G'day mate 40 here. So I'm a bad person. I'm so embarrassed. Art Bell pointed this out I didn't even hear myself, but when I was talking about what I missed in LA What I primarily miss I mean what I thought about what was like right on the top of my thinking was my stuff Because I had all these aches and pains I knew if I had my my flex bar and my activator that I could get rid of a lot of these aches and pains so One of the things that I missed Oh, man, where is it now? Oh Is this this little bit of foam I really miss this I really miss this Because you just slip this right under Here you slip put this right under Your your hip and it's a wonderful It's a wonderful release for the back There's 90 seconds like this Oh Really miss this piece of fine so under each hip just like 90 seconds under each hip see like And you just feel some of the muscles around your spine just release like great Great for releasing some spinal compression. I really miss this and then I missed my I Missed my setup here with my seat see I love like this cushion here And the second cushion here and then that it just Just makes sitting down so pleasant and then When I read this is how I like to read I've got three pillows here and then I just put this down here Just so comfortable just sit here and read I Really miss my stuff man. I miss my setup Then I Miss this This is what you use to like roll out tight muscles just like dig into any muscle just like roll it out Normally, I probably swear when I really dig out but I Don't want to swear on YouTube because I don't want to be a bad example for the kids but I use it for the to roll out any tight muscles and then And then to even out my leg length. This is like a great exercise to even out Leg length is it you So I send this knee down that way send this knee up this way Kind of do it five seconds on five seconds off Found that on YouTube So and then the opposite way So I tend to have right Interior pelvic tilt my right hip tends to tilt forward which then reduces the length of I Think my right leg or one of my legs and then so usually have one leg this longer than the other Because of right interior pelvic tilt. So doing this exercise sends it even out the leg length and then I followed up with just pushing the knees out and Resisting so is that called isometric and then Pushing the knees in and resisting It seems to really even out the the leg length and then I miss my 15 pound flex bar This is my 10. This is 15 pounds. This is 25 pounds Then this is 10 pounds. I like to usually warm up with the 10 pounder Just get everything working and shift to the 15 20 25 is a 25 pound flex bar. I missed all this stuff and Then I really like this Thing for ankle stretch. It's like to Pop this in Whoops, let's stretch it that way then Do it like 30 seconds that way Then stretch it that way. These are really weak ankles, particularly my left ankle. I Would have a lot of ankle sprains, but doing this Somehow both gives me more flexibility in my ankles. So I'm less likely to tweak my ankles and I also notice when I'm releasing and stretching my ankles that I tend to have less neck pain Neck neck imbalance like I find free ankles goes with free neck free neck goes with free ankles So when I increase the freedom flexibility in my ankles I notice that I increase You know the the release and freedom in my neck. They seem to correlate I also missed this Good to just lay on this for a couple of minutes get some release in the spine and do it the other way Yeah, I know a lot of people who found that this this has helped their Their back pain, so it's called true back that on Amazon and then These are like 10 pound weights that I attached to to my ankles and I Do a couple of exercises with this that was prescribed by a physical therapist I down here Then this ten times and Then I do this Not ten times and then do this about 20 times then Then I do this Is it normal for floors to be carpeted in LA? I Think it varies So a lot of floors are carpeted and a lot of floors are wood in LA and then I Not gonna see it that way These little tweaks right these little exercises just really Helps keep me feeling great and then can you I Was shocked I had a physical therapist just asked me without any weights on my ankles to just lift my leg up And I couldn't I couldn't lift my leg past my waist my left leg So I also do this Every day, so just try lifting your if your right hand to try lifting your leg up And I noticed a lot of people can't lift their left knee above their waist I just had a little weight to it and it was I was able to lift my right knee up to my shoulder but I couldn't lift my left knee Love my waist So do these exercises every day and then You can never have too much like grip strength. So I have lots of these lying around to work on my grip strength and Think this is like 15 pounds must have these lying around to work on my grip strength Well, I use these a lot when I'm live streaming. It's a good way to Release anxiety and the calibrated for each finger and then like to have these around as well so and I'm working live streaming building up the grip strength


Hey welcome to morning prayer at the Radiant City Center at 8 a.m. and 23 seconds we're glad to be joining a lot of our staff is over in our Richland campus we have our kids camp today and so we get the amazing opportunity to be downtown and to pray here and watch our prayers change things over there like Mike Bickle calls it the prayer cannon you point the prayer cannon toward a location and then God changes things and you know for those in the room even those online you know if you know our Richland campus even help picture that sanctuary picture our kids that are there picture them encountering the Lord picture them hearing God's voice hearing picture them getting saved picture them getting baptized in the Holy Spirit and so we get to practice the spirit of Elijah this morning to pray for the hearts of the fathers to be turned to the children and the children to the fathers that's exactly what we're doing through our prayers and our intercession so as we go before the Lord and worship and praise and proclamation I want to read from Psalm 91 says it is good to give thanks to the Lord and sing praises to your name almost high to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night on an instrument of ten strings and on the loop and on the harp with harmonious sounds for you oh Lord have made me glad through your works and I will triumph in the works of your hands I'm just I'm just on the simplicity of the praise it is good to give thanks to the Lord I think there's giving in our hearts and that's exactly what we're going to do this morning I just want to lead us in this moment and just remind us that we are not initiating here on earth the scripture says to pray on earth as it is in heaven heaven is not joining with us but we are joining with heaven heaven is already praying and interceding heaven is worshiping and praising there's a song that's being sung even there's a song being sung over Kalamazoo in heaven we're not trying to initiate here on earth but we are literally joining in the heavenly song and so let's go this before this morning go before the Lord and I want us to practice that let's picture the throne room this morning we know Revelation 4 there's elders four living creatures 24 elders there's a sea of glass there's seraphim there's cherubim there's thunderings and lightnings let's go before that throne of grace this morning and join in that heavenly song let's begin lifting up our voices let's begin offering our praise before the throne room where we join in with the heavenly song we join in with the thanksgiving and the praise that's happening before your throne this morning power doesn't come so ascending before the throne of grace our weak little words and our songs rise collide with the will of god in heaven and there's an explosion of power and transformation change that happens from weak prayers and weak melodies ascending and colliding with the will of god in heaven like a nuclear reaction but we're joining with your hearts we're joining with your plan for the earth Lord we say not our will not our plans not the way that we want things not our dreams and desires the Lord we join in with the kingdom of heaven and Lord it's our prayer and desire to join down here on earth what's already happening in heaven Jesus you have already asked of the Father for the nations as your inheritance Lord we join in that prayer I want to turn our attention to intercession and encourage us to stay engaged as we pray for our kids that are about to head into worship this morning to receive the word of God praying out of Ephesians 1 17 through 19 asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of glory may give the spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of him the eyes of your understanding would be enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance and the saints and the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power the Lord we come before your throne of grace and we lift up our our kids to you knowing that they're not actually our kids first but they first our sons and daughters of the most high God the Lord this week at camp Lord as many are coming for fun to have a good time to connect to play games Lord I ask that you would ambush them with your love and your grace Father I ask for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus God I ask that Jesus would go from being a person in a story two thousand years ago he would go from being words on a page that you would go from being a person that their parents pray to to their personal savior to their personal Lord to the one that they have heard speak to them Jesus I ask that you would call them by name Lord in revelation it says to the one who conquers that you give a white stone with a name on it that only you and them know you are the giver and the speaker and definer of names and Lord we just ask that you would speak identity and their names and their purpose Lord in a generation and an hour where there is an agenda Lord to to tear down their identity to say they are not who God created them to be they are something else and they need to find and discover their own identity oh God I ask today that you would have mercy on our kids and that you would call them by name Jesus that you would appear to them and speak to them Lord that they would hear your voice they would feel your presence Lord even in worship Lord before the word is spoken Lord in worship we ask they would feel your presence they would feel the love of God Lord like John Wesley used to say Lord that their hearts would be strangely warmed Lord that