Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning, usually at 10 a.m. central time. Today we're doing it a little earlier due to some... well we're having a statewide tornado drill at 11 a.m. Don't know what that's gonna entail. We didn't want to have to worry about that for the show, so we bumped things back about half an hour. Normally the show is at 10 a.m. central time. Both of these live... and we do record the show every week as we are doing today. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries in your state and maybe the whatever state library. So we provide services to all types of libraries across the state, so we will have topics on our show that could be for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12 schools, corrections, museums, archives, anything and everything. Basically our only criteria is that it's something to do with libraries. Something cool we think libraries are doing, we'll bring on guest speakers, talk about things they're doing in their libraries across Nebraska and across the country. The products and services that they might find useful. We sometimes have library commission, Nebraska Library Commission staff come on and talk about programs and services we offer through here, through our agency. And that's... well that's what we have today as library commission staff. I suppose we call this a program we offer or a program we do here at the Library Commission. We're going to be talking about our Friday Reads program. This is something we've been doing for quite a few years and we'll get into that in a bit. And we've done a couple of sessions over the years, sorry excuse me, about Friday Reads program talking about the books that we hear at the Library Commission have read. And we thought we'd do one here. It is almost the one year anniversary, this week, last week, depending on when you and your area may have started working from home, had your first lockdown, whatever for the COVID-19 pandemic. So we thought we'd talk about what we had been doing, what we'd been reading over the past year. And as you can see, there's five of us here today. We're all going to talk about some books we have read over the year. And as each person goes, I'll let you guys introduce yourself when we come up here. But what we're going to talk about first, Amy, Amy Owen is the one here at the Library Commission who kind of runs the program for us, corrals all of us, I think. Yeah. So the Friday Reads series was started by Laura Johnson. She's our former continuing education coordinator. And she has since retired, but she started the series in 2014. So we are coming up on seven years this summer. And the concept was to model the idea of talking about books and to help readers to get to know our staff a little better. Readers advisory and book talking are really valuable skills for librarians to develop, but they take practice. So this was a way for us to start conversations about books and to encourage others to share their own reviews. And as I said, Laura started it and I took over when she retired. I'm not even sure what year that was. So I started in this position in 2015. So somewhere in there. We have enough readers on our staff that we really only need to write a review three or four times a year. So a couple times a year I go through and I just make a list of when each person will write. And then it's not too overwhelming since we only have those a couple a year. And every once in a while we get a new staff person and I'll just casually rope them in, try to get them to join in. And that seems to work pretty well. We have a few new ones. So right when they start, they're still enthusiastic about joining in. We post the review to our The Encompass blog and then it also gets posted to social media, Facebook and Instagram. And I went through and looked yesterday and this week will be our 315th post. Wow. And I divided out on that first link. I just kind of corraled all of them into one page. Or you can go and search by tag in the blog. But we've got 220 fiction reviews and 94 nonfiction. So we'll see what we've got coming up this week if it's fiction or nonfiction. But that's pretty much the program. Yeah. And I'll see if I can show you over here. This is right. There we go. Yeah. So here's the book reviews page. Whether just all I think is alphabetical by author, it looks like. But then yeah, split up fiction, nonfiction. So if you're interested in a particular topic or what I do, you know, do the year old control F or whatever for searching and look for a particular reviewer if you want to know what someone is particular is reading. And all of these would then link to that blog post. Yes. And I think it makes it easy to see if anyone has already done that book also. So you can just go down and find your author and I do that. I've had to check, especially now it's only years. Like somebody else I've already talked about because it's not all this isn't like we don't have like a rule about it has to be a new book or something just coming out. I've done things that are older that are from years ago just because I liked the title and wanted to share it and talk about it. So yeah, it could be anything you find on there. Occasionally, it's not even one book, someone will review a whole series. So we've had cookbook reviews. We have all genres. So it's interesting to see what what people do in their free time. All right, let's get back to you. Cool. All right. Yeah. And this is a program too. This is something we do here, but this is being done all over the country, all over the world, I assume, maybe on lots of places you'll see we'll do Friday reads. There's also the Book Face Friday. We do that as well to promote different books and things, books, magazines, whatever people are reading. So we're not the originator of this, but we are participating in it. And I think there's been a few times when