Hello! My name is Rosa Maria Costes Cisneros and I am collaborating with the Independent Theatre Hungary. I'm very happy to sit down with Michael Cullens, who is a performer, an author of the work It's a Cultural Thing, or is it? And we'll be talking today about the work. But before we get into that, it'd be great, Michael, if you could introduce yourself, and then link us into the project. My name is Michael Cullens, I'm a member of the Irish travelling community. I've been involved in the acting business since 1986. My first professional job was in 1987 as an Irish traveller actor. And then about, I'd say about 1993 or 1994, I began to write my own stuff about the travelling community and traveller stories and traveller cultures, traveller culture and the way travellers are perceived and treated in Irish society and out through Europe. And so can you tell us... And one of the first shows I wrote was... Go ahead, one of the first shows you wrote. Yes, please. We seem to be just breaking up a little there. The very first play I wrote was a play called Cultural Thing. And Cultural Thing is loosely based on my own story of growing up in Ireland as a member of the Irish travelling community from the early 60s where travellers would have had an umalic lifestyle and would have made a living from tin smitten, chimney sweeping, seasonal work and buying and selling horses, making and painting wagons and doing the markets. And would have travelled from village to village and town to town. And then it comes from the 1960s right through his childhood up to where he's a teenager and then into adulthood. And the experience is then about living the countryside, being forced out of the countryside because social welfare came in. And the tin smitten and the travel way of life was dying out, so they brought in social welfare. And in order to have social welfare you needed a permanent address. So we were forced into the big towns and cities and pushed out the suburbs into these big fields which had no facilities like water, toilets, electricity or refuge collection. And then my family would have moved to Dublin and grown up in Dublin in the field and then having to try and get into school. And because we were members of the travelling community we weren't allowed to mix or weren't accepted into the schools where there was settled people schools as we called them. So they built those freefrabs for traveller schools and they would have been placed at the back of boys schools and girls schools and we would have ended up in a girls school about 30 or 40 travellers. And it was then segregated playtime at the time. We weren't allowed to play in the playground with the settled children. And at that time in society in general there would have been segregated social welfare, segregated accommodation. So basically we were kind of pushed out into the margins of our society and we would have to move up in that.  And the way that the story is told it's told with a fun laughter, sadness and sometimes a little bit of music and a little bit of singing in that.  And that's the reason why it works because when I wrote the piece I was saying how do I do this play now without repeating the one thing or trying to get people to feel sorry oh here we go again these poor travellers were treated badly and now they want to tell us what we don't wrong.  And I have to say even thinking back when I was a child the freedom grown up with all your cousins the sense of the extended family your grandparents were on the side all your cousins were on the side we used to go to the fields playing, climbing trees you had your own din house so it was wonderful grown up it's only when you look back as an adult when you have your own kids and they kind of go oh yeah that was wrong this could have been done better because when it comes to education and employment we were very badly done done by because I would have grew up in a massive extended family and I'd say about 80 maybe 95% of them couldn't really arrive as adults so that means that they couldn't go for employment you couldn't go for jobs that non travelers could go for you know like the settled people's jobs and then when you did go for jobs in the low skilled jobs you couldn't actually say who you are you had to keep your identity to yourself you're afraid that you might meet people who were very nice people who were not members of the traveling community but you couldn't express who you are because you didn't want you were afraid that you might find out who you are and then the prejudice would come out and the discrimination and you'd lose your job so we had that other side of it as well. And it's quite powerful this you know telling the story but through the eyes of a child and you know it's when we're mad you know sometimes I remember someone once told me I was very mad with someone and they said you know Rosa imagine them as a child and when I could do that it's soft in something for me and so it's lovely that you you know you through the eyes of a child it's more accessible the you know the audience might not feel so harangued so kind of overwhelmed by the by the the work that they could then perhaps find something that's relatable in there so it's a lovely twist and in a way to to also offer something to the viewer to the audience. I totally agree with you like when I when I when the when the light went down on my head oh yeah the eyes of a child I knew that I could get away with so much and it could be so truthful because there's a saying from the out of babes and when you're playing the child like you're an adult on stage and then you turn into this child character the audience seem to accept you as the child character and then you can get away with everything and the show is quite funny in like particularly when you have to go to like if you could if you're trying to imagine living in a field with no running water or electricity or toilets and then you had to get up in the middle of the night now you could get away with doing your number two as they say but when you had to do your number one you had to find a place to go and one of the stories in the play was we had these it was in the summertime of the year we had these high nettles so we'd walk into the middle of the nettles and we'd get boards and we'd flatten the nettles and we'd make a den so you could go and use that as a toilet and then in the wintertime the nettles died so you had no place to hide to go to the toilet so you go over to the wall and then you had to bring somebody with you to keep an eye out because you didn't want to somebody catch you with your trousers down and you didn't care if settled people caught you because you didn't know it was the travellers you were ashamed of