their hearts would feel an experience a love that is beyond a love that they've experienced in this world God as the gospel is preached Lord as the pastors preach the gospel and preach the word to these kids Lord that it would pierce their hearts Lord that you would make yourself known and manifest to them God we even ask for baptism to the Holy Spirit introductions to the third person of the Trinity Lord that they would be baptized in the living flame of love Lord be asked the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened God that you would open up their eyes to the real meaning and purpose of life Lord that they would make it in a moment that you would show them oh I was created to worship oh I was created to bring you glory and honor and life even in their their little minds would make sense life only makes sense in your presence and Lord we just ask you would make sense of everything even even though they are young and developing in their understanding Lord that they would be strong in spirit Lord and that they would be strong in in love for you Lord they would be strong in their identity and their purpose so God we lift up our kids before we ask for the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Jesus Christ draw them into your love you know what is the hope of your calling God I ask Lord for calling to be written on their hearts Lord the world is recruiting them to have a calling for what they call justice the world is recruiting them to have a cause that lines up more with the spirit of the age than with the kingdom of God telling them to lay down their lives to fly the flag to give themselves to a false justice but God I ask that you would reveal the hope of your calling Lord I think as Samuel he didn't even know who was speaking to him he heard a voice and he didn't even know it was you that's how young he was and yet you said I want to speak to him and reach him because I want to give him the hope of a calling that he is to be a prophet of God and so Lord I ask that you would speak calling Lord even if they don't even recognize your voice yet Lord that you would call worship leaders and singers Lord call missionaries Lord preachers and pastors teachers and evangelists Lord that you would call mothers and fathers that you would call preachers of the gospel Lord you would call artists and artisans to beautify the gospel with their gifts and their talents Lord that you would reveal the hope and joy of a calling following Jesus there is no joy there is no thrill like a spirit led life that follows you to the ends of the earth and so God we just ask that you would reveal the hope of your calling Lord I ask that you would even give them pictures of 10 years down the road 20 years down the road Lord you would whisper the name of cities and nations God you would call forth musical gifts and singing abilities and songwriting and poetry and all the all the pieces of the calling Lord that that the world is trying to recruit them into the army for the spirit of the age but Lord that you would draw them out and reveal the hope of your calling Lord speak calling speak destiny Lord speak life over their future Lord where they have had death prophesied over them where they have heard nothing but death for Jen Alpha and Jen Z where they see where this nation is going Lord and they've had a doom and gloom prophecy spoken over them Lord I ask that you would reveal the hope of their calling or that you would even speak about future revival of the coming glory of the hope of Jesus putting his two feet back on the earth and ruling and reigning Lord that they would receive not a false hope but a hope of your calling so God I ask that you would reveal the hope of your calling and lift up our voices if you have your prayer language just pray in the spirit sing in the spirit if you don't just pray and sing in your understanding let's just invite the Holy Spirit oh Lord pour your spirit out in fresh oil fresh oil things over this next generation Lord I declare Lord same anointing as Elisha Lord this generation this Elijah generation Lord we may have called down fire from heaven Lord but when Jezebel came and prophesied we were afraid and we ran and hid and Lord our generation tolerated the woman Jezebel and now our kids are paying the price where Jezebel is making eunuchs of her servants where she is emasculating a generation but Lord we pray for the zeal of Elisha Lord the zeal of Jehu Lord for this Gen Alpha and Gen Z generation oh Lord when the spirit of Jezebel yells out is it peace Jehu oh Lord that the spirit of God would fall upon this generation and would not stop and that they would call down for the eunuchs the very ones that Jezebel emasculated that they would be the ones that throw her down that cast her to the ground the very ones Lord who have been prayed upon who have been fed this lie of sexual revolution that is really a prison Lord that that that eliminates what you created as man and woman Lord and I ask Lord for the zeal of God to rise up in this generation Lord for sexual purity in the name of Jesus that would not bow their knee to the LGBTQ agenda that would not bow their knee to the pressure Lord when the when the liar and the flute and the heart play the sound and demand that they bow down to this image Lord that they would stand firm Lord and that you would be with them in the furnace Lord we just ask just for a purity and a zeal for holiness Lord that would not bow their knee to the spirit of Jezebel in this generation Lord and that you would even use them Lord that we would see a great revival Lord the same kids who are taking puberty blockers right now who are thinking that if they change their their so-called gender then they'll find happiness God I ask that it's the giant alpha and Gen Z generation that would say this is not who you are this is who God created you to be and there would be power and fire on their words and there would be deliverance and healing Lord I ask that you would even do miracles of those who have mutilated their bodies Lord and that you would actually restore the original body that they have created Lord what a creative miracle Lord to redeem and restore those who thought they lost their womanhood for their masculinity to see it restored but God I ask for a spirit of Elisha on this generation Lord to anoint the Jehu's to anoint the leaders who would execute with zeal against the kingdom of darkness Lord that we would see Lord this the spirit of the age attached to this agenda broken in one generation in the name of Jesus greater words in your return hey go faster go further than our generation ever went I'm pleased but we couldn't seal up these prayers Lord I ask that you would give us that spirit of Elijah Lord that we would not make everything about ourselves in our generation but Lord that our hearts would be turned to the next generation Lord that we wouldn't look at them as those who are going to replace us so we have to hold on to our positions and titles Lord but we would look at them and say we want you to go further than we ever went we want you to be equipped with the things we didn't have and we want you to accomplish even the things that our generation failed and that they would just hear a generation say we want you to step into all that you are so Lord give us that heart even for the older generations Lord help us turn our hearts toward the children and then and then minister to them as their hearts turn as their hearts turn toward us in Jesus name amen amen thank you for interceding and praying probably know the drill but we're back here at noon and 6 30 p.m. have a great day


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shooting generally and focusing on long and long distance. It's type of person, I think, like shooting on the distance. Like you say, for many people, say it's for nothing, it's not for purpose, it's why we do it. And it is a passion. It's hard to say why we do it. But today I get to chat with a new friend who lives a little bit further away from my neck of the woods than a lot of the people I chat with. And this guy I came across on the internet, I found out that he achieved something pretty cool. Andre, is that the correct pronunciation of your name? Yes, it's my name. It's correct. Perfect. And where do you live? I'm live in Czech Republic, in the city of Liberals. Czech Republic, I find in the middle of Europe. And it's part of its member of the European Union. OK, OK. And you were born there and raised there? I'm born in a small village. It was about 120 people, or citizens. It's a very small village. But I think this opportunity, I have a very wide, very long shorting possibility that it's not half in the city of Liberals. Where I have about 20 years for my college day in 2005. But it's still my parent house is there. So I have this opportunity about two times in months shorting on a bigger range. Wonderful, wonderful. That is the nice thing about living in a rural area, which I do also, is you don't have to go through the hassle of finding some big city range. And it's maybe only 30 meters that you shoot. It's nice having wide open spaces. So are your parents still alive? One, my mom is still alive. Fortunately, my father-in-law. OK, well, I'm sorry about that.  And I'm glad you still have a great place to go and see her and shoot. What about, are you married? You have children? Yes, I'm married about 15 years, if I think. And I have five years, all daughter. So it's probably see on my videos on YouTube this last picture on that video. OK, great. And so what do you do for a living? What's your occupation? Is it in the shooting industry? From the beginning, I went to the working market, if I say. I started to make regulators for argons from even when I was in college in 2008. And from then, I only work in the argon industry. Right now, I am a mind developer and CEO of my own company, Altheros. In this company, we make argons. Primarily, me focusing on precision argons for long-range shootings. And also, we make very unique CNC-made slugs, which is made on CNC-turning. It's similar like cutting edge, but it's purely its unique technology, because no other manufacturer in the world is not making these slugs. And this is very important for all pictures. We can try make them. And I think we can get to these slugs later in this conversation. Yes, yes. Well, how fortunate are you and me? We both get to work in the shooting industry. I feel so fortunate to be able to do this. So many people would love to be able to do what we do. And it reminds me that from the outside looking in, it probably looks like our jobs. Oh, they're just easy.  What fun. There's a lot of work that goes behind.