we've missed it, people forget or on occasion. We try not to skip even if there's a holiday, we try not to skip it, but every once in a while, one gets biased. Yeah, that's fine. But we've got, like I said, yeah, lots of people involved in doing it. So we have keep it going. So as long as people want to keep reading and talking about it. All right, so let's get into some of the titles we've been reading. And I put myself up first to get things started. This is one that I did. Remember when I blog about it? It was last year though in 2020. Wonder Woman Tempest Tossed by Lori Halse Anderson and illustrated by Leila Del Ducca. And this is a graphic novel. And the two books that I chose to talk about today turns out they're both graphic novels. I think for this year, I was looking for things to read and to share about reading that are easier to get through than an actual book. That was my way of pandemic reading, I think, as just things that went a lot quicker, not a lot of didn't need a lot of time and days and days of reading like a novel. And both of the two that talked about today, I did purchase and read last year. So they were a part of my pandemic. And this is one that I did actually in September, actually, because it was before September, I'm working for the date here, September 4. September last year was library card signup month from American Library Association. And the they always have an honorary chair. And it's not always an actual person. And this year it was the last year it was Wonder Woman. So I'm like, hey, that's perfect. And I have this graphic novel, I'll talk about it. So I did a little push for sign up for a library card. And then this book that I this graphic novel, this is a reimagining of Wonder Woman's origin story. It is very similar to what her classic origin story, but with some tweaks to it. It's definitely been modernized to what's going on today in our world. Wonder Woman Diana Princess Diana from the mascara is a refugee, actually. And from there, there are actually refugees she sees out in the ocean, there's a storm coming to her island. And boatloads of refugees are getting are caught in the storm. And she goes out to try to save them, it gets caught in the storm as well gets pulled out the sea and then becomes a refugee herself along with these people and goes through the same process they do at coming to somewhere new, trying to find someone, what would they have to do with the process to the new country that they're coming to. So it's definitely a very timely book in this reimagining of it. She it's the the country that they come from is not one that is a real country, they it's kind of a just like them as carers, it's a fictional country. So it doesn't speak of any particular refugees. But it is a war torn country, refugees are escaping from there. She's 16 years old, this is she's a teenager going through this, she meets other teenagers who are going through the process. So it's good for teens for children's point of view. So it's very interesting to see how she views what's happening in the outside world, our world guarding refugees. There is a Steve Trevor, I'll say in the book, the way that it is he is portrayed is I think very unique. And I liked it a lot. I'm not going to give away any spoilers. But I highly recommend it for anyone who's just interested in likes Wonder Woman likes graphic novels, and it's a little slightly more serious. All right, next up, this is you Amy. Yes. This is Bob by Windy Math and Rebecca Stead. And this is a middle grade fantasy title. I tend to read a lot of middle grade and YA fiction. I also tend to read a lot of really depressing nonfiction. But I don't want to review that as much for for Friday. I tried to keep it a little more positive. And not so long winded. But this was a this is a 2021 Golden Sower chapter book nominee. And I read it before when it was being considered for the nominations. And I already knew I liked it. But I have a fourth grade son who is a very reluctant reader. He likes dog man. He likes reading books about cars. They'll read picture books to his little sister but you could not get him to sit down and just read a regular book. So he brought this home and he said I heard this was really good. Yes it is. Very excited that he brought home something we could read together. So and afterwards he said, you know, I think this is one that we should we should buy. We should own this book. That's high praise. So especially from such a reluctant reader. So Bob is about an almost 11 year old girl named Libby that travels to Australia to visit her grandmother. And she hasn't been there since she was five. So she doesn't remember a lot. But she she has a feeling that she's there's something that she should be remembering. And when she goes to the room her grandmother has prepared for her. She finds it in the closet. There is a small green creature wearing a chicken suit. Now this green creature has been waiting in the closet since the last time Libby was there. But she doesn't remember why. And the creature doesn't remember where he came from or you know where he's supposed to be going. So his name is Bob. And Libby and Bob work together to try to recover her memories and to figure out where Bob came from and where Bob needs to go. So it's really cute. It's about, you know, going back to your childhood and and we both really enjoyed it. So and it is it is now on our show. So we did buy a cup. I know Sally has read this to you too. I thought it was wonderful. It was magical in that way. And and I don't want to give too much away. But you find out why it is that he can hide in this rather unusual chicken suit and why she doesn't remember much about the last time she saw him. Yeah. I like that because I like to know why did this happen? Why did that happen? I like it when the author tells me. And for those of you Sally here Sally Snyder is our