and now you can imagine a little young person anybody coming there Johnny Johnny is sure no there's nobody coming all right and then this little girl walks out to I seen you shouting at the wall last night it wasn't me it wasn't me do you not shout yourself do you not you know so you're trying to create that image and then the way to close the images if you think it was bad for those children to try and find a place to go to the toilet could you imagine what it was like for our mothers at the time and some of them pregnant and that's how you close the line so you you hooked them as a child and then you let them off as a child you hooked them on the line if you could imagine it was our mothers and then you just go straight into something else and then when I went back to school next day the nun says right children it's your playtime now and then you go back you into another story and I think that's the beauty of doing something like this because it is part of society it is part of who we are it is part of who they are because of the way society was at the time at the time and the way people were treated and not just like the Irish traveling community you had the Roman Egyptians all over Europe you had the Aborigines you had the Native American Indians you had the African Americans you had the working class people in working class areas all over the world all over Europe so you were trying to open up to everybody and I remember doing this show in India and the way people and I done it in Leeds in England as well and I done it in London and I remember that was black people in the audience Nigerians and and some Chinese people and they could actually relate to some of the stories that because because you were the child that they were yes that's how it worked yeah that's how it worked and so these stories you said at the beginning that a lot of them came from your own experiences was that true or was it just other stories as well that maybe people told you and did you kind of make some of them can you talk a little bit about that yeah and most of the stories would have come from my own childhood because I was born in a time where travelers were coming to the end of the nomadic lifestyle so I would have slept in the tent I would have slept in the old barrel top wagon which it's very similar it's not similar to look at the gypsy wagon but it's the same idea as the Romani wagon and then the whole move from from the traditional way of life to being forced into a big citizen town because of social welfare and then being pushed to the margins of society in the field with all these different travelers who you didn't know because travelers never traditionally lived together in big crowds they lived together in their own small extended family which would be maybe four or five families would live together and you had a kind of a circle that you would have traveled around the country because you knew you do the tin smitten and you do your heart stealing and you do your seasonal work so you went around again he got back to where you were staying the first time they were ready to accept you to do something else and then the whole move to Dublin and then the experience of living on a traveler's side with all these different travelers then grown up in Dublin and the word Knacker being used and the treatment of travelers when they went to the shops or went to a restaurant or without a drink and then the whole school experience where you weren't accepted they had their as they used to say their quota or their fair share of the members of the traveling community so they might have two travelers in each class and then the rest weren't accepted and then that whole thing about segregated play times and then when they got a bit older and you had to go for social welfare it was a segregated social welfare system then when you got older and you got married and you were trying to get your family settled in proper accommodation and the whole thing around this the segregated accommodation so there was everything seemed to be set in a way that was pushing us away from who we were and down the road where they were saying it was almost just keep those people out of all area and then you had people saying you know particularly when they came to accommodation that they know the price of the houses and lower the price of land and none of this was ever true and we notice that over the years that if you build a housing estate beside a travel site it gets sold every bit as quick as it would if you built it anywhere else because accommodation in Ireland is so hard to get people don't care they're just glad to be inside their own home and then the whole thing around you know going out with your friends and you play soccer then you grew up and you played soccer with settled people then you go to the pub for a drink and then you be the one to be refused out of 12 young men that looked exactly like you and who you were but because you were a member of the travel community I'm sorry you can't come in here today and then trying to deal with that internally so I would say that the play itself was like therapy for me because every time I'd done it I let something go and I was hoping that people that particularly members of the travel community and the settled community when they would see it they would let something go or accept something you know because the way the play kind of worked was that you enjoy this and then maybe a week this is what I've been told by people who've seen the show a week after something would happen in their daily life and they go oh now I know what he was saying now I understand what the story means but the story could have been really funny or really sad they would pick up on that and I think that's yeah that's that's put to your question yes I would have used enough of my own experience because when I started writing one of the best piece of advice I got from somebody was write from your own, write your own stories write from what's in yourself, write what's in your head and your heart and I would have listened because when I was growing up I couldn't read or write very well I had a great memory it was one of the things that developed from not being able to read or write was when somebody would tell me something I would always remember so when I'd be sitting there and you'd be sitting at the fire as a child or you'd be sitting at the table as a teenager or you'd be sitting at the bar having a pint as a man I'd listen to people talking and I'd take their stories and I always had the ability if I'd done a show in one county and I went to the next county and I usually try and meet traveller families or travellers who were working say within the train and centres or who are youth