We are looking at chapter 21 where let's pray for revival something that we touched on in the previous chapter while we said we must pray for cities and nations. So what are some ways in which we can pray for revival? Remember I said identification. We pray as if we made the mistake right? No we haven't. It's just a way of praying with the burden, you know carrying the burden. So usually when we read about revivals in history, church history, many of them prayed prayers of repentance on behalf of the city. You know they cried out to God and they said God no forgive, forgive this city. So prayers of repentance, consecration, yielding, surrender, those are the kind of prayers we need to pray in order to see revival. We know there are people in history, Evan Roberts, you will study about revivals later so I am not going deep into it but Evan Roberts was associated with the Welsh revival. One of his famous lines was Lord bend me, B-E-N-D, bend, Lord bend me. So in their language at that time it simply meant bend me means you know you're surrendering yourself into God's hands for God to do anything. Like God bend me, change me, we sing right, mold me, make me. So that is the prayer he prayed and then you know the Welsh revival happened. When people went to God and repented, surrendered themselves. So today we want revival for all the cities and the nations. How to pray? Pray submission, surrender, yielding, repentance on behalf of the nation. The second chronicle 714, if my people who are called by my name, if you would humble yourselves and pray, turn from your wicked ways. So what is that? Repentance. We repent before God then I will hear from heaven and I will heal your land. So pray prayers of repentance. Next, we can pray for more of God, a greater outpouring of the spirit of God. When we read about the early church in the book of Acts, there was a great work of the Holy Spirit. Do you agree with me? Yeah. So it started in Acts 2 with the outpouring of the spirit, the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit, but that was not all. They continued to gather together, they prayed together and you read things like great grace was upon them. Many miracles, signs, wonders were done through the hands of the apostles. Wherever they went, whether it was a volunteer, you had volunteers like Steve and Philip, wherever they went, miracles were taking place. God's power was being demonstrated wherever the apostles went, Peter and Paul and John, mighty things were happening. So if it could happen, when those people prayed and asked God, today when we pray for revival, we are saying God, yes, we are very happy. When we experience God's presence, we get so excited and we say, wow, if it is this good, we want more. So just imagine, if we have that hunger for the work of God, the power of God for our city and say God, thank you for whatever we have seen so far, but we want more, do something new, pour out your spirit, let the gifts be released. Let miracles take place in people's lives, supernatural things let it take place. God is able to do it.  In Zechariah 10-1, God's word says that God has promised the latter rain. Rain is sort of the understanding is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That God will send the latter rain in its time and we are living in the time when God is pouring out his spirit. So we should desire, isn't it? We must desire and say, God, this is the time of the latter rain. Zechariah 10-1, pour it out, pour it out on our city. This is how we pray for revival. We can pray for more of the glory and the power of God. You know, when the early apostles, they were being persecuted. They prayed a very bold prayer in Acts chapter 4. They say, God, look on their threats or the persecutors. What they are doing to us, just see that, but give us more boldness. They didn't say, God hide us, protect us, we want to run away. Those were not the prayers. They said, God, you give us more boldness, let more wonders, signs, miracles be done in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. You see, the way they are expecting God's glory. So are we in a tough time? We should desire more of God's glory, isn't it? So that's how we pray when we pray for revival. Say, God, more manifestation of your glory and power. The word of God says that His glory will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. How do the waters cover the sea? It's full. So God's glory should be full in our city, in our nation. Everywhere we go, righteousness, power of God, truth, peace, let it all be there in our city. And we can pray for that. And pray for the salvation of the lost. In many of the revivals, you will see that people pray for those who don't know Christ. And they say, Lord, so many people, they don't know. See, in the inner way, what did God say? These people don't know their right hand from the left, meaning they are so ignorant. They don't know. They are lost. They are not saved. Why is there so much crime, so many wrong things going on? Mainly because they are not saved. They don't have the renewed bond against spirit for the Holy Spirit to lead them, for them to receive the word. So we say, Lord, first and foremost, let people be saved. So we begin to pray for the lost. And there comes your spiritual warfare as well. And pray for the transformation of the community. So Isaiah 26 verse 9. It's a very beautiful verse. It says, I'll just read the last part of it. