 package but you do not get the website. David:I don't need a website I have one of those and an internet radio show. I just need a way to refer people and get credit. So I don't get www.sendoutcards.com/theirID for $50? How would you know they are coming from me? Jughead:You do not get that website for being an ID. The benefit for being an ID is it allows people to come into SendOutCards and earn money at a lower price. We understand not everyone can afford the $395 right away so we offer a lower package. You can give your distributor number to your referrals but they would need to go to www.sendoutcards.com, click on Join Now and manually type in your ID number for you to get credit. David:What a racket. OK. That's all I need to know. WOW. I loved the card. I loved the service. I am HUGE in affiliate marketing and you could have a TON of referrals. I've never heard of such a program. Oh wait I have. It's call amway. Who can I send the link to when I get my radio show done? You're going to be famous Jughead Jughead:I apologize, I'm not sure what you are meaning by " who can I send the link to when I get my radio show done?". David:Who is the head of customer service, or more importantly "marketing", or new customer development. Is there an email address? They are going to love my show tonight. - I got my refund - The beauty of it is if you spend the $395 you are listed as the "Sponsor" of your customers. When they got to the FAQ page it's YOUR contact information (not sendoutcards.com) that is showed first. So you get to pay $395 AND be their tech support. WOW. You also need to be a certified trainer to get paid (per their FAQ). I'm sure this is to weed out "just anyone" being an affiliate, but it sounds like another hurdle to getting paid. How much does it cost to get certified? Well each year it can be as much as $200. This is when this really start to sound scam like in my opinion. If you check out their FAQ it sounds like a big pain in the butt. https://www.sendoutcards.com/support/faq/ Hello SendoutCards.com Marketing People - Kody Bateman You have a great service, and I would love to tell everyone about your service. I think you have a revolutionary product. I think some of the wording on your site is not specific enough (tools needs to be "referral link). I also know as someone who promotes products through affiliate links (on occasion) I'm here to tell you you're missing the boat by charging people $395 to promote your service. To get certified every year (for a fee). You have to sell a LOT of cards at .62 a piece to make that kind of money back (I don't care how many levels of referrals I have). Then again YOU would have to sell a lot of cards to make $395 (so is your product greeting cards or the appeal of "Making money referring friends). This reminds of a little thing we know as AMWAY. How about instead you spend $99 on an affiliate scriptand let people promote your CARDS (not you money making opportunity). Vote For The School of Podcasting at the Podcast Awards If you have a few seconds go to www.podcastwards.com and vote for the School of Podcasting (general) and Feeding My Faith (religion).

1 Samuel 25:1-13 1) Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2) And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3) Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 4) David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5) So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6) And thus you shall greet him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7) I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8) Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.'" 9) When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10) And Nabal answered David's servants, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11) Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?" 12) So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13) And David said to his men, "Every man strap on his sword!" And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.