workers or community workers or if I'd done something I would rope it into the show that night because it was important for that area so the work like it's a a cultural thing in progress man progress man I'd be almost telling another story that might come from the day that I landed to set the show up I was talking to some travellers and the traveller culture is the way that we can hold and tell stories I had so many questions but you've already answered many of them and one of those was about any stories that people might have told you after viewing it because you wrote the play or it was first performed in 2005 and so a lot of time has gone by but as you're saying you constantly are adding things to it and it's changing depending on where you are and who you're meeting and so are you still performing it and do you still kind of respond to the community where you are and it's current the way it's performed and now I would have revamped the show about two years ago because it was a one-hander then it was a two-hander then it went back to a one-hander and because of the situation of young people in Ireland and the whole education system because we have more and more younger travellers going to primary school and secondary school not toward level education yet, very few and there was a couple of things happening in the education system and there was a couple of things happening to young travellers so I rebamped it and brought in a young actor who's my son Johnny and Johnny's just gone 16 now so Johnny would have been maybe 10 or 11 at the time and he would have he was the son and I was the adult so I was still telling my story but I was telling my story to him and then he was telling his story to me in the year 2017 or 2018 so the audience was getting two different stories almost two different worlds of the same show about the travelling community so my story was going one way and we combined it so it was almost like I was telling him my story he was telling me his story and that's how I rebamped it and it we premiered it down in Galway for the first time and it worked very well so both of us were over the moon because obviously when you change something you're always worried because it actually worked very well and that's what we're doing at the moment and yes we're still performing and we haven't performed anything I haven't done anything I'd say 19 months because of covert which is very hard so what I've done was I wrote a script a film script that I wanted to do to keep my mind occupied in these hard times so yes we are we're still modernising it sometimes we go back and find a story that might relate to something that's been done today and then we choose that story as well fantastic and can you tell me a little bit about the title it's a catchy title it's also a quite intense title and it's asking a question immediately so if you could tell me a little bit about the title the title is a cultural thing or is it a cultural thing or is it a travel and progression a cultural thing or is it you know when you're trying to write something it's like another show I done which was about a father losing a son through suicide because suicide is very very high in the travelling community and I was trying to come up with a name for that and I remember walking around and I remember seeing magpies and when I was a child travellers were very busy and you would see magpies outside the door you wouldn't go out and you'd be blushing your face one for sorrow, two for joy and then one for sorrow, two for joy three for girl, four for boy five for something you know but there was a word in it like you would lose if you've seen one magpie you have a bad look for the day and if you've seen two there's one for sorrow, two for joy but that's not fair stories to wait for the next one so I said I seen a magpie landed on a pile on and then I went oh yeah magpies on the pile on that would work because both travellers and settled people would relate to the name and then cultural thing when you talk about culture, Irish culture which Irish culture is a beautiful culture we have a beautiful land we have a beautiful history and then from the eyes of the Europeans or the rest of the world the Irish culture is mythic with leprechauns with Prince and Guinness we're all very highly educated with the Bucketels and then you have the travel community which our culture which was the dramatic lifestyle the tin smitten the romantic stories, the romantic songs the beautiful big extended families living freely out through society no worries everybody gets on well and then you have the other side of it where you have the discrimination the racism, the prejudice the hurt that's caused to people the way people are seen by other members of society and is that or part of our culture? so the line is a cultural thing or is it so which one is it, is that part of our culture or is this notion that we have part of our culture and progress is that the word, you know, a cultural thing now and then a travelling progress is we have never lost or walked away or denied who we were and who we are even though they tried to assimilate us they tried to push us out to the margins of society they tried to block our ways when it came to trying to make a living trying to rear our children trying to have a life and that's where the cultural thing or is it and that's where that title comes from because of the romantic notion of Irish culture and so my final question if you could describe or maybe use three words to describe the play what might you say what three words or phrases might come to mind three words would be entertaining a brilliant story three words would be the three lines I would come up with off the top of my head to explain the three to explain the three questions is this show is being told for the first time by a member of the Nectar minority group who happens to be a storyteller these stories are real stories there are stories that some of the stories are related to the but some of the stories are related to society they're related to other people they're related to other groups like the Roman Egyptians like the Native American Indians if you got somebody to tell you my story from any other community you could tell you that story and I think that's the beauty of that story but being up on stage and inviting an audience into your life what affects you as a young child grown up being able to relate and tell beautiful stories and some of them very hard and very sad stories and having the audience you having the audience in the palm of your hand because every so often I would stop to see could I hear a pin drop and sometimes you would hear a pin drop and that's when you're saying to yourself just from my own