coordinator children and young adult library services here at the Library Commission. So this is her definitely her area of expertise. There we go. I think Susan. Yes, and I just wanted to tell Amy that I sympathize so much with her having a reluctant reader. I was the same way with Ian. I wanted him to be a reader so much. And I spent hours and hours reading aloud to him, which was he was perfectly okay with, but he won't himself. But he now scores really high whenever there's a like reading comprehension tests. So I'm holding on to that as a benefit. Sometimes they come around later. Yeah. Yeah. Susan Isley is our online services librarian here at the Library Commission. So conventionally yours is a romance and that really sort of fits into my pandemic reading practice. I've always had a real problem with the romance genre. I think I read some really bad romances when I was in high school. I read like Barbara Cartland. And I read like some and I know good writers write for Harlequin, but I read some really bad Harlequin romances with a friend that were really cliched. You could predict what page certain plot very formulaic. Yes, formulaic. That's the word I was trying to think of.  Sure. But that can get boring. Yeah. And some of them are done better than others. You know, I have so many stereotypes about romances based on the bad reading experiences I had in high school, you know, they're addictive, like something that's not good for you. Sometimes I feel emotionally manipulated, because even though it doesn't really seem like very profound, I'm like tearing up at the point I'm supposed to tear up at and it makes me mad.  So I have all these negative stereotypes about romance. But that said, like Amy, I read a lot of depressing nonfiction. And the news is depressing. And this past year, I finally really had to admit that I needed a break, I needed a palate cleanser. And romance, the romance genre really did sort of fit that role, like I read several depressing nonfiction books. And then I feel like I have to read something different that I know is gonna end happily. That said, I try to find titles that don't fall into some of the traps that my high school romance reading fell into. And conventionally yours, I think is a really good example of romance that doesn't feel like it falls into some of those stereotypes. First of all, both protagonists are male. And so that immediately gets away from the like icky male female dynamics that some of the romances I read had, I didn't have to sort of worry about, you know, the damsel in distress kind of trope. This is what I guess they call a new adult romance. So it's not YA, it's not young adult, it's not like high school students. But it's sort of, it's people who are just becoming adults, they're not fully formed yet, they don't know what they're doing with their life, they're, in this case, both characters are sort of trying to transition from college to what comes next. Conrad is 21.  And so he's, you know, working a bunch of dead in jobs, trying to pay for an apartment, pay for asthma medication, and figure out how he's going to get back into college. Alden is 23. And he is actually neurodiverse. I don't think he ever got a specific diagnosis, but probably on the, you know, Asperger's autism spectrum. Really good student, good grades, but he didn't make, he didn't get accepted to medical school, which was the intent. And so he's back doing some sort of post bachelors certificate program and his parents are really pushing him to apply again to medical school. And they want him to write about his neurodiversity and his entrance exam, because they think that will help him get in. And he doesn't want to do that. If he doesn't go to medical school, they want him to come up with another plan right away. So both of them are kind of in that precarious halfway adult halfway, not quite there yet. They know each other because they both play a card game Odyssey at the local game shop. And so they're in a gaming group together. So again, that's a little bit of a different setting for our romance novel. And they don't get along at the beginning. Conrad views, Alden is really rules bound and anti sort of anti social. He's a real stickler for doing everything by the book. He's pretty rigid, not a lot of fun. Alden for his part doesn't really know Conrad's backstory, thinks he's just kind of a college dropout.  So he views him as this like, you know, everything's easy socially for him. So they constantly butt heads within the gaming group. And then due to a variety of circumstances, they wind up taking a road trip together. Just the two of them supposed to be other people on the trip with them. And it winds up just the two of them stuck in a car driving cross country in order to attend this Odyssey convention and play in a tournament competing for a place on the pro Odyssey tour, which both of them view as sort of a solution to their near term problems of what to do next. It's a way to have money, a way to have something to do. So they're stuck together in the car. So again, it is a typical romance trope. It's, you know, enemies to lovers force proximity. Of course, on the road, they get to know each other better. They clear up their misperceptions about each other. They understand why the other is the way they are, they develop feelings, etc. You know, it's a romance. So I don't think I'm probably giving away anything when I tell you that, you know, things work out in the end. But again, it, it, it really sort of defied some of the stereotypes that I have about romance. And so it was a really nice change of pace. It's good. Happy ending, of course. Yes.  