We welcome you to hope today and that's exactly what you're going to get. I know we are nearing the Christmas season and we are here to encourage you that you can stay hopeful through the entire season and into the new year. So I'm Amanda Brocker. This is my co-host today, Tom Hollis, and we're ready to kick off this week. We are. And you know, of all the Christian media that's out, and there's a lot now, and it's really good. There's a lot of Christian movies and different things that are coming out. Nothing has quite hit like The Chosen. If you've seen The Chosen, I'm sure you have. If you haven't, you need to. It's the best thing really that we've seen in a long time. But anyway, Jerry Jenkins, you may know him from the left behind series that he wrote with Tim LaHaye, with his son Dallas Jenkins does the program, The Chosen. But Jerry has written a book about it and it's about season four. And you know what? It is a great conversation that Amy and I had a little while ago with him. You're going to really want to hear this. He dives into the whole thing of how he kind of thinks, Amanda. He kind of thinks behind the scenes of what is going on in everyone's mind and heart as the things that we know from the Gospels are unfolding. It's a really good conversation. Just this last night, my youngest son, Jonathan, and I, he wanted to watch something and it's like, well, what do we watch? We've seen every Christmas movie, probably multiple times, but he picked The Chosen and we just started with season one.  Okay, we have to end this. But I loved, you know, it initiated conversation and he was just like asking me different questions because we don't often think about the humanity of the characters in the Bible. And I think that's so important to realize they were people just like us. Jesus, though he was God, was fully man. And like it really helps open up our thought process that the things people go through. I think that as I watched The Chosen a lot of times, the way they react to things is kind of the way we, they're almost like 21st century people playing those carrot, which is what they actually are, but some of it's written that way too. And so it kind of helps to bring that forward to apply to how we are. And that's what I love about The Chosen, that there's so much in it that you can do that with. I think we got something coming up, don't we? We sure do. It is meaningful Monday. It's so important to take a moment and think about things in life. And today we want to look at something meaningful. On today's meaningful Monday, Christmas is known as a great time for giving. This Christmas season, it's important to remember those who are less fortunate, who have lost family members or are in the midst of other challenges. As Christians, those of us who are able to give of our time and treasure, we asked ourselves, you know, how can we help our local community? There are several ways you can give back and here are some of them. I love the first one. It's to put together packages to give to our troops in the military.  And he felt so valued and loved by that. So I do. I encourage everyone out there, if you know any service men or women, send those care packages. Let them know that they're valuable and we appreciate them. And this was somebody he didn't know, right? It was just a class. It was. Yes. Yeah. So what a great idea. Absolutely. I think a church or a rotary group did this for the military. Yes. And then what about going to the nursing home and visiting some of the residents? Yeah. So this was another one. Hey, I got to participate in right here in Monroeville. We went caroling a group of us from our church and just visited. And one lady, her name was Joanne, and she just kept thanking us because we broke down into groups and like talked to individual people. Right. And just she was very taken that we would take time to stop by and visit. I don't think that we often realize how important that is. I mean, it is such a key thing that whenever we have the opportunity to do something to bless someone and to help someone, we can think so much about ourselves during this time. It's great, Amanda, when we have opportunity, but you have some more, don't you? I do. So we can organize a food drive. We could set up a clothing drive. You know, wait a minute. This sounds like the dream center. In fact, if you don't know Amanda and Gary, her husband, they're the directors of the dream center here in Pittsburgh and they have a feeding program. In fact, I'm preaching later today. I'm sharing in your chapel and then you'll have a Christmas meal. And so it's it's a great thing that you're you do a lot of these things. I think that are on this list. I know it's so this is I didn't even pick this list. Y'all, Neil, our director did, but I love it. And let me just tell you the scripture that they use is Matthew 2540. It says the king will reply. Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. This is the why we do it. It's not to be seen, not, you know, for any other thing. What about leaving cookies for your delivery or your male people?  Believe me, delivery people love their cookies. At a time, they want to give them cookies. That's right. So how about leaving some cookies for your male or delivery people? I read that one or having treats for first responders. Wait a minute. Donating your air miles. You know, maybe someone wants to go see their family member, but they don't have the money for the ticket. You can donate your air miles. And how about volunteering at a shelter? I mean, there's so many great ideas. This article was by Marissa Zimmett from Great American Pure Flix Insider. So thank you for this great article and those ideas. I pray that God will inspire you to do something meaningful for the people around you. Absolutely. I mean, that means so much at this time, more than any time. But God will make those ways available as you are available. Well, we're going to take a quick break and coming back. We're going to talk to Jerry Jenkins about the chosen. Hope happens here at Cornerstone Television. All this month, we're offering a joy filled DVD Christmas with the chosen, the messengers for your best gift to the ministry. Gather around the manger with loved ones and experience the first Christmas through the eyes of Mary and Joseph. Follow the young couple as they take the long road to Bethlehem and prepare for Jesus birth. Plus, enjoy an extraordinary lineup of musicians performing both new and classic Christmas songs from the set of the chosen, such as Phil Wickham, Brandon Lake, Maverick City Music, Cain and many others. Thank you for your generosity that makes the Ministry of Cornerstone Television possible. Request your Christmas with the chosen DVD when you give this month. Call<PHONE_NUMBER> or give online at ctvn.org slash donate. From all of us here, we wish you a very Merry Christmas. Our next guest is a bestselling author and is known for his popular left behind books and the chosen book series, which is based on the TV series created by his son, Dallas. Jerry Jenkins offers us a beautiful novel about Jesus and his disciples in the chosen and I will give you rest. Jerry, it's great to have you back with us on Hope Today. Thanks so much, Tom. Great to be with you and Amy. Well, I just have to ask you and I know we've talked before about the books that you've written. So tell us about this one particularly and about the title. I will give you rest. What's the significance there? Yeah, that's really the theme of season three of the chosen. And the basic story in this one, the major story is Simon Peter and his wife losing a child before birth. And Simon doesn't know about it. He's on the road with Jesus. He comes back and when he finds out both he and Eden are pretty upset because they've seen Jesus heal people. They're even aware that he's brought somebody back from the dead and they wonder why he didn't act in their case. This was really an interesting and fun project to work on because, you know, as you know, we don't know the name of Simon Peter's wife. We know he was married because his mother-in-law was healed by Jesus. But the writers of the chosen have given her a name and given them a relationship and an interaction that really makes them relatable. That's the creative, sort of plausible imaginations that these guys have and how they put that together. And I get to add to that with the novels and add inner monologue and even other characters and dialogue and things like that. So it's a special project and a meaningful book because people are relating. They're saying, no matter what I'm going through, I can see why they had these questions and why they're flawed people. And we want people to see Jesus in these novels, but we also want them to see themselves in the flawed characters around him. Jerry, I love the story behind the story. And I love how you read between the lines. How do you research? How do you study for these characters? You know, like take a disciple and think about his parents and think about where he lived and how they thought, what do you do to research and to study these characters? Yeah, the toughest challenge for a novelist. I mean, the job we have is to try to become our characters. Well, we're talking about people from 2000 years ago, some men, some women. And so, you know, I'm trying to imagine myself in their place and say, if this was me, what would I think? What would I say? How would I feel about what's going on? But as far as researching, I've been to the Holy Land several times and also I study, you know, lots of books and videos about the Holy Land because I want the reader to feel like they're there, too. I want them to feel that dust and dirt and that heat and realize they're wearing sandals, they're wearing robes. They're, you know, I want to know about what they eat and the distances between cities. So I'm studying books like Manners and Customs of Bible Lands and, you know, dozens of others. But the key is to try to feel like you're you're there and that you want the reader to be there, too. Jerry, just something that was just alluded to when you talk about like the first story in the book is about Matthew and his parents when he first becomes a tax collector and and the rejection of his parents, the embarrassment of his parents. Like that I love that kind of reading the back reading into the back story. What was your thought process in doing that? Well, fortunately, you know, I'm I'm sort of deconstructing the TV series and putting it into a novel. So the sequence is already there. The basic story is there from Dallas and his co-writers. But the interesting thing about Matthew is all we know in scripture are a few verses. We know that he was a tax collector and that he was a Jew. And so he was hated by his own people. He was really looked down upon even by the Romans who hired him. They just use him for for income. And so we're trying to create a backstory of who is he and how did he become this way and what did his parents think? And again, this that part of it is not in the scripture. Some some people say, oh, you're adding to or taking away from scripture. We feel that that warning about not adding to or taking away from the message means the message. It means the gospel. We don't ever want to violate what the Bible says about the gospel. We're simply saying, this is a plausible way that this could have happened. This is what its family could have looked like. And I think readers and viewers give us that literary license to say that makes sense. We're not sending Jesus to other galaxies in a rocket ship or something crazy like that. We're simply saying, here's the stories we know. And here's what we think could have led up to those. And and people are finding it very relatable. Jerry, I love the father-son relationship that you and Dallas have and really working together in the kingdom. And I want to just ask about the success of the chosen. I mean, you have to live under a rock to not have heard about the chosen at this point.  