perspective of what it means to me is oh yeah they're right there with you I could actually not say anything and I still have them and I think once they come and see the show especially the live show they would feel the energy, the vulnerability and the happiness of that character and I think for me that would cover the three questions is that looking at on Tube is great doing the show online with the circumstances that we're living in now with no choice but you cannot be alive performance they can feel them and they can feel you when you can hear them breathe or cough and they can hear you at the back of the stage and come on very nervously and I think all that adds to the show and to the stories I hope that was the question we were asked it's a lovely way to end the conversation and the stories and the places that you've toured the work and where you've shared the work and you know your vulnerability and your sharing of your story is inviting people to share theirs but reflect on their own so thank you so much thank you so much very welcome thank you and I love the idea of telling the story through the eyes of a child and so I you know we can go out into the world kind of remembering that rediscovering the world through the eyes of a child remembering the good and the bad but also through the eyes of a child so thank you so much Michael thank you so much for sitting down with us and for sharing you're more welcome


keeping us, being in a fellowship with us. Lord, thank you Lord for this day and we are going to listen the lessons and be with us and let us understand everything what Ma'am says and let us store all of those things in our hearts. Lord, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen, amen. Thank you, thank you for praying and once again good morning and warm welcome to everyone. I hope your assignments went on well and shortly you will get the marks as well. So the second assessment is of a greater weightage towards the end of the year. So you can pay attention no matter how your first assessment went. The second one is of more weightage. So concentrate, study, I'm sure you'll be able to score really well in the upcoming one as well. So yes, end of the semester. Yeah, yeah, end of the semester. Okay, so let's continue with our chapters here. So far we have learned about prayer. We've learned about personal prayer. We have learned about developing a discipline of prayer, a pattern of prayer and all of those things. But now we are moving into praying at a deeper level and what that means and what we have in scripture that talks about praying with intensity, praying with persistence and praying at a spiritual level which is definitely deeper. So there is something known as travail or travailing in prayer. The Bible talks about travailing in prayer. Now what is travail? For us to understand usually when there is a child birth, a woman is just about to give birth to a child, we all know that there is a cry that these women let out because of this entire process of delivering the child. So that cry is known as travail. So we can understand just by the fact that travail is associated with childbirth that our plea to God, when we say travailing in prayer, it is desperate, it is intense. It is also something that you can associate with the result around the corner because a woman would travail before the child is born. So in the same way, when we are in prayer, sometimes what happens, we have our general kind of prayer. We go before God, we petition, we ask, we declare, we do so many things, but you come to a place in prayer where it's beyond that, okay? And when does travail happen? It can happen regarding very many things. It can happen regarding our own personal prayer requests or it can happen with regard to the burden that we have for the nations and people to be saved. So generally, like when you study about some of the people who were engaged in revivals, you would see that some of them have this experience of travailing in prayer. So it went beyond asking, receiving, petitioning and all those things. It went to a deeper level where there is an intensity and a depth in the prayer. So that is what we call as travail, okay? And whenever you think of travail, you think about a woman who is going, you know, who is going to deliver a child. Okay, so that is travail. Now, why is there this form of prayer?  He puts it on our heart in a very strong way. Okay, He puts it on our heart in a very strong way. So a good example is, you know, of this person called as Father Nash. Who was helpful in the ministry of Charles Phinney. Many of you would have heard about Charles Phinney, a very famous, you know, a person whom God used to bring revival. And in the ministry of Charles Phinney, it is said that he would go and preach and people would come to the altar by the hundreds and thousands and repent, you know, in no time like that. They would just repent and many, many people would give their lives to Christ. So this phenomenon which was going on in his ministry was amazing because, you know, sometimes preachers preach, but you actually don't see this kind of a response. And Phinney was seeing this quite regularly in all his meetings. So one of the secrets behind this kind of meeting was a person known as Father Nash. Okay, Father Nash. So Father Nash was, you could say, a kind of an associate. He decided that he is going to partner with Phinney's ministries only in prayer. So Phinney would do the preaching and Father Nash would do the praying. So the kind of prayer people say Father Nash did was this travail in prayer. So what he used to do is he would go to the places, you know, where the ministry was planned, the meetings were planned. He would go there a few months before or a few weeks before with two to three people and they would rent a house, there they'll start praying. So they used to pray, pray, pray, pray, pray to such an extent that it seems, you know, people say that they wouldn't eat, they wouldn't drink water, they would even be in such an intense level of prayer that you can only hear groans and cries, you know, something like travail coming from that place. And, you know, when you study about the life of Charles Phinney and the ministry of Father Nash, you read that as long as Father Nash was alive and he was praying like this, the ministry of Phinney was very successful. He had a lot of results, but Father Nash died early. Once he died and he was buried, Phinney continued his ministry and he realized that, you know, the way he used to have people coming to the altar, that was not happening anymore. He tried a lot to continue preaching the way he did earlier, but the results were nowhere close to what it was when Nash was alive