Yeah. I think that, that I'd definitely catch a lot of people's attention or into it. Well, I think it's a series. So some of the other characters from their gaming group are going to have their own stories. So Okay, I'll have to look for more of them. Yeah. All right. Ah, the usual suspect Sally. I believe this is yours. Yes, it is. And as you were saying, I'm the children and teen library services coordinator here. So I read maybe eight adult books a year. And mostly I read picture books through books for teens and love them. So it's great. I keep a list of everything I read in an Excel file. That might be because I'm a librarian, but it comes in handy sometimes. And so I know how many books I've read in that picture book to teen realm and how many adult books I've read, which are doing far between the adult books are great. But you know, I've gotten so used to reading teen books, which are written in a way to keep the teens reading that when I get an adult book, I go, Okay, the metal was green. Let's go. Let's move. What's going on next? Come on. And they're lovely descriptions of beautiful places that I am not patient with. Do it anymore. That's that's one of the things that happens with teen books is they're often written to keep things moving. So teams don't put it down and leave it. Although there have been some very long teen books that have lots of They can be very, you know, good for adults, too. I mean, the latest, the two graphic novels I read, they are, you know, obviously, you would think of them as comics for and they are I just look at that up the one, the Tempest Haas, the Wonder Woman one is part of DC's graphic novels for young adults imprint. Oh, it's much more than that, I think with the immigrant, the storyline, I would not have like, if you hadn't told me that, I wouldn't have known from reading it. It fits. It's good for both. Yeah, for adults and teens, I think. Good point. Well, the usual suspects is about particularly Thelonious Mitchell and his best friend, Nehemiah. They both enjoy pulling pranks at their middle school, both to kind of get their teacher excited and to jab at the principal, but it's nothing ever dangerous. And now it's a gun in the park next to the school, right? Adjacent to the school and Thelonious is really irked because once again, the first place they look for suspects in the school is the special education room. And they call it everything from, wait, let me look, special education to neurodiversity because there are neurodiverse students in their Thelonious and his friend, Nehemiah, are both neurodiverse and they feel like they're more warehoused than being helped. That's their perception of what's happening in school with them. And that comes through pretty well as they're trying to solve this mystery because they don't want the blame on their classroom. Again, if something gets broken, it's probably them. If something's been stolen, it was probably them. And that's just not fair. And the fact that they're both black, young, well, black boys kind of adds to that suspicion from the white people in the school's point of view, too. And that's kind of in their very low key, but in there too. And there is a Mr. Blockmon, which is an interesting name. He is assigned to Thelonious. He is not a teacher. He is someone that works with Thelonious at the school to help him make better choices for himself and for what he's supposed to be doing in class. And he is a real solid thing for Thelonious to work with because he is on Thelonious's side, so to speak. But he does not take any kind of guff from him either. So he's an interesting character in there with the teacher who is willing to blame anybody kind of. And the principal is like, we've got to solve this now. So Thelonious and Nehemiah go to work to figure out how this happened. And they're not angels. No, they sell candy on this in on the school playground. It's not bad candy. It's just, you know, something they're not supposed to do at school. They do things like that, but they are not bad kids. And they don't want to be labeled that way either. So it's an interesting read. This is the author's first book for middle grade readers, which is in my world, because I'm older, best upper elementary through the beginning of middle school age range. In my mind, what do you think, Nehemiah? Is that a good description of middle grade? Yeah, I tend to think fourth through sixth grade. And these characters are in seventh grade officially. Has this author written for other grade levels previously? You said this is their first one for this particular. The review said that he's written for adults. And this was his first middle grade. And one review said he does some of the language was a little advanced. I didn't notice that myself. I think that people give need to give readers more credit for what they can can know and understand. But I'm on their team. So I say that I thought it was really a good mystery. And they had their red herrings and their wrong direction they were going as we expect. But they were solid to keep after it. And one of the things that was really great to see as the story develops is to see Thelonious developing into a leader. He might be neurodiverse. And this means, you know, anybody can do things if they are given the chance. And he's going to be quite the guy as he grows up. I know he's fictional. I really thought this was a good choice for libraries to add to their collection. And I know Sally, you do shows for us here in Encompass Live. And at our conferences here in Nebraska on books for teens, books for children in our summer reading program group. And one thing you always say I know is, you know, these are the ages that this title has been. It says it's for them. But your child, your children or and teens in your library may read at different levels. You know, it's not a locked in thing. You know, it's going to be a case by case basis. You may have some kids that read at a higher level than what might be recommended for this particular one. Or other ones that might be at a lower level and you're just going to do it case by case when recommending the books for