Do you have any secret sauce? Is do you ever come into conflict? Do you ever disagree on a narrative? Do you how do you work through it and and and and make something so beautiful? You know, it's it's really an interesting dynamic. And the fact that that lightning sort of struck the same family twice within a generation. And I was in my mid 40s, my left behind hit. Dallas is now in his 40s now when when the chosen hits. And we're astounded by it. The joke in our family is he used to be known as Jerry Jenkins son. I'm now known as Dallas Jenkins father and may it ever be so. Well, we get along great. We're both strong personalities and have opinions and sure, we disagree at times. In fact, the very first novel I wrote for season one, I stayed too close to what was on the screen. And Dallas and his co-writer said, hey, we want you doing this because of your imagination and your ability as a storyteller. So add to it. And that gave me a lot of freedom. It's just it's just great. I've always thought that everything Dallas has done in his career has been brilliant this time I was right then. So it's I feel like I'm sort of pressing my nose up against the glass asking if I can play to Jerry, I'm so interested. I like what you said that lightning has struck twice for your family in this. But you've written over 21 bestsellers when you were a teenager. What's your story? What was it like growing up? Did you think you wanted to be a writer? When did you know that you wanted to be a writer, especially a writer of this type of book? Well, that's really kind of an interesting story, because I did always want to be a writer. I talked my way into a sports writing job when I was 14 years old. I was even too young to drive. My mother had to drive me to the high school games I was covering and back to the newspaper office where I could pick out my stories. And I thought that was going to be my life. But a couple of years later, I felt a definite call during a camp meeting. I even felt under conviction, went forward and answered a call to full time Christian work. And I thought that meant, well, I'll have to give up the sports writing, give up the writing and study to be a pastor or a missionary. But a wise counselor that night said to me, don't be too quick to give up the writing because God often equips us before he calls us. And if he's equipped you with this gift, that may be the vehicle you use to fulfill the call. So my call, ironically enough, is not to writing. My call is to full time Christian work. And writing just happens to be the vehicle I use to fulfill that, which changes my whole view of writing. I don't worry about bestsellers or great reviews or big royalty change. All that stuff has come. But I succeed when I obey. And that means writing the manuscript. The rest of that is in God's hands and in the hands of the market. Jerry, I have a secret passion for historical fiction and so much so that I mean, I have several stories that are going through in my head and about my, you know, Papa that was in World War Two and Prisoner of War and missing in action. And it's a beautiful love story and full of prayer.  There's different stories going through their head. What's their next step? I know you are also passionate about writing courses. Your website is just jam packed with incredible information. What's sort of that next step to get it out of imaginary into action? Yeah, just just check in with Jerry Jenkins dot com and we can help you for just pennies a day. I didn't realize this was going to be a commercial. But I feel obligated to pass it along and to pay it forward. I feel so blessed in my career. And so I've taken I mean, this is my fiftieth year as a published author and I just want to pass along everything I know to people who want to do this. You're not alone. Our research shows that about 81 percent of Americans believe they have a book in them. Now, most of them are probably wrong, but many of them would be right. And it sounds like what you want to do, you want to write out of your passion. And that's the key. And so I try to teach people, you know, don't don't become a writer just to be a writer because it sounds glamorous. It may sound glamorous, but it's really like having homework every night for the rest of your life. It can be grueling. But if you're writing out of your passions and the overflow of your passions about what you really care about, that's the key. And I tell most people, don't try to start your career with a book. Start with shorter stuff, learn to hone your skills, learn to work with an editor, learn to be critiqued and your time will come. A book is not where you start. It's where you arrive, but you'll get there. And we'd love to have you. Sign up. What kind of atmosphere do you need set to sit down and write and be creative? Do you need the right music on? You need your coffee there? But like, what does that space look like? Yeah, my space has changed quite a bit in the last 50 years. I can remember when Diana and I didn't have kids yet. And and my office was basically a six foot board that I suspended over two kitchen chairs in front of a saggy couch. And I had a manual typewriter nowadays. You know, I've got this beautiful office that I'm sitting in now.  The writing itself is grueling, but the but the rewards have been great. And it's it's just a fun thing to do. I'm not trying to sound falsely modest, but I really believe I'm mono gifted. I don't sing or dance or preach. Writing is what I do. And so I feel obligated to exercise that. You know, I just love that you said you were committed to full time Christian work and you ended up the writing was the way because that was me as well. Not being called to Sunday mornings. Last thing I thought, though, was TV. You know, it's interesting how God brings us to the place we need to be. Let me ask you about the the the left behind series again, because what is it about the the the popularity of this? What are people have people told you about what has it done in their life? And why does it continue to be so popular? That's the thing that still amazes me. And the first left behind title came out twenty eight years ago. And as you know, it's sold in the tens of millions, but it is still selling today. We're we're moving about 15000 units of this per month, even to this day. It still astounds me. That's a once in a lifetime experience for any writer. In fact, it's for very few writers. But I think it's because we live in scary times. People are petrified and they're curious about the future. And whether people are believers, of course, that's our core audience. They know we've written fiction based on Bible prophecy.  What what does the future hold? And they hear about fiction based on Bible prophecy. And I think they're curious. And then because it came out just before the end of the millennium, for some reason, people were thinking about them when they think about the millennium, they think about the end of the world. I'm not sure why, but they were, you know, they thought, could the end of the millennium mean the end of the world? And if so, what would happen? Whatever it was, we hear from people, I think, I mean, Dr. Lehi has been gone for seven years now. But when he was here, we would hear from people by email or by phone or in person, thousands of people telling us they came to faith through reading these these books. And that's our whole goal is to get people into the Bible, get them to know Jesus. And that's that that's the point of the chosen, too. We want people, we're not want to be a substitute for the Bible. We want them to be back in church, back in the Bible, back to their faith or new to the faith so they get to know Jesus. I'm holding in my hand novel three of the chosen that you have written based on the TV series. And you said in this, I will give you rest. What do you mean? Rest from in our culture now, we don't do rest very well. Yeah, nobody rests anymore, do they? And yet, you know, God is our example. He rested after creating the world. And Jesus got away to pray and to think and to rest. It really behooves us to do that. But this also has a double meaning because of this story of Simon Peter and his wife losing the child and really being angry about the fact that Jesus didn't seem to intervene. He realized that, you know, they come to realize that Jesus has a bigger purpose and that things will work out. We may not have answers this side of heaven. But the big question that Simon Peter has and the big learn yearning and longing at the end of the story is he wants Jesus to never let him go. Don't let me go. He says, and Jesus tells him he'll be with him forever. And that's the message for the reader. Jerry Jenkins, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for writing the book and all the books that you have written. Thank you for being Dallas's dad. And thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, Tom. Good to be with you and Amy. I love those words that Jerry said, Jesus is with you forever. He is with us forever. And it's so important to remember that. Well, we want to continue a discussion about that interview because I think it was very powerful. But before we get there, I want to ask you, do you have your own hope today newsletter? If not, we want to get this into your hands. Please give us a call or email us. Let us connect with you. You know, in here, it's so important. We have all of our highlights of our programs coming up. We actually have some specials that will air on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that are very good. So you want to tune in. We want you to have your newsletter. But Tom, that interview, I just love so much of what he said, except the part about like homework every day of your life. I don't think I'm signing up. Well, I think that one of the things that Jerry was mentioning is that all of us have a calling and a ministry. We don't know what that is. Sometimes he knew he wasn't called to pulpit ministry, filling a pulpit every Sunday and preaching the word of God. Praise God for all the men and women that are called to that. But he knew he was called to write and and God has blessed him in that and done some amazing things. And God surprises us. I mentioned in that interview that I meant I didn't expect to be sitting here on television. I don't think you expected that either. But God recognizes that when we're beginning to move in those giftings that he's given us and you have those, you may not say, I don't talk like that. I don't sing. I don't play an instrument. You have giftings. You have giftings of mercy, of giftings of grace, of giftings that God wants to use in so many different ways to bless others. And just keep waiting on God, but keep moving in the direction. He took courses, he learned, he studied how to write. And so those kind of things, Amanda, are important that we recognize our gift thing from God, but also move into that training phase. I think it's so important that we as people have the tendency to look around us at what someone else is doing and maybe even desire that. And it's like God has placed gifts within each one of us. And if we're too busy looking around, then we miss out on him growing that gift.  But if they would not have obeyed God, there are how many people that have been affected by their movies, their books that it has drawn them. So not only does it affect your individual life, but it affects the people that you were assigned to impact if you are not moving in your own gift. And don't think that someone else is going to impact them.  And I want to take that just that moment as we in the last few seconds here to ask you, do you know Christ? We wouldn't want to talk all about Jesus, all about the chosen, all about the Christ and not talk about, do you know the Christ of Christmas? Do you know the one who's come? You know, he has come for you. That's why it says for the joy set before him and toward the cross. And that joy is that you would be reconciled back to Christ. So do you know him? If you don't, then you can make today that day that you enter into that relationship. Just open the door of your heart and invite him to be your Lord and Savior. Savior means that he's going to forgive you of your sins. We've all committed sin. We've all done wrong in the sight of God, every one of us, and we all need to be forgiven. So just ask him to forgive you of your sins. And then for him to be Lord means that he's taking over, he's in charge of your life now. And that means not that he's going to make you do things you don't want to do, it means you're going to find out the purpose for which you were created and the God for which you were created. So make him Savior and Lord. Just say, Lord, Jesus, come into my life. Be my Lord and Savior. Forgive me of my sins.  When you do that, everything's going to change. You will be born again and you will know him and you'll begin to know hope today. You'll begin to know the author of hope.