and, you know, praying for Phinney. So then Phinney understood what is the difference now in my ministry. I don't have the kind of prayer backup, you know, which Nash and his team were providing, okay? So one of the examples of people who travailed in prayer for souls to come into the kingdom would be Father Nash. I'm sure there are many other examples that we can talk about, but I just wanted to share this for us to understand that we can have the burden of what God puts on our hearts to this extent that we even travail in prayer, okay? And before we go any further into this particular subject, I want to tell us that travailing is not something which we can manufacture. For example, I said that a travail happens before, you know, we are ready to see the promised birthed. Isn't it? So does it mean that if I travail, I will see the answers soon? We cannot make travail happen. It's something that has to come from within. You know, it comes through that spiritual connect with God. So we cannot create it or make it happen. You understand what I'm saying? Though it's a great thing, it's a wonderful thing to pray at, you know, this deeper level and this deeper intensity, you and I cannot make it happen. We have to faithfully engage in prayer and as we engage in prayer, we might experience, you know, this travail at some point, okay? Okay? And when is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? We can't make it happen, right? So we just engage with God and we would see that there is this kind of travail that comes forth. So scriptures tell us even before, you know, Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. We always say, right, that Jesus went, he commanded, there was a dead man in the tomb. He went, he said, Lazarus come forth. But just before he said Lazarus come forth, the scriptures record that he let out, you know, a sigh, he let out this kind of a travail, okay? So we know that Jesus was engaging deeply with God and this is a kind of prayer which he prayed. So what we recognize is Jesus didn't just go there and do a surface level prayer. It was a deep prayer because he went there and you know, the family was there and scriptures tell us Jesus wept. This is in John chapter 11. If you can go through verses 33 to 43, okay? I'm not going to read through the entire passage now, but Jesus went there, he wept and before he calls Lazarus out, scriptures say that he did let out a sigh, okay? So this sigh or this kind of, you know, a cry from Jesus is comparable to a travail. So is it possible that Jesus was engaging in a very deep form of prayer before resurrecting a dead man? Yes, it is possible, okay? So it tells us that Jesus knew how to engage at a deeper level of prayer. The other place where Jesus had or expressed this deep kind of prayer was in the Garden of Gethsemane, okay? So even in the Garden of Gethsemane, we know that, you know, he was preparing to go to the cross and so his heart was very troubled. Can somebody read John chapter 12 verses 27 to 32, please? Please read into the mic. John 12 verses 27 to 32. Now my soul is troubled and ironing. Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thunder. Others said, an angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, this voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now this, now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Rin. So as you can see here, Jesus is predicting his going away and what is the condition of his heart at that time? He says, my soul is troubled. Okay, my soul is troubled. And he has troubled to an extent where, though he knows the will of God, his prayer is something like, Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose, I came to this hour. So he is under a lot of pressure. Okay, emotional pressure. He just doesn't know how he is going to go through the cross. And we read in Matthew 26, you know, under this kind of pressure, he goes for prayer. He goes for prayer and over there, you know, he has his disciples with him. He prays intensely in the garden of Gethsemane. Okay, so how intensely we read that he even was sweating blood. So obviously, it's a very intense form of prayer that Jesus engaged in. It was a serious prayer. We know that he himself prayed because he was under this kind of tremendous tension. But he asked his disciples also, do you recall?  He comes back and he sees what did the disciples do? He was sleeping.  He comes back and he looks at the disciples and he says, what is this? What are you doing?  Could you not, you know, watch and pray even for one hour? So he himself is engaging at a deep level of prayer, expects his disciples to engage in prayer, but they are not able to. At this point, they are not able to.  Okay, but he continues to engage and we read how, you know, he sweats blood. So what is happening?  Okay, so Jesus, of course, engaged in this form of intense prayer and we know that, you know, definitely, definitely it would have been helped or strengthened by the Holy Spirit, because remember we read about the Holy Spirit in Romans 8, 26 to 27, that he himself helps us in our weaknesses. So when we do not know what to pray, he gives us, right? He leads us into the groans and sighs and all of, all of those expressions. So the Holy Spirit would have, of course, enabled Jesus in this form of travailing prayer, okay? And he engaged in it.  So did Jesus cry? Did Jesus, you know, express intensity in prayer? Yes. Yes, he did. And it was with regard to the matter of the cross. Okay? So if he himself experienced this form of prayer in our own lives, sometimes, I'm not saying every prayer is a travailing prayer. Some prayers can come under this category. Okay? So what could be those prayers that come under the travail category? What do you think? I'm not able to hear you. It changes? Person to person. Person to person. Okay. Yeah, that's true. I get that. It is different from person to person, you know, the intensity. But I'm saying in general, what could be those prayers which have this intensity? Okay? Sickness. When you're praying for somebody who's sick? Yes. Yeah. When you have more burden? Okay. When you have more burden? Okay. Sure. Burden for what? Okay. Okay. Sure. So you have a burden about anything. Maybe God's plan for your life and you really want to see it fulfilled. Or somebody said souls. I agree with that. Many times God gives us that burden for souls, that burden for, you know, maybe a region. You really wanted to be saved. So, yeah, it's possible. You can have a burden, okay? From God. Anything else? Okay. Sickness and, you know, close to death. Somebody is close to death. Then you are travailing. Okay. That's true. Yes. Repentance. Who's repentance? Oh, oneself. Okay. Yeah. Makes sense.  