kids. Exactly right. Yeah. All right. And next we have Tessa, right? Yeah. I want to hear is our communications coordinator here at the Library Commission. Hi guys. So I kind of came upon this book in a roundabout way. I wasn't really looking for it to read and memoirs usually aren't. They're the one nonfiction I will read, but not regularly. So I actually saw some buzz about a tweet the author put out about when she was pregnant, somebody commented that her pregnant belly was a career killer and that I can't remember what else but just talked about then she went on to say she was, you know, a successful writer for I think she's writes for the Jimmy Kimmel show and then that she was writing the script for the movie for this book that she had written five weeks post pardon. So she was kind of clapping back to that comment that you can't have kids and be a successful author. But so I thought, okay, I want to read this person's book. She sounds kind of like a firecracker to me. And it was really good. It was worth the stepping out on a limb. It's this story about her relationship with her grandmother and a little bit about her grandmother's relationship with her mother. She goes into their history and how her grandmother was raised and grew up and got married. Her mother and then this very close relationship she ended up having with her maternal grandmother, even to the point where she kept every single voicemail her grandmother ever left her. And there were a lot of them. So that's part of the book just these verbatim voicemails from her grandmother.  But it's a really touching memoir just to read all these conversations and how much these people care about each other. So I really enjoyed it for those reasons and wasn't what I was expecting. So that's always a nice twist as well. And I listen to this on audiobook and it's narrated by the author, which I always think kind of add something a little bit special to to audiobooks in general. But yeah, it was definitely worth it. It was a very quick read four hours on audiobook and yeah, would recommend. It's always nice to have a surprise when you'd be surprised by a title of a book. You were expecting something else and it turns out better, hopefully. In the end. Yeah, I think because it's just a normal person's story, like there's nothing crazy that happens. There's no like none or there's no like fiction like plot twist or element to the story where it makes it very unique. It's just very normal people's intricate relationships with each other. So and probably makes it a lot more able for some people to identify with the story that it's not this crazy thing happened and we're going to write about it and make it this whole thing. It's like, no, it's just my life, like yours. Yeah, so she's an excellent writer. And obviously that helps when telling your story to make it more readable and easy for people to pick up and understand. But I could see this as anybody's, you know, family story. I can see my grandmother and that grandmother the way you described it. Yeah, I get that. All right. So next up is meme. This is my other graphic novel. Well, I read many of them this year. These are the ones I blogged about for us. Shadow of the Batgirl. I read by Sarah Kuhn and illustrator by Nicole Go. This it was actually a surprise to depending on what you know about Batgirl. This is probably not the Batgirl that you might know of. You if you're not as much into the genre there have been many Batgirls, many women and girls who have worn the Batgirl costume and become her. And this particular story is about Cassandra Kane, who is a little more edgy Batgirl. She's there's previous. This is also a reimagining of an origin story of Cassandra Kane's origin story of how she became back becomes Batgirl. There are previous graphic novels and comics, lots of them about her. So if you want to read more about that, I highly recommend it. She is one of my favorite Batgirls.  And she's a teen as well. Again, this is another teen imprint. And this one is it's similar to her origin original origin story, but not as dark. Cassandra Kane is a more edgy, darker type character. Her history and her past is is not so happy. And this Batgirl, this version of Cassandra Kane also has that as well. But it's a bit lighter in tone. This one is so maybe a little easier for some women to watch that dark, dark. In addition to that, this the story takes place mostly in actually Gotham Public Library. Yay, libraries. So I love Batgirl and librarians. So this was just like, well, they wrote this book for me. This is perfect. So she ends up actually hiding out in the Gotham Public Library. She has this Cassandra Kane has been raised as an assassin from a childhood by a group of assassins that, you know, that's their job. And she's been trained to be this and she knows nothing outside the world of her training. This is all she's ever known as a from a child. She doesn't know anything about her past, really, just that she's been trained to be this this killer. And she is supposedly is on and one of her missions.  