My fellow Americans, during my first press conference, nine days after being sworn in as your president, I was asked a question having to do with Soviet intentions. In my answer, I cited their own words, that they have openly and publicly declared the only morality they recognize is what will further world communism. That they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat in order to attain that. And I pointed out that we should keep this in mind when we deal with them. I was charged with being too harsh in my language. I tried to point out I was only quoting their own words. Well, I hope the Soviets' recent behavior will dispel any lingering doubt about what kind of regime we're dealing with and what our responsibilities are as trustees of freedom and peace. Isn't it time for all of us to see the Soviet rulers as they are, rather than as we would like them to be? I didn't tell the truth about the Korean Airlines Massacre. Rather than immediately and publicly investigate the crash, explain to the world how it happened, punish those guilty of the crime, cooperate in efforts to find the wreckage, recover the bodies, apologize and offer compensation to the families, and work to prevent a repetition. They have done the opposite. They've stonewalled the world, mobilizing their entire government behind a massive cover-up, then brazenly threatening to kill more men, women and children should another civilian airliner make the same mistake as KAL-007. The Soviets are terrified of the truth. They understand well and they dread the meaning of St. John's words. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. The truth is mankind's best hope for a better world. That's why in times like this, few assets are more important than the voice of America and radio liberty, our primary means of getting the truth to the Russian people. Within minutes of the report of the Soviet destruction of the Korean jet, the voice of America aired the story and its news programs around the globe. We made sure people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and most important, the people in the Soviet block itself knew the truth. That includes every Soviet misstatement from their initial denials through all the tortured changes and contradictions in their story, including their UN representatives still denying they shot down the plane, even as his own government was finally admitting they did. Accurate news like this is about as welcome as the plague among the Soviet elite. Censorship is as natural and necessary to the survival of their dictatorship as free speech is to our democracy. That's why they devote such enormous resources to block our broadcasts inside Soviet controlled countries. The Soviets spend more to block Western broadcasts coming into those countries than the entire worldwide budget of the voice of America. To get the news across to the Russian people about the Korean Airlines massacre, the voice of America added new frequencies and new broadcast times. But within minutes of those changes, new Soviet jamming began.  International radio broadcasts can still get through to many people with the news, but we still face enormous difficulties. One of the voice of America's listeners in the Middle East wrote, if you do not strengthen your broadcasting frequencies, no one can get anything from your program. Our radio equipment is just plain old, some of it World War II vintage. I don't mind people getting older, it's just not so good for machines. More than 35% of the voice of America's transmitters are over 30 years old. We have a similar problem at Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. We have six antiquated 500 kilowatt shortwave transmitters. The Soviets have 37, and theirs are neither old nor outdated. We regularly receive complaints that Soviet broadcasts are clearer than ours. One person wrote and asked why it's not possible for a nation that can send ships into space to have its own voice heard here on Earth. The answer is simple, we're as far behind the Soviets and their allies in international broadcasting today as we were in space when they launched Sputnik in 1957. We've repeatedly urged the Congress to support our long-term modernization program on our proposal for a new radio station, Radio Marti, for broadcasting to Cuba. The sums involved are modest, but for whatever reason this critical program has not been enacted. Today I'm appealing to the Congress, help us get the truth through. Help us strengthen our international broadcasting effort by supporting increased funding for the voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and by authorizing the establishment of Radio Marti. And I appeal to you, especially those of you who came from Eastern Europe, Russia and Soviet-dominated countries who understand how crucial this issue is, let your representatives hear from you. Tell them you want Soviet rulers held accountable for their actions even by their own people. The truth is still our strongest weapon, we just have to use it. Finally, let us come together as a nation tomorrow, in a national day of mourning, to share the sorrow of the families and let us resolve that this crime against humanity will never be forgotten anywhere in the world. Until next week, thank you for listening and God bless you.