Then yes, you are in that place where you're crying out to God. You're deeply engaging with God, right? So, travail. Traveil happens. How about praying for family members who don't know Jesus or family members who know Jesus and who have gone far away. You know, into their own thing and their lifestyle. So, these are all matters where we usually see us engaging in a very deep way in prayer. Okay. And the surface level of prayer is not going to help. It's not going to help. We have to come to that place, you know, where we are before God and enabled by the Holy Spirit. We are praying, we are claiming every promise of God's word and you know, we are there travailing but another beauty of travailing as I already told us is generally after travail comes the childbirth. So, the Holy Spirit takes us into that place and if we sustain in that phase of travailing, the next is the result or the promise itself. Okay, the promise fulfilled. But, know that this is not something you and I can create. As we journey with God in prayer, God will strengthen us to go into this place of travail. Okay, but we have to allow him. Yes, Anand. Okay. How can you compare the childbirth? Sure, sure. So, you see if you notice you know the delivery process, right? The labor, the strain, the pains, yeah, the pains that the mother goes through. So, the expression of that pain is what is travail. Got it? That is why we are comparing it to childbirth. Okay, great. Now, you know, Paul in his ministry even he talks about travailing. He talks about travailing unto childbirth. Okay, so Galatians chapter 4 and verse 19 if one of us could please read and please read into the mic. Galatians 4 verse 19 I live my little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you I would like to be present with you now and to change my tone for I have doubts about you. Okay, so can you just read the first part of it again Vimal? My little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you. Okay, very nice. So, what does Paul say there? He says, I labor in birth, right? So, the terminology he uses is I labor in birth again I labor in birth again so what is he laboring for that last part it says until Christ is formed in you so the fulfillment that he wants to see in the believer is Christ being formed in the believer. Okay, so in a simple way for us to understand the result of Paul's ministry it is to see Jesus formed in every believer okay, and that should be the result of all our ministry you know if we are doing ministry what should be the result? Christ should be formed in the people okay, by that we mean the character of Christ the faith of Christ okay, so Christ is formed in people and Paul is saying I labor in birth what is he doing? He is also travelling so did Paul pray? we know that he prayed a lot do you think he labored in prayer along with his teaching and other forms of ministry so that believers will become more like Jesus? Yes he did definitely we can say that he would have travelled in prayer for Christ to be formed in the people and in many places we notice that Paul you know you have people who he says okay he says things in my children or my son he uses terminology like that you have many teachers but you don't have enough fathers so he is using terminology where he is talking about a spiritual birth of or rather it's not really a spiritual birth but it's a spiritual parenting that he does and for that he says in my ministry I have travelled I labor in birth so it's a very tough kind of ministry till he sees Christ formed in the people and even prayer I am sure would have been in that place of prayer where he prayed for the believers he prayed much for the believers and even travelled so that he can see the character you know and the faith and the power of Jesus manifest in each and every believer so this concept of giving birth is nothing new in scripture it's an intense suffering you want to call it in the inner man okay it's hard to explain actually it's very hard to explain what exactly this travail is in a spiritual sense in the natural we said a mother travells before she gives birth to her child but in a spiritual sense it's a suffering in the inner man and it is comparable to the pangs of childbirth one thing that we must recognize is God somehow has called us as human beings to partner with him in prayer partner with him even in a very intense way so the way Paul said I labor in childbirth and if you look at someone like Elijah we talked about him isn't it and we said persistence in prayer God already promised but here is a person who is praying seven times do you think that's easy to have a mindset you are not seeing the result but you continue to trust that God is going to do it it's not easy so definitely Elijah would have gone into prayer with that determination and there would have been a sense of suffering within for him to do whatever it takes to see the results so now we don't know how long Elijah prayed we only know he told his servant to go see as the cloud come once twice did he pray for 10 minutes did he pray for 30 minutes or did he pray I don't know how long he prayed those seven times how many hours he prayed we don't know but there was a need for somebody to labor unless somebody labors it's very difficult to see the results so can somebody quickly read John chapter 7 and verse 38 we will read that again with the mic he who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow reverse of living water ok thank you so we who believe in Jesus out of our hearts will flow rivers of living water in some translations it says belly out of your belly will flow rivers of living water and you know some translations and it's comparable to the womb to the womb as well we know exactly if you go very technically you might say oh look heart is not belly and belly is not womb but the idea or the picture is from the depths of our being from the depths of our being will flow rivers of living water so we have to understand that God can release ok God can give birth to his promises to the work of the spirit through our belly and in the natural we do recognize that you know a woman gives birth through her womb ok so when you compare this with prayer you know when we are praying what are we saying we will see the fulfillment of God's promise when we travel we will see the result or the birthing of the promise of God so in a sense you know what God is doing is out of our belly he is releasing his works and his promises so you know some people put it this way we are the womb of God when we pray we are the womb of God so how is it that God is going to make things happen in this world through the womb and that womb is nothing but praying believers when we pray and we pray with