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. When your judgments are on the earth, your inhabitants, the inhabitants will learn righteousness. So we are asking God, God, as you touch the city, let there be a change. Sometimes cities are known for bad things. People say, don't go to that city. There's a lot of mugging. Be careful. Don't go to this city. Women are not safe in this city. How sad, isn't it? But when we pray for revival, we can ask for transformation. What is transformation? There's a change in the city. Revival is God visiting the city. But as a result of that revival, there'll be a change. Like I'll just give you one small example. I told you about Evan Roberts, Welsh revival. When you read about that revival, you'll see that revival came. Many people gathered in prayer and all that in the city. What was the result? It seems the crime rate came down so much that the police had no job. So the government, what they did is, okay, we already have all these policemen. They don't have any work. Let's use them for crowd control for these spiritual meetings. So they use them as crowd control. And in fact, it seems there was no, hardly any crimes. So some of the police also joined the choir. I'm not making this up. It's all there in the literature about the Welsh revival because there were no crimes only. So what is this transformation? So apparently people used to use bad language, no cuss words. There were people who had horses and to move those horses, they would use the bad language. But once revival came in Wales, apparently people's language got cleaned up. Nobody was speaking bad language, not nobody. At least the people who were working with these horses, they were not using those words anymore. So it seems horses forgot. They were trained in a different way and now horses were not able to use them because the language had completely changed. What is all this transformation? Crime rate comes down. The city is safer. There's better infrastructure, people's livelihoods improve, health improves, facilities are better. What is all this? That is called transformation. It's not just, oh, everyone is praying. That's good. That's a starting point. But from there, many social things, many things change in a city. That's what we want. The positive changes. So pray for transformation of the city and exercise kingdom authority and dominion. Remember we said we carry the authority. So use it. What are we waiting for? Choose your authority for your city. So that's how we will pray for revival. So there are two stories here, chapter 23. I have already briefly touched on these chapters to all of you. Remember I mentioned Father Nash. He's part of Charles Finney's ministry and he was a prayer warrior. Charles Finney would have his meetings in the second great awakening. But before he goes into towns, for about two to three weeks, Father Nash would go there and prepare the place in prayer. So that's how it was all working out. And in one particular meeting, apparently there were people who threatened Finney and they said that we'll see how this man is going to preach. But apparently when the meeting started, those were the people who came and responded to the altar call and said, tell us how we can be saved. So can you imagine? Can you imagine? These are all incredible things. If we saw things like this today, we'll be amazed like, wow, what is happening? But it is said that this kind of an outcome in the ministry was possibly because of the prayer that went in through Father Nash. Also, this is not something we are saying. Finney himself, after Father Nash died, he shared, I believe, that he went back to preaching. He did not have these results. So he left the evangelistic ministry. Can you believe it? He left the evangelistic ministry and he became more of a pastor in a local church towards the end of his ministry life because the results which he used to see when Nash was alive, it was no longer there. So he himself said that the result, what was the power which we were experiencing was because of the prayers of Nash. So you see how prayers for revival, prayers for transformation, the dedication to prayer on behalf of some people made such a huge difference. And when Nash was buried, they had written, okay, wait, where is that? They write on the tombstone, right? They write something with the name. So they have written Daniel Nash, laborer with Finney, mighty in prayer. That's all about him, mighty in prayer. That's the description on his tombstone. John, yeah, and he died quite young, I think. Anyway, so he did not really live to full life. Next person mentioned here is John Hyde. John Hyde is somebody from the early 1900s and he's associated with the Sialkot revival in Punjab. And when you read about him, you would see that he used to organize prayer meetings. He had, in fact, invited people to repent. He gave them some questions and told them, you know, ask yourselves these questions.  Are you longing for the greater power of the Holy Spirit in your own life and work? And are you convinced that you cannot go on without this power? So basically, he was very hungry for God to work and he wanted others to be hungry. He gave them all these questions and said, okay, answer these questions and please everyone show up. We are going to gather in prayer. And so these prayers went on and we read about, you know, the powerful manifestation of God in those meetings and God ministered, people used to even, you know, travail in prayer. Remember the intense seeking after God, those kind of experiences people had and also, you know, later on we read. So it made a huge impact in our nation at that time. The Holy Spirit was poured out and many things you would read about the ministry of John Hyde.  