Welcome, global supply chainers. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Seba Ponce. I'm the Executive Director of the MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management. And it's my pleasure today to convene the staff and the community who make this program possible to congratulate the new credential holders, 383 new MicroMasters credential holders in Supply Chain Management. Welcome to the MITx community to the now more than 2,243 credential holders in this program. I'm very proud of this cohort because in this unprecedented time, among shutdowns, in the outbreak, you were able to make it. And this is huge. It is also especially clear for me that online and digital education supply chain management matters now more than ever. So thank you again for joining us. Today we are going to celebrate this important achievement. And to do that, we have a very special guest today with us. First, I want to introduce to you Dr. Chris Capis. Chris is the Executive Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. Chris is the alma mater of this program. He inspired all of the SCX community of learners. And he's also inspiring the MicroMaster team. Chris has spent countless hours filming videos, creating this program, and developing this program. He's, among other things, Chris is the Director of the Freight Lab at MIT and also a successful entrepreneur. So Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. Right. Thanks, Eva. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the special guest. I think that's for someone else. But thank you. So let me just give you some quick history here. It's almost six years to the day almost that Sanjay Sarma first asked me if I wanted to create a MOOC on supply chain management that could perhaps be an X series of three courses. At that time, I didn't know what a MOOC was. I literally had to look it up. Because at that point, I'd been teaching here at MIT for a little over 10 years in logistics systems. And so I thought, why not? How hard can it be? And so me, a half-time TA, and two undergrad assistants spent the summer of 2014 creating that first course that eventually became SC1X. And at that point, everyone was just trying to figure things out. I was literally handed a Surface Pro and a portable microphone and said, just do it. And so we're figuring it out on the fly as we went. The MITX team, Dana Doyle, Shira Frugman, and eventually Lana Scott were great in getting the courses out. But we really had no clue what we were doing. We ran it in the fall of 2014, the first course. And so some of you might have been on that. And I apologize in advance because we were overwhelmed. I was not fully prepared when we started it. And this is actually where Week Zeroes came from. I found out I could add a Week Zero and thereby delay the launch of the real course. And so I took that so I could finish recording some of the later lectures. That's a little history. But we knew we were on to something when we had over 30,000 learners on the first run. Most of them audit, but they're very excited, very interactive. And it was just me, my half-time TA, no community TAs, no course leads nothing. We are totally overwhelmed and underprepared. And that's when I learned the importance of having the team. Running these courses is harder and more important than the actual content created within the courses. Creating the videos once, it takes a lot of time and effort. But it's nothing compared to the effort and energy it takes to run these courses and work with you. And that's the thing that makes it better. So in the fall of 2015, we were again approached by Sanjay and others in the administration to see if we wanted to be the first ever micro-master system credential. And so this was a big deal because this is the first time that MIT and other universities would grant college credit for actually completing these courses. So it brought everything game to a whole other level. We said, sure, we'll do this. And over the next six months, we created, recorded, and launched three new courses to round out the five-course SCX micro-masters that you know today. And this explains why the analytics course became SC0X, because we already had a one. And so I couldn't shift them up. So we kind of made it work and put it together. And this is where the team became more important. And we started growing the team. Most importantly, Dr. Ava Ponce, who came on board and really runs the team. And it's the reason why it's been as successful as it has. Now, we've learned a lot over the last six years, 100-plus hours of videotaping, 37-course runs, and six CFX exams. And these lessons have changed the way we teach here at CTL. Changed the way that I teach and approached my students, no matter whether I'm teaching them online, asynchronous, online, like we do there in person, or what we're doing now where it's synchronous online over Zoom, it's totally changed the way that I approach this. And I think it's safe to say that I've learned more from working with and interacting with all of you than you've learned from me. I've always been amazed and impressed by the dedication, the grit, and the determination displayed by all the MicroMasters learners. I could not do what you did to earn this credential. It's so impressive. And as I travel, I always try to meet the learners. I've had meetups in London, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Mexico, across the US, anywhere I travel. And I promise as soon as the shelter in place is lifted and the pandemic dissipates, then I'll be back on the road again. Hopefully we can meet face-to-face instead of over a Zoom channel. So finally, congratulations to all of you. Thank you so much for all of your dedication and hard work. Welcome to the MicroMasters credential holders. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. And thank you also for allowing me to be part of this fascinating team and fascinating program. You know that I love this program. And since January 2016 that I joined your team, definitely have been very busy, but I have had a lot of fun. I need to recognize these two. Next, I would like to introduce Dr. Alexis Bateman. Alexis is one of our longest serving course leads. And she delivered the most recent comprehensive and final exam during the COVID-19 disruption. Alexis leads the MIT Sustainable Supply Chain Lab at CTL. And she's also a very well-known speaker in this topic. She is joining today and is going to share some words with you too. Thank you, Alexis. Thank you so much, Ava. And so just for today, I wanted to share a little bit of behind the scenes and bring some fun stories to share with all of you. But first off, congratulations to all the credential holders that finished. We're really proud of you. And we at the SEX team have been rooting for you since day one, since you joined us. And we've been rooting for you to finish the program. As a course lead, I've seen the amazing amount of commitment from learners to finish the program. And it never ceases to impress me just as Chris said. So challenging and amazing the work you guys have put in. But this is particularly when it comes to CFX, the comprehensive final exam that many of you just took in March of this year. I actually ran the first CFX back in 2017 and then now have run the most recent six CFX. And just for fun, I pulled up some stories to kind of chronicle the finish line of this program. And these are directly from you. So, and been checked to make sure I could share a little bit of the stories. But in our very first CFX in 2017, we actually had our youngest learners ever take the exam at only 15 years old. Can you believe it? We had them come and take the exam and finish the entire program. And now they're actually entering college. So I thought that was a pretty amazing story and one we often look back to with smiles. We had a learner finish the exam, the comprehensive final exam, an hour before they were set down to walk down the aisle to get married. I don't know about you, if you got married, I don't think I could have handled getting, finishing the exam and then walking down the aisle to get married, pretty amazing. And another who completed the exam while his wife was in labor to have triplets. So now that is some amazing focus, but glad he finished it before those babies arrived. One learner shared with us that their mom is actually really happy about the CFX because it forced them to clean up their room. And that she hopes that there's a CFX every month because they can have a cleaner room. But this year in particular, we really had some phenomenal stories around the world from learners who went through impressive lengths to take the CFX. One learner with many echoing similar stories shared that they took the CFX amidst the growing global pandemic during a national lockdown in India on Friday the 13th and emergency sirens blaring in the background. Some learners were rushed home to their home countries due to national callbacks. Others had to find places to hide in their home away from their family to take the exam during shelter in place. But despite these events, 383 learners were able to take and pass the exam to receive the credential and take the next step in their supply chain journey. That is truly amazing. And coincidentally for our team on the exact days of the CFX, MIT was actually shutting down the university and moving remote. And so we are still able to hold the exam and have you guys take it. I think that that is something we will all always remember. Thank you for allowing me and our team to be a part of your journey and careers as supply chain professionals. We at the SEX team rooted for you during the journey through our program and we will continue to root for you as you take the next steps in the supply chain management field. Make us proud. Thank you, Alexis. Thank you for sharing this with the group. I still remember in May 2017 when I asked for the ID verification to the 15 years old learner and he told me my mom is at the door of the room and say, oh my goodness. And yes, I'm so proud of these learners. They pass, they apply for college, amazing. This is really, really amazing. Okay, so I also would like to thank everyone on the course team. It really takes a tremendous effort to bring these courses to you each year. And we could not do it without the tireless effort of everyone. And first, here is a picture from our last staff meeting where you can see the core team. And I need to especially thank you to the course leads for their passion, their dedication to this program. Alexis, Sergio, Dave, Ima, Atia, and also Bedria, Sam, and Arthur. They are really doing a tremendous effort to bring this program to you. And I can't be more proud of this. I'm more, I can feel more fortunate to have this smart and inspiring team working for this program. Also, we have MITX supporting us and open learning at MIT. And I need to thank Shira. Shira is supporting us every single day with all of the technical issues that we have one day or the other. Also, David Chatting with the verification and enrollment issues. Lisa Akel helping us to schedule a lot of meetings just to coordinate. And also, thank you to Edex. Edex has been collaborating with us closely in order to provide a good learning experience to you guys. So thank you to Madi, to Libby. Thank you to Mike, to Liz, to everyone that has been supporting our team and our learners. And also special thank you to our teaching assistants, Jay and Shovik. They are answering every single email for you guys. And I need to extend that also to the amazing community of teaching assistants, our volunteers across the world. Those who are helping you through the forums. Those who are in a volunteer manner sharing their knowledge and their learning with you all through the discussion forums. Over the years, more than 130 community teaching assistants have given