intensity before God we become the womb of God we are able to give birth now if a woman does not travel what happens generally travel is associated with delivery ok the baby comes out if a woman doesn't do that or she doesn't go into that process of traveling there will never be the delivery of that child in the same way if believers or I am using the word the church the church doesn't travel imagine we don't pray we don't pray intensely we just go with the flow we are just happy by ourselves we will not see the manifestation of the purposes of God through our lives you get it so travel is very important if we have to give birth we are praying for the city we are praying for the nation if the church is not prevailing at some point there is no question of seeing the results of people coming to the kingdom of God so the point is as believers as the church of Jesus Christ we need to come to that place of travel if the church is not the womb of God or the prayers of the church are not the womb of God we will not see the release of God's promises ok so prevailing is very important we have to help we have to ask God to help us journey into that to reveal in Isaiah 66 verses 7 and 8 again could somebody please read this ok ok so this passage talks about Israel and it talks about how Israel was formed in a day look at history you will see that the whole political process you know it just took about a day for the nation to actually be formed so it is a prophetic word about literal Israel God's people and the term used there is Zion before she labored she gave birth it is just to give us an understanding that the birth was very quick very quickly the nation was born and the term used for God's people was Zion ok now if you look at passage in Hebrews 12 we believers are called as the spiritual Zion we are the spiritual Zion so the way the real Zion or Israel was able to be formed you know because when she the birth happened in the same way we as God's spiritual Zion we too must go to that place of travelling only then we will see the spiritual promises of God fulfilled ok do you get the comparison yeah so it is not talking about literal nation or anything like that it is just talking about the spiritual people of God which is the only believer who accepts the Lord Jesus Christ so as God's people you know we go to that place and we travelling prayer now one of the things that we must get very clear in our minds is that travelling even though we are saying childbirth and you know all the pain and the agony of the suffering of childbirth it need not look like us shouting and screaming and weeping all the time when we pray sometimes we could be praying and I am sure all of you have had this experience and we are praying very intensely right but we are not expressing it in these forms you know all the veiling and screaming none of that so we cannot judge the intensity of the prayer by the volume or the loudness of that prayer or the expression of that prayer somebody could be praying very very softly or very you know quietly only they can hear themselves but they could be travelling so don't judge based on voice levels or the expressions you know somebody could be crying and shouting and all but it may not be a travelling in the first place so travelling is a spiritual intensity it's an inner man's suffering you could say which you sense only deep inside but we have to get to that place it's only when we get to that place that you know we will become the womb of God and give birth to the promises of God and you know God is in the process of creating how many of us know that God is in the process of creating yeah so any questions no questions okay yeah it says that the Holy Spirit is there like he he he groans and utters cries that we cannot express so why do we have to the Holy Spirit is already doing on our behalf why do we have to groan and sigh and all that and travelling the Holy Spirit is already doing it okay so see it's about co-labering Holy Spirit even when you read that scripture it says he helps us in our weaknesses so he has a part to play he will help us but we have to do our part okay and similarly whenever you read about the the aid of the Holy Spirit or the help of the Holy Spirit you recognize that he will not take over our responsibility of praying so for example again going back to the praying in the spirit you know lesson you read Paul says I will pray with my understanding I will pray with the spirit okay so whenever we say I will will is is my capacity to decide so I have the opportunity to say I will or I will not so for example if Paul said I will not you know pray with my understanding what is he doing his part he is shutting the door on the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit is helping but he is saying I will not pray with my understanding I will not pray with my spirit he has decided Paul has decided what can Holy Spirit do Holy Spirit will not push he will say it's okay it's up to you you understand so there is something that God is doing the spirit is doing but we also have to partner we have to collaborate so the moment see that is will okay that is where when you look at the way God has created human beings salvation is not dumped into every human being you have to be saved no what are we all doing we are exercising our will we are exercising our choice isn't it in the same way when it comes to prayer prayer in the spirit receiving the help of the Holy Spirit I will it's a decision if I decide I don't want Holy Spirit cannot pray all the groaning nothing will come out of me because that is my role I have to do it or in other words I am yielding my faculties what are my faculties you know my vocal system my body I am yielding it to the Holy Spirit and I am saying okay you release you know you do what you are doing I will express it so that's how it works so in your question you ask if Holy Spirit is doing then why should we it's half and half you know if you want to look at it that way he will do but if I don't yield it will never be complete did you get what I am trying to say so our will is involved our cooperation is involved we have a role we have a responsibility that's why I have been saying we are the womb of God so if we don't begin to pray like that cry out to God like that there will never be a childbirth or the birthing of God's promises does God want to do yes he wants to do people are not willing so he can't do it okay so that's the whole point the sovereignty of God he can't do everything but he has chosen to work with us if we say no he has to go find somebody who will say yes okay till such time you will there will be a hindrance to what God wants to perform okay so anyway think about this we will just come back after the 10 minute break and pick up from where we have stopped even if the online students have any questions please feel free to post it thank you