But his ministry in India is very, very significant, John Hyde. Some people call him praying Hyde. You would have heard about him, praying Hyde. So they say that he used to lie down on the floor, he'd lie down prostrate and then he would just pray, pray, pray. Apparently, he prayed so much that when the doctors examined him back in America, they found that his heart had moved from the left to the right. You know, so that's what they say that he was engaging so much in prayer and intensity of prayer. And that's the kind of person he was. He had a heart cry. So one of the statements which is spoken about him is he would pray that Father, give me these souls or I die. Can you see the intensity? So that's the intensity with which he has to pray. And when we read about revival, no wonder revivals came, right? There were people who meant what they were saying and they were even willing to, you know, what do you say? Like, it was not easy, very sacrificial. They were willing to make the sacrifices. So such are the stories of people who stood for revival and prayed for revival. So let's back up a little bit. You know, today the vehicle is reversing and moving forward a bit too much. But don't get distracted. We are talking about prayer. Come to chapter number 19. Nobody is feeling dizzy, no? Okay, yeah. Okay. Chapter number 19 simply talks about praying together and the power of praying together. Can somebody read Matthew 18 verses 18 through 20? Very, very familiar passage. Matthew 18, 18 through 20, please use the mic.  Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. Okay, so what is the essence of the scripture? Prayer of agreement yields results. How many people do you need to agree? One million? Two or three? Or is it only two? How many ever possible? Okay, what is the minimum? Two. Is that a practical number? Can we do that? Any two people agreeing? Very easy, no? Any two people? Very much. It's possible. And can you read that again now, Vimal, if you don't mind, please? 19. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. So any two of you on earth, if you agree touching one thing, meaning there is unity, unity of what? Not just presence, unity of heart. We agree together. Yes, this is the right thing. We have to ask God for this thing. When you agree in prayer, then what does God say? Touching one thing, meaning you're in agreement. God will do it for us. My Father will do it for you. So you only need minimum two people and that is possible. That's why sometimes we say, okay, come, pray in twos. How does it make a difference? We're shifting into prayer of agreement. We have a scripture and verse for that. Jesus said, if any two of you agree touching one thing, I will do it for you. So prayer of agreement. And you know, this kind of prayer can happen in the church. It can happen anywhere. Maybe somebody calls us usually, right? For us as pastors, we keep getting these calls and I said, this is happening. That is happening immediately. One of the things which we can do is we say, okay, wait, let's pray together. Let's agree together. Then there is a promise. Jesus said, I'll do it for you. We agree together. Yes, Lord, we declare healing over this person in the name of Jesus. We declare an open door in the name of Jesus and miracles happen. Testimonies come. How is it happening? Very simple. We are extending our faith, my faith, that person's faith. Let's agree together. And God's word says, two people, if you agree, it'll happen. Which is why we also say that one of the advantages when people get married and you marry a believer is, see, even husband and wife, just two people, you agree in prayer. It's very powerful, very, very powerful. And so that is the power of agreement. There are prayers like I told us it would be good for the city-wide church to pray for the city. The nationwide church to pray for the nation. However, even if two people stand in agreement, you can move, right? You can move mountains. You can see the manifestation of God's promises. So we must utilize. Why are we learning all this? Use it. Use your faith together with another person who believes, maybe a brother in a church or some sister. Say, okay, come, let's pray. Let's ask God together. Or maybe a child. You agree together and you receive it. So, okay, anyway, I have a small testimony. It might sound very silly to you, but my niece, when she was just about two and a half, maybe three years old, I wanted to teach her about prayer of agreement. So she came in, they came to visit us, my sister and my niece. And as soon as she came in, she was very upset because there was a lollipop in her bag and it was missing. So the whole time she's like, my lollipop, my lollipop. So I was like, okay, you know what, we can ask God. How about we ask God for your lollipop? So she's like, okay, fine. So we agreed in the name of Jesus, Lord Father, we ask you wherever this lollipop is, you give it to us, we're extending our faith in Jesus' name. So I told her, do you believe God can help you get it back? She's like, yeah, okay. So that's it. We prayed, we finished it. I also forgot about it. Later she came running because apparently when they had