their time and expertise to other learners in the forums. So thank you, team. Thank you, extended team. And thank you to the community for all of your efforts in this program. Next, we have an inspirational message from Jackie Sturm. Jackie is an Intel Corporate Vice President and the General Manager of Intel's Global Supply Chain Management Group. Intel, as you know, is frequently recognized for high performance as winners of Intel prestigious quality and achievement awards and was most recently cited by Garners as number six in its top 25 global supply chains company. Jackie is also a member of Intel's Ethics and Compliance Oversight Committee. And she leads the Supply Chain Environmental and Social Governance Program. So she was so nice and so kind to record a message for all of you to celebrate you as a supply chain professional. So let's hear some words from Jackie Sturm. Congratulations, graduates. Earning the MITx MicroMasters credential demonstrates continuous learning, which is fundamental to both personal growth and to supply chain professionals as we all grapple with the changing world, new business models, and the many geopolitical and competitive challenges that increasingly confront our companies. Although past supply chains were characterized as primarily procurement and logistics, today's supply chain is a key player in C-sweets around the world. And that's due to the strategic importance of understanding customer needs, designing the products and services that will delight them, and being able to deliver on time and at the right price to meet customers' expectations. Truly, the breadth of supply chain is astonishing. Today's challenges associated with COVID-19 illustrate just how important the supply chain is to our way of life. As I like to tell my team of supply chain professionals, we are everywhere the money is. And in light of the shortages and delivery challenges we face during this global pandemic, we are also everywhere the supply is. Through our knowledge, strong relationships, insight, and preparation, we keep the world moving forward. Ensuring that our frontline responders get the protective equipment they need, food can get to those who are sheltering in place, and the digital infrastructure needed to connect everyone together is vital and vibrant more so than ever before. I am thrilled for each of you, whether you're just starting out your career in supply chain or you're continuing to build on your supply chain acumen. You will be happy because supply chain is an area that's pivotal to every aspect of modern life. Recently retired from SCM World, professional expert Kevin O'Mara said it quite concisely, supply chain saves the world. In essence, we do this by relentlessly increasing global productivity and access to competitive goods that make our lives better. As you go forward, I encourage you to think about how your new skills enable you to understand the environment, sense changing dynamics, identify and evaluate opportunities, to build resilient relationships to rely upon, and to operationalize all of these factors into your daily job. If you can bring those professional capabilities to bear, you too will play a role in saving the world. Congratulations. Thank you, Jackie. What Jackie mentions is so relevant in times like we are in now. As the term supply chain management has now become more well known around the world, a global audience is finally recognizing the vital role that you all play in our society. As Jackie mentioned, supply chain management is pivotal in every aspect of modern life. And we are all thrilled to have played a part in each of your career paths. So to find out what you are doing and this impact on you learners, what we are doing now is just to invite some of our learners to share with you their experience. First, Pavithra Gopal. Pavithra is a senior business analyst at Sonos. She's here in Boston and completed her credential last March 2020. So Pavithra, please share some of your experience with this group. Hi, everyone. Thank you, Eva. This is Pavithra. I'm one of the spring 2020 graduate of the supply chain program. I first want to take this opportunity to thank all the course leads and the MIT team for coordinating and putting together a great supply chain content has been hugely beneficial for me. One of the reasons why I took this course was because I've had a wide exposure to procurement logistics, supply chain and sales and marketing area. And I was looking for a career change in that I wanted to go deeper into one of the areas and be a expert in the field of logistics. And so this course has been a tremendous help for me in that regard. And I'm sure it is for the other MicroMasters learners here too. We've all spent days and nights sacrificing our weekends and our time with family to get to where we are today. So I also want to offer my congratulations to all of you and all the best to all your future endeavors. Thank you. Thank you, Pavithra. And you are totally right. A lot of days, a lot of nights, a lot of weekends spent in this journey, but you did it. So congratulations again for that. Next, I would like to invite Danielle Proctor. She's a new credential holder and Sangwang, I had the pleasure to meet in person during last summer, during the MIT supply chain bootcamp here at MIT. Danielle, she's an inventory operations manager at Penguin Random House in New York. And previously, she was working at Wafer. She once told me one story that really impressed me. At some point, Danielle was almost about to give up the program. Was exactly when she was taking supply chain analytics, the most I would say added course that we have or the most dry course that we have with tons of math. But finally, Danielle did it. She's one of the highest scoring individuals on the most recent comprehensive final exam. Nice job, Danielle. And thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. That's really exciting. Yes, I came from, I do not come from a math or engineering background. I have a degree in sociology. And so while I've had a couple of operational roles, I'd never really been exposed to the underlying theory behind any of these topics until I started with SC0X. And it wasn't during SC0X, it was week three of SC0X, the minute after you introduced mixed integer linear programming. That was my moment. And I, you know, it was just totally foreign to me. And I was like, I can't, what was I thinking? I can't do this. This is wild. I don't have the math for this. I don't have the school for this. You'd really have to understand him, but my husband is British and very dry and looked at me and went, huh, who would have thought that MIT would be hard? And it was like this total perspective change for me, where I realized that challenges are not a personal failing. I'm being challenged because it's challenging. And if you look at it, not as sort of a barrier to your success, you can see it as an opportunity to overcome and to prove yourself and grow. And it was, I mean, these courses have been unparalleled in growing my technical knowledge, but beyond that, I think it's been a personally for me, just a really amazing opportunity for growth. And so I wanted to thank you guys for giving me that opportunity, giving me an opportunity to share my story and giving me an opportunity to grow as a person. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you. And as you can see, there is a huge variety of different applications for the MicroMaster Credential holder and this can be as many as your own career path that you have or can lead you to advance your degrees, academic, or advance your degree at MIT or at any other universities around the world. We also asked a poll after completing the comprehensive final exam. We asked you in one word, what is the most valuable aspect of the program? And here are the results. And as you can see in the slide, knowledge, learning, practical, relevance, these are the most popular words. And we are so happy to see that. We are so happy to see that after six years that we started with the first, Chris Capples started with the first MOOC still today, we are receiving this outcome. I also want to highlight here that you mentioned community and connections in the world cloud. And I wanted to thank Arthur Grau and Sam Varney for their fantastic work creating this community of engaging learners and also for running this event behind the scenes. So Sam and Arthur, please join us and share some works with this group. Awesome, thank you. Yeah, it was just really great to see that community is one of the pieces that you guys, that was important for the program. I and Arthur really enjoy talking to everybody through the chats on LinkedIn, helping sort of organize the global meetups which we hope to continue and do more of. And it's just been really great to see you all online and some of you on campus. Yeah. And I'll second that. I've been in the chat as we're talking here and it's just such a joy to see everybody from every part from Nigeria to Singapore and from Kazakhstan to Cambridge, Massachusetts joining, being a part of this program, making it work for yourselves. And I think this group is especially an outlier group.  You're asking us how can we do more? How can we be better? And it's just so inspiring to be part of this group along with Sam's slide that she created here with the survey. We got a couple other survey results. This is just a graph of when all of you, at least who responded to the survey in this cohort started the program. So we have people who started as far as four years ago and who are just completing now. And I think there's a couple of liars on there who said they started in winter of 2020. I doubt you completed all the courses since winter of 2020, but maybe there's some miracle that can happen there. And part of the community, part of the listening that Sam and I do and bring back to the course team is trying to understand and learn and react to, what do you want out of these courses? And of course to gain experience, maybe to apply to a masters, but maybe to change your career or gain a promotion. So we try to listen to those things and bring them back to the group. Excellent, thank you Sam and Arthur. And for myself, it is a source of inspiration and ongoing pride to be part of this massive and open initiative. I'm still fascinated when learners from around the world reach out to me and send a note and say, Eva, they have some content questions or they just say, thank you. Thank you for delivering this program. None of these would be possible without the vision, the technical expertise and the ongoing hard work for everyone at edX. And for today, I have invited edX CEO, Anand Agarwara, to say a few words, because we have surpassed today 2,000 credential holders in the MITx MicroMaster Program and Supply Chain Management. We represent one of hundreds of programs available on edX and I thought it would be further inspirational to hear from the founder of edX. Dr. Agarwara is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science here at MIT, where he served as the director of the MIT computer science and artificial intelligence lab. He's also the founder and CTO of Tillera. He serves, as I mentioned, as the CEO of edX, our joint partnership between MIT and Harvard University. It's really an honor to have Anand today with us. Thank you, Anand, for joining us. Thank you so much, Eva, for inviting me. I almost felt like I was in a dream for the past 30 minutes throughout this program, and it was so inspirational to hear some of you, the learners, who have completed your credential. And I know it seems, okay, I've completed the MicroMaster's credential, but I think we should be saying that you are all MicroMaster's credential superheroes. It is incredible. I mean, what you have done is absolutely incredible. Many of you are working, many of you have families, many of you are holding