A chip off the old block, presented by Science at NASA. The expression chip off the old block has taken on new meaning. Scientists are using cells and tissue from the human body to create living 3D versions of human organs within see-through structures. These innovative tissue chips, about the size of a thumb drive, hold great promise for improving drug testing, researching diseases, personalizing medical treatment, and more. A few will soon be headed to the International Space Station, or ISS, through a collaboration between the National Institutes for Health, or NIH, and the ISS National Laboratory, in partnership with NASA. Tissue chips can host different cell and tissue types and mimic the intricate biological functions and responses of full-sized human organs, such as the lungs, liver, and heart. Cells grown in tissue chips behave more like cells of a real organ than do cells grown in static cell culture dishes. That's partly because the chips can be interwoven with miniscule channels lined with thousands of living human cells, through which air, blood, nutrients, medications, and the like can flow. Tissues can even introduce a disease like cancer into a tissue chip to study disease progression. The Space Station is especially well-suited to advance research in this technology. Lucy Lowe is the Scientific Program Manager for the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, or NCATS, at NIH. Microgravity causes changes in human physiology that directly translate to disease pathology here on Earth. In a couple of weeks in microgravity, we can model something that might take 10 or 15 years here on Earth to become even clinically relevant. So, we can start understanding and uncovering disease pathologies much faster. Other tissue chip in space study areas include respiratory system immune response, kidney function, blood-brain barrier, musculoskeletal diseases such as osteoporosis, and immune system aging. Insights from these studies could help researchers understand diseases better, design treatments, and streamline testing of new candidate drugs. In the future, tissue chips could also advance precision medicine, customized healthcare with disease treatment and prevention that takes into account a patient's genes, environment, and body. Every individual reacts differently to cancers, genetic disorders, and infections. Understanding tissue chips is a way to understand, in a tightly controllable model system, exactly what's happening to a specific person. We could use tissue chips to pinpoint what it is about a particular group that's making their cancers act in a particular way towards a particular drug, or what kind of drug might be more useful for one population than another. Scientists are even working on a human on a chip, in which tissue chips for various organs will be linked together to mimic whole body physiology. Researchers could then test potential effects of a substance like a drug across the entire body before testing in humans. Essentially you throw all these cells together and provide them with the nutrients they need to do their thing. It's literally like taking a little bit of you, putting it into a home away from home, letting the cells chat with each other, and looking at how they respond to different stresses and different drugs. This truth can be stranger than science fiction. To learn more about science being performed on the space station, go to www.nasa.gov. For more on scientific advancements both on and off Earth, visit science.nasa.gov.


The House of Representatives ad hoc committee on filled mass transit schemes across the country have summoned the ministries of finance, the ministers of finance trade and investment, the accountant general of the federation, head of service and other stakeholders to appear before the investigative committee on Monday, the 11th of September. Chairman of the ad hoc committee, Honourable Afam Oganeh, made the ruling on Wednesday in Abuja during resumption of hearing, but observed that these key ministries and agencies failed to appear despite receiving notice from the clerk of the committee one week to the takeoff. He threatened to invoke sections of the constitution and the act of parliament that gives the House the powers to invite any Nigerian or individual domicile in the country and doing business within. The Honourable Minister of Finance, the acting accountant general of the federation, the head of service of the federation, the Honourable Minister of Trade, Industry and Investment that appear unfailingly on Tuesday, September 10, 2023 at 11 a.m. Additionally, the clerk of this Honourable Committee is to invite the managing director of the infrastructure bank to appear on same day, same time to come with him at the following, the national association of road transport owners and the road transport employers of Nigeria. They are all summoned to appear before this committee. Earlier members of the committee interfaced with the Abuja Investments Company Limited and the National Union of Road Transport Workers on ways to improve mass transportation in the country. Now the ACL is also intervening in reaching out to the private sector and have identified several private sector companies to come and intervene in various sectors of the transport. However, one of the challenges that we are facing is there are no clear legal and regulatory framework for the urban mass transportation in the FCT. So that has actually made the private sector to be a little bit wary of intervention. But efforts are still ongoing. AISL in a bit to intervene has also commissioned transaction advisors to even advise on. We are not here to wish hunt anybody. But we want to get to the root of why it failed and because it has to be our business. Absolutely. Because if you are telling me that you are shareholding and you have a stake in Abuja urban mass transit, you should be able to know what is going on there. In 2013, 100 units of Yuntan buses were acquired and it was financed through Abuja mass transit. We are interested to know what happened to those buses. How much was generated? What is the loss and how many buses are still in this exchange? So we provide this information when necessary. If the shareman allows that. Forget about these other things which are observed as challenges and you are way forward. Is there a new report? I mean perhaps the 200 were given to you, Abuja urban, UN, UTR, SONIC. Were you able to actually retrieve any of those buses from this company when they left operation? Don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.