opened gate somewhere in the corner of the gate, it had fallen. So she came running with that one lollipop and she said, we prayed and we got it. So today, whenever I talk to her, she's a little older than that. If there's any problem, we say, how about we pray together? So you see, it's not about the age, two people, do you believe? Did you agree? Pray in the name of Jesus and you just begin to see miracles taking place. It's not simple, it's as powerful as that. So agree and pray with people. Even when we have the prayer time here, don't take it lightly. It's not something we are doing, oh yeah, we have to do supernatural hour. Don't do it for that sake. There is a meaning, there is power in all these things. Even in the Bible, we see 120 people gathered in the upper room. Remember, they prayed together and then what happened? The Holy Spirit was poured out on them. And also, when you keep studying in the Book of Acts, around Acts 12, that was a difficult time when people were living. There was this thing called King Agrippa I. He is the grandson of Herod the Great. Herod the Great ruled when Jesus was born. But this time it was Herod Agrippa I who was ruling. And a lot of persecution was going on, even at this time. So in Acts 12, we read that one of the church leaders, one of the James's, he is killed. Second, they captured Peter. They put him in the prison. You know what the church people did at that time? The Bible shows us that in Acts 12, verses 5 and verse 12, I'll just quickly read it for us. Acts 12 was 5 and then verse 12, Peter was therefore kept in prison. But constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. See, they agreed together. God, Peter is in the prison. But we are agreeing, let him be delivered. Let him be delivered. So they prayed. In fact, they had a prayer meeting in somebody's house. Verse 12. So when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. So that night something supernatural happened. God sent an angel to the prison and Peter was brought out of the prison in the night. Peter only didn't know if this is reality or is this, am I dreaming? But when he came out and he stood where the angel had led him, he could hear many people praying. So all the believers were actually praying for him. No wonder God sent an angel. So you see the power there when believers gather together, agreement, minimum two. But maximum any number we pray together, supernatural things happen. In this case, God sent an angel. So this is how we understand many things that God is able to do in prayer. In the book of Acts, you see that repeated, they were present in one accord, one accord. What is one accord? Oneness of heart, oneness of heart. So if you're all believing, yes, Lord, this is what your word says. Let your kingdom come here in my city, that is one accord. You can expect God to move. So pray together with people, prayer of unity, prayer of agreement. Prayer played a huge role in the early church. They all agreed in prayer and God did marvelous things in their lives. So let's remember that. So small group prayer, one of the simple practical tips is, it's good to have some prayer point. Okay, because then you can focus your attention on that point and pray. Now if we don't have a prayer point, if you all come together, we just praying, everyone's praying something. Somewhere we miss out the focus. But if we have a singular thought, okay, we are praying for healing of so and so. We are praying for the city. We are praying for something, God to speak to us. Then we can all focus. That's the reason we say, okay, better you write down the prayer points. Then we all agree together. Maybe one person can raise their voice and pray, others can agree. But also sometimes everyone prays together, right, loudly. That's also fine because you see that in the Book of Acts. All of them are praying together about one particular matter. You can pray whichever way, but usually prayer points help because then your focus is guided. You know, people don't take off on tangents. So that's a little bit about praying together in groups. Okay, so since the express train is moving fast, we'll go to the next station. This is chapter 20. If you have any questions, any thoughts, please stop me. That should be fine. Next class, I want to dedicate it to fasting. That's the reason we can take the entire two hours for fasting. We'll study about that. So that's the reason I'm, you know, touching on this quickly. So any questions, please stop me. Okay, all right. So how important is this kind of praying together and worshiping the Lord together? You know, today in the world, you see many such movements. There are many movements. One very maybe you could say noticeable movements because there are movements, but we probably don't know about some because it has been written about or they are not using technology to share it. But a noticeable one is you would recognize IHOP, Kansas City IHOP. International House of Prayer where they have this prayer and intercession model where they pray continuously, continuous. So it seems it started in 1999 and it's going on till today. So they have different batches of people, some who pray in the daytime.  