down a job, and to be able to do this stuff. And I know some of you may have found the material easy, but this is hard stuff. I remember as an undergraduate in IIT, Madras, one of you mentioned mixed integer linear programming, and I'm not sure Eva and Chris, if you guys teach simplex anymore, but I remember doing some linear programming as an undergraduate in IIT, Madras in 1981, probably before many of you were born. And I remember that was hard stuff. My head used to hurt when thinking about integer programming and how those lines, it was optimizing some of these logistical things was so hard and you guys are just nailing it. I'm just so impressed. And so I would call you superheroes, not just for having mastered this amazing program and graduating, but at the same time, while living life and dealing with all the issues of life. Frankly, I think that what you all have done is actually the future of education. You all may think that this is something specific or special that we have done, but I believe you are the future and the future is now. It really didn't take COVID-19 to tell us that online learning as a way to augment campus learning is so important. COVID-19 has really highlighted for us the importance of having a mix of learning modalities, both online and in person. And I will promise you that in the future, the more and more universities will be offering blended learning opportunities to campus residents. In fact, about four years ago, we did an experiment on campus at MIT where volunteers from my circuit scores at MIT were allowed to take a completely online class at MIT, as part of their MIT credit worthy programs. And the study was pretty amazing where students loved the flexibility and so on. And they felt that every university should offer some percentage of its courses from the online, even for campus residents. So I believe that online learning and blended programs is the new normal. And the supply chain team, we are one of the leaders. I mean, they recognize this. They launched the first MicroMasters on edX and they are true pioneers on the teaching and learning side and the credentialing side, just as you are true pioneers on the learning side. So it's just such an honor for me to be here among all of you in here, such inspiration stories from learners like yourselves, who I call the MicroMasters Credential Superheroes. It's so inspirational for me to hear the words from Chris Kapliss and Eva. And again, these guys are just so incredibly modest. Putting together a program like this was hard. Anything new is hard. Anything new at a university is even harder because at university, one of the most common ways of saying no to something is, oh, that's not been done before. That is tantamount to saying no. And when Chris and the MIT team and the supply chain team and others were thinking of doing this, they were every, all kinds of knows that kept coming up. Oh, how could we do this online? There's no way they're gonna have virtual proctoring around the world. And how do people go to exam centers?  What is this new credential? I mean, can people learn something with just half, 50% of the time of a master's? But of course, it's the S to all of the above. And so the MITX MicroMasters team, the TAs, the professors, the MITX learning team, the NXT, they're all superheroes because almost everything was new. And everybody out there saying, no, it cannot be done.  What? You are gonna be urgently a MicroMasters credential from MIT, no way. This is hard, but you all did it. And 2,000 of you did it. I'm just so proud of what you all have done. And in many respects, this has been the story of edX. We started about, it's amazing in that we announced MITX on November 19th of 2011. And almost 10 years ago, I just cannot believe that this amount of time has passed. And we started out with, oh, let's launch a free course. It was called the book, horrible term. And at that time, I was asked, what should we name this effort? And we did not things in five second intervals. And we had no idea what to call it. So I said, in the early days, along with some of my colleagues, Rafael Reif, and many of the other leaders at MIT, we said, you know what, we didn't have time to hire a marketing firm to think of a great name. And so we codenamed it MITX. Because we have no idea what we were doing. We made it up in like seven seconds flat. And people asked us, what is X? So we looked at each other and I was saying, oh, X is infinity. And I think somebody else said X is, you fill it in. And yet another person, X was, oh, it's cool. Anything with an X is cool. And so it was codenamed MITX. And then when we announced it, it was announced as MITX. And then many reporters asked us, oh, this is such a cool name. You know, which agency did you hire to get this name? We said, hmm, that's not bad. Let's call it MITX. And that's how MITX became MITX. And then the X became fundamental to our being. When MIT and Harvard teamed up to launch edX together and they've been amazing. If not for them, there's no way we could have launched as a nonprofit. And Harvard's effort became HarvardX. And then we have to pick a name for this new entity and it became edX. So, you know, everything is an X. And we started off with offering a free course. And then in the free course, we launched it with a certificate. And people went, ah, you know, how can you offer a certificate with an MIT or Harvard name on it? Well, we did. And today we have 3,000 courses and we have much more than a million students who have, like you all over the world, who have earned these incredible certificates from some of the top institutions in the world. Then we said, all right, let's try to, a lot of learners said, okay, one course is one thing, but we need to learn more. So we said, let's create a program. And so we had no idea what to call it. So it looked like a sequence, so we called it X series.  And the guest who we approached, he's sitting in this car here, Chris Crippleis and the MITX team from Supply Chain, they created the first X series program on it, which are a sequence of courses. And that was scary. New York Times, a Tamar Moon from the New York Times had a headline article which said, wait a second, now it's offering sequences of courses. This was in 2013, I believe, when nobody else had the courage to offer a sequence of courses. And their headline said, what is edX going to offer degrees next? And I knew the end of the world was here because I was getting major angry phone calls from every university saying, how could you do this? But with the help of Chris and others at MIT, we launched the first X series program. Bertie came up with the second one in, it was in the third computing software and Ruby on Rails. And then we said, we have this program of courses, we're going to give a certificate.  We have to create MicroMasters programs and the leadership at MIT was truly pioneers here. And MicroMasters had many scary things as part of it, really, really scary. First of all, it had the word masters in it. And suddenly people will say, oh, wait a second, for masters you have to come to campus, it has to be one to two years. And so masters implies credit and credentials and proctoring. So we solved all of those problems and we launched the first MicroMasters on edX from MIT and the supply chain group at MIT. And then today we have 55 MicroMasters including one on AI from Columbia. We have one and robotics from Penn. We have a number of 56 of them today from 30 to 35 universities, all of them programs that lead into pathways. And about two years ago we've also launched four degrees online. And one degree I'll particularly talk about is a master's degree in supply chain management. And that is an absolutely radical degree that MIT and Arizona State University put together two incredibly pioneering institutions. So there you can complete the MicroMasters credential like you have on edX through MIT. And then you can apply to join the master's degree from Arizona State University. And so here it is a master's degree from the number one and number two supply chain programs in the world. How cool is that?  It's almost like putting Legos together and I like to call it Lego education. And I see a future of education where everybody is gonna be learning online and in person. But you will be learning pieces of education whether MicroMasters or MicroBatchelors, be learning these pieces of education from multiple universities all over the world. And online and in person and you'll be stacking them up into credentials and getting incredibly cost-effective and quality credentials from a number of universities. And don't forget it. On this screen in front of me are some of the incredible pioneers who work on the supply side and also on the content side and the learning side and you are the pioneers. And the first of a new cadre of learners and superheroes that I think will take us into a whole new world of education in the future. So with that, congratulations again. And I'm just so, so honored to be among you who've done this just absolutely amazing thing. Thank you again. Thank you Anand for your kind words. And yes, we are still teaching linear programming and Simplex. And our learners, I believe they are able to redesign the supply chain networks in order to face the growth of e-commerce and the outbreak of the COVID-19. Yes, thank you for bringing that. This is really inspiring, Anand. I'm very relevant more now than ever. And thank you. Thank you for your tireless effort to bring high quality online learning to the world, to anyone from anywhere. And let me share now some quick statistics about our MicroMaster Credential Program. As you can see, the number of unique learners enrolling our program is now more than 350,000 learners enrolled in any of the SCX courses. If we have a look into the verified learners, we have almost about 25,000 verified learners pursuing for a certificate and almost 12,000 learners who have earned a certificate in any of the SCX courses and the total number of MicroMaster Credential holders. What we are celebrating today is 2,243. And our learners come from all over the world. As you can see in the map, we have learners from USA. We have learners from many different countries, from India, from Canada, from Brazil, Mexico, from Spain. Yes, we have learners from all over the world. Most of them are professionals working in more than 700 different companies. And we have learners from the ages of 15 to more than 80. Not only you are now a credential holder, also many opportunities are going to be open for you in order to advance your professional career or your academic career with an MIT Master's Degree, a Master's Degree here at MIT or at any of our MIT Scale Centers in Zaragoza, in Luxembourg, in Malaysia. So far, we have 112 graduated students, students who have completed the MicroMaster Credential plus the MIT Blended Degree at MIT or any MIT Scale Center and 54 current students who are almost about to graduate this May 2020. We also have, as Anand mentioned, more than 20 universities that are offering Master's Degree programs as pathways to credential holders. Arizona State University, AASU, is one of the first that is offering an online master's on edX. We are so proud of you all and cannot wait to see where your next steps is going to take you. As current events show, supply chain management is critical to the world, now and always, and you all play a part of that. So we are heading to the end of this celebration and to acknowledge the completion of the program of the sixth cohort, we are now going to roll the names of the most recent 383 credential earners. Please enjoy this moment and use a chat to reach everyone in the group. I will be back in a minute. Enjoy that moment. From the whole MIT CTL team, congratulations everyone and thank you very much for being here today. Congratulations everyone. Thank you.