So some people are appointed only for nighttime intercession and worship. So even now, like if you look up some of their YouTube channels, prayer will be going on 24 bar seven, 24 bar seven prayer, worship, intercession. Okay, how did, I mean, what is the biblical basis for something like this? And how is it useful to pray continuously, to pray in the day and the night? Well, when God instituted the tabernacle, you all know tabernacle, the place where Moses and the people, like they were supposed to look at that as the place where God would descend, God's presence would dwell. There God gave an instruction in Leviticus 613. He said the fire shall always be burning on the altar. Fire should be burning on the altar. You should not put it off. Fire should continuously be burning on the altar. So even in the tabernacle, the same thing was instituted, right? The lamp in the tabernacle. How often does it burn?  In the times of Samuel, you remember, it used to be switched off. That's actually wrong. Eli, they would go switch off the lamp. You can't do that. According to what God instituted, you know, as far as that fire is concerned. He said, let it not be switched off. It should continue. It should continue to burn. So taking from there. Okay, once again, my apologies. The reference, it's the fire of the tabernacle is the inner coat. So that also should not go off. But today, what we will discuss is the fire of the brazen altar. Brazen altar is outside. It's the outer coat. Okay, we're talking about the outer coat where the sacrifice is made. Okay, so that fire is what it is. But that fire is what is taken and to light the lamp of the inner coat. Okay, the menorah, whatever, you light it in the inner coat. But the first fire comes when you give the sacrifice. Okay, so that's the fire of the brazen altar. So that is what we are referring to. So that fire will come when the sacrifice is there, isn't it? So sacrifices should continue and God will provide that fire for the sacrifice to be consumed. So one should not stop giving sacrifices to God.  And that fire is also taken in for your inner coat where it burns continuously. So what is this concept? The concept is when you look at that fire, we are talking about the prayers to God. We are talking about worship unto the Lord which should not cease, which should not stop. Okay, so somebody in the old covenant, that is David. David loved God so much that he decided he is going to God this kind of worship, non-stop. Okay, not just non-stop but excellent worship. So you read about this in 1 Chronicles 15 verses 1 through 17 and then verse 27. I will not go deep into it because we are going to talk about this in other courses also. But understand that this particular method of worship prayer and intercession was first introduced by David. You know, in 1000 BC, he introduced it. What did he do? He had a tabernacle. Tabernacle is a tent. So he had a tent of worship. What did they do in the tent of worship? He had excellent, he is a king. So he picked the best vocalist in his kingdom. Best musicians, he picked the best. So when you read that passage, you will recognize in 1 Chronicles 15, it is something like, he appointed 288 prophetic singers, 4,000 musicians to minister before the Lord to make petition to give thanks and to praise the Lord day and night. Can you imagine? 288 prophetic singers and then when you read about it, you also see there were guides or there were senior musicians, senior prophetic singers who used to work with all these juniors. So how can one keep praying like this for 24 hours, 7, only if they have teams. So it's likely that they organized themselves in such a way that different people, okay, you pray to us next team, come, next, next. But we noticed that he brought the best of the best. It was not just, okay, we need to do worship, let's do something. But he did an excellent worship unto the Lord. And you know this carried on for some decades. And when David instituted, we call it the tabernacle of David. Tabernacle of David, when he instituted the tabernacle of David or this kind of 24 bar 7 worship, he started having victory in different ways. You know, military, victory, many things started happening in his land. And similarly, many other kings also followed David's example and they did not stop this kind of David's tabernacle worship. These kings were Solomon, Ahoshaphat. You remember, no wonder he sent people, singers. He sent singers because they knew the value of worship. And when praise and worship was instituted, even Ahoshaphat saw a lot of victories. So every king, at least seven kings, they continued this kind of excellent, orderly, extravagant worship, prayer, intercession unto the Lord and they saw many victories in their lives. Okay, so what is special about David's tabernacle? God threw the prophet Amos, prophesied. In Amos chapter 9, he prophesied and he said, verse 11, Amos 9, 11, On that day, I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages. I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. So God has spoken perfectly that in our times, he is going to do what? Rebuild the tabernacle of David. The same way, excellent worship, orderly worship, extravagant worship. It will happen. It's again going to happen. That is prophecy in God's word. I will rebuild the tabernacle of David. So no wonder the world over your sea, people, where did they get this? The fire on the altar should not go out. So there are people who have established continuous worship, day and night worship unto the Lord because God promised in His word. Before His second coming, the tabernacle of David will be rebuilt. Even in the book of Acts, James, the leader of the church, he quotes this. And he says, look, don't you remember in Acts 15? He says, the promise which God gave through His prophet said, He will rebuild the tabernacle of David. So that is why in many different generations, you hear of such things.  What is the result? All the mighty impact. One of the results is you read verse 12, Amos 9. I'll read verse 12 and 13. It says that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord who does this thing. 13, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord. When the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes is him who sows seed, the mountain shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it. So simply, simply put, what God is saying is there will come days when I will rebuild the tabernacle of David. Result will be the Gentiles shall come. Or what is saying when this kind of praise, worship, intercession, prayer rises up to heaven, people who don't know God. So Gentiles is a term used for those who are outside of the covenant. Many people will come to know God. God's kingdom will be extended. Right? So we are going to see such things take place where God will rebuild, you know, prayer, intercession, worship and nations, people in nations, people in regions, cities will just come to know God. And we'll wonder how is it happening? But there is a prophetic promise. He says when you raise up this kind of worship, okay, I will do it. The Gentiles will come. The Gentiles will come. So we have some churches, they have this kind of prayer and worship going on. Can we see an impact on the city? Yes, we can. You're going by the scripture, isn't it? Because God said, I will rebuild the tabernacle of David. It shows God was impressed. He could have said, I will rebuild, you know, somebody else's worship. So many people worship the Lord along. But why only tabernacle of David? Because he gave God his best. So tabernacle of David is equivalent to, he did his best. God, you're best singers, best musicians. 24 bar 7, continuous. He even paid them and he told them, you just do this. Don't do anything else. Raise worship to the Lord, intercession, prophetic. And it is said that many of the Psalms which we have in the Bible are from this time because they needed songs. They needed to write songs to sing 24 bar 7. So songs came out of the tabernacle of David. And in history, we do see there are people who have practiced this form of intercession. One is in 480, there was a monk by the name of Alexander Akimates. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, 5 verse 17, it says, pray without seizing. So you know what this monk did? He found like a cave kind of a place. He went there near the Black Sea. He took some people with him and he told them, we will follow the exhortation of Paul. We will pray without seizing. And they started praying, praying, praying, praying. Day and night, day and night, day and night, they started praying. So this is one of those relatable sort of practices. In fact, they were known as the Alexander and the sleepless ones because they never stopped praying day and night they used to pray. So that is one example. Moravians, I told you about Moravians. 100 years. Isn't it? There was a prayer chain. I told you, 24 hours prayer chain. So it started like that. But the prayer chain did not stop for 100 years. So that we also call it as the Moravian revival. So why am I talking here? Because day and night, day and night they were interceding. What is the result? They say that the missionary movement came out of the Moravian revival. Before that, it seems one missionary used to be available for 5000 people. But after the Moravian revival, one missionary per 60 people because so many missionaries started going out. And God, you see when we pray, worship, see God. God does the work. So there was a huge missionary movement. Even people like William Carey, they are impacted by the Moravian prayer revival. So that's an example. You all know about Yongi Cho, right? Yongi Cho, David Yongi Cho. In Korea, Seoul, Korea, they have something known as the prayer mountain. So people go there. 24 bar 7 prayer is going on. For many years, it's still going on. There's prayer going on there. Something similar. The concept is like Tabernacle of David, 24 bar 7. And Dr. Cho talks about the impact of such prayer on the city as well as the nation. Yeah, an international house of prayer, Kansas City. One is that they have prayer going on 24 bar 7. Many ministries are born out of it. For example, they have food distribution, discipleship program, health clinic, food and clothing for children. They have adopt a block program, orphan justice center, crisis response international. So so many projects helping victims of human trafficking. So many things have actually resulted from praying like this. So I just want us to understand that God globally is rebuilding the Tabernacle of David. What is the result? Gentiles will come. And many ministries will grow out of this place of prayer, praise, worship and intercession. All right. So yeah, with that, I think time is up. So we will do fasting the next class. And hopefully we'll complete it that way of time for your exams. All right. So thank you, everyone. You can stand up stretch a little. Yeah. Thank you. And I'll see you in the next class. Thank you, everyone online as well. God bless you. Thank you for connecting week after week and really hope that you're being blessed by these sessions. God bless. Have a wonderful day.


We came from the bottom, but we got to the top, yeah. Jeffrey Simmons. It is so good to see you in person. I feel like I haven't had a chance to talk to you in a while. It's so good to sit down and be with you. How is everything going? How does it feel to be at St. Thomas Ford's Park? It's really great. Yeah? It's really great going into year three, getting the opportunity to actually be here with my teammates and person. Like you said, to see you in person. Just that vibe, you know, just that vibe to be back inside.  It's like I'm learning to gain more and more, and I'm just happy to be back. We're trying to get this done. You've had kind of a wacky start to your career. So you get drafted, you're recovering from an ACL. So you don't really get that off-season experience because, you know, you're healing from an injury. Then in year two, you should have a normal season.  So everything is altered across the National Football League. Year three, you're finally here in this building. You're able to have a real off-season. You're able to have real training and workout.  I think it's impacting my game already for sure, you know, just being able to, you know, from OTAs, especially just go all the way back right after the season, you know.  I really didn't have no major injuries coming out of the season. I felt good. But just getting my body back ready for this year because I was able to go workout. I was able to, you know, actually focus on what I need to focus on to get ready for year three. And that's getting my body right, you know, just learning from last year. You know, I'm sitting down watching film with my trainer, which is my uncle. Then I come here for OTAs.   It seems like you've had a tremendous impact on the football field in a very short amount of time. Is that surprising even to you, maybe the amount of impact, the amount of intensity you're able to bring to the field when you're still so young?  I was trying to just gain the trust and respect of my teammates.   And, you know, I think when your teammates see that, you gain the trust and you gain the respect of your teammate.  My role on this team, you know, is to be a D lineman, but also be a leader.  And I think everything there just falls in line. You know, you get the respect, you get the trust from your teammates. Now, you mentioned that leadership. I know that's something you kind of put an emphasis on, is learning how to be a leader. Really, growing into that role, do you feel like you have become a better leader this year than in previous years? Yeah, for sure. Like I said, you have to learn your teammates. You have to learn, you know, which guy you had to push harder, you know.   You know, I want to be first. I want to be that guy that I'm not just going to talk about it. I'm going to show you that. I'm going to be a leader by doing it.


Kelvin Benjamin and Joe judge and Dave Gettelman got into it over an apparent weight dispute He weighed in at 261 whenever he last year or something like that. They wanted him to get down to 251 He showed up at 268. So this is classic. He said that he could play Wide receiver at that weight. I don't know why it's a big deal for him to play tight end at that weight There was a lot of give-and-take a guess Joe judge is a Bill Belichick disciple Kelvin Benjamin said after getting cut from the team after a Verbal argument that was very public. I guess because media people were like Kelvin and Joe just got into it I have a perspective on Joe judge He's not a coach that can ever win a Super Bowl because he sits there and cusses all day Oh, no, you can tell he's a one-sided about everything. He said no at all That's not how it's supposed to work says Kelvin Benjamin And then every other Giants player has come out and supported Joe judge because they are currently on the Giants and trying to


Staff of the Central Statistics Office are the recipients of a two-week regional training workshop on the use of specialized software called Redatum for the dissemination of sensors and survey microdata. Redatum has been widely used by national statistical offices in Latin America for many years and is increasingly being used by statistical offices in the Caribbean as well as some countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Francis Jones, Population Affairs Officer, with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Eclat, was the lead facilitator for the training workshop. We're providing training in a software program which Eclat has over many years sort of owned and developed and programmed and we support the countries primarily of the Latin America and the Caribbean region in using this software which is basically about providing users of government statistics, so the St. Lucia Statistical Office will use it to provide sort of better, richer and deeper access to data, in this case, census data for their users. Since the first introduction to statistical offices in the Caribbean in the 1990s, the number of countries using Redatum for online dissemination of census data has grown to nine, with more expected to be added to the list of users. St. Lucia has made a lot of use of it in the past. The last three censuses, so going back to I guess the must be the 1990 census, St. Lucia has used this software, but partly because the census is a ten-yearly event and it's natural you have sort of staff turnover and so we're back in St. Lucia, probably after a good few years, we would have trained earlier sort of generations of statisticians in St. Lucia in using this software and with the office just in the process now of having collected and processing their census data, now is a very opportune moment for us to come and train the sort of new staff in how they can use this software to disseminate the census results. Senior IT officer with the Central Statistics Office, Bert Collemore, said the Redatum software allows the survey and census data to be readily accessible by a variety of stakeholders. So after we have done the initial phases of data capture and collection, you need to disseminate the data to the public to make it usable by policy makers, academics or whoever interested in finding creative ways to use St. Lucia data. People can access it however they want, it's a dynamic platform in the sense that it's not static, you don't produce static tables that are just there. The users have the ability now with that dynamic application to create different analysis and different use of the data right at the fingertip. During the workshop, prototype applications for the dissemination of data from Bahamas and St. Lucia's censuses were developed. These applications will be finalized and made available online. The workshop was conducted from Monday 27th November to Friday 8th December 2023. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glenn Simon reporting.