She has an epiphany. Something kind of clicks in her head and says, well, what is what is going on here? This is this me? Is this should I be doing this? And she doesn't do it. She does not kill the guy. So she has to run away and she can't go back to her assassins group because that will be a big problem. And she runs away from this her form of life. She wants to figure out who she is and who she wants to be. This is she is a teen as well. So this is very typical of teens, I think in general, trying to figure out who you are, who you're going to be. So in the story of Cassandra Kane being an assassin and trying to remember what is her actual past. Very similar to teenagers saying who am I? What am I? Why am I doing the thing? Should I keep doing the things they tell me to do? Should I just be myself? Who? What is myself? Who am I? That kind of thing. So she runs away and she hides out in the Gotham Public Library. As I said, that's where she finds refuge and just she actually finds a little cubby up there to hide out in and nobody knows she's there. She she's she's an assassin. She can hide. That's her skill set, part of her skill set. And they don't know she's there for a long time that she's like kind of living in the library and she's just reading the books in the library and learning about the rest of the world and what things could be. She also meets a local restaurant owner who helps her and kind of becomes one of her mentors. And she meets the librarian at Gotham Public Library, Barbara Gordon, named to be familiar to some of you. Barbara Gordon, the original classic that girl. That the this Barbara Gordon is in a wheelchair. It is not explained how she ended up in that wheelchair in this particular story. But if you know the history of her, she Barbara Gordon Batgirl does end up being put into a wheelchair and still goes on being her detective self. But something else is going on in Gotham as well. Batgirl has disappeared. Batgirl has disappeared and isn't isn't doing any more crime fighting. And so what's happened? So she gets into this, you know, trying to solve the mystery of what's going on with Batgirl while trying to solve her own mystery of what who am I? Where did I come from? That's a great story. It kind of leaves an open end that there hopefully will be more telling what happens after this to Cassandra Kane, this version of Cassandra Kane. Hopefully, I'm hoping there will be more. I really enjoyed it. All right. Pumpkin heads. All right. This is another graphic novel by Omaha author Rainbow Rowell and it's illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks and you can see by the cover art, the illustrations are just beautiful and they're in these gorgeous fall colors throughout the whole book. And I read this in September and it just put me in the mood for fall and tears and s'mores and I picked this because I was looking for something. I'm in a mentoring program and I mentor a teen girl and I was looking for something that she and I could read together. So I've got two copies of this and we read this. It is set in the world's best pumpkin patch and it's pretty obviously modeled after a pumpkin patch near my house. I live in Omaha and there is a well-known pumpkin patch in Gretna and if you've been there, you will see the resemblance. So they've got maps of the patch and it's pretty close to the one out here. So it's about two teens, Josiah and Deja, and they are finishing up their last season of the pumpkin patch. They've worked in the Suckatash Hut for several seasons and all fall, they are just joined at the hip. The rest of the year, they don't see each other. They only see each other here at the pumpkin patch. So they call themselves fall friends and then they have winter, spring and summer friends. During the fall, they are together all the time. So it's Halloween night and it's their last night of the season and after this they're going to go their separate ways, finish up their senior year of high school, go to college. They won't see each other. So Deja is determined that she is going to help Josiah finally talk to Ms. Crush, the fud shop girl. Rather than stay at the Suckatash Hut, they are going to go out, they are going to experience the pumpkin patch, they're going to try all the snacks and they're going to find this girl and he is going to talk to her and declare his love for the fud shop girl. He's been pining after her for years, but he's too shy. So they spend the whole night scheming to get these two together and turn this last shift into an adventure that they'll remember forever. So it's great. It's a quick read because it's a graphic novel and it's also YA, but just gorgeous illustrations and it really put me in the mood for fall, which right now we're going into the wrong season, but that's OK. I believe at the back of the book that I remember reading the Rainbow Rowell had invited Faith to come to the pumpkin patch so that she could experience that particular pumpkin patch to know. There's a picture of them together at the pumpkin patch. Oh, cool. Yeah, exactly how to draw it. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, all the all the colors and there's a goat that chases them around. But just beautiful illustrations. She's so talented. Another memoir. OK, yeah, this is a memoir. And I really love memoirs because. Oftentimes they give you insight into the life of someone who's experienced things that are different than what you've experienced, but then also in the midst of that, sometimes you'll find real real. You know, points of resonance that really you can relate to. And that was the case with this book. It is by Fouk Tran. He describes himself on his website as an author, educator, class assist and tattooist. He actually runs a tattoo shop with his wife. Excuse me. He was born in 1974 in Vietnam and his family fled the fall of Saigon in 1975 and they wound up being resettled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And he describes them as the token refugee family. So he felt growing up like his family was always, always stood out wherever they went. They were being watched and observed because they were the one sort of different family in the community. The book focuses basically on his childhood and adolescence up until he graduates from high school in 1991. So focused on a particular period of time. And obviously his experience as refugee, first generation American and being Asian, I guess Asian American is obviously something that I don't have that experience. But some of the points of resonance is I'm probably 10 years older than him. So I went to high school in the early 80s and he went in the very late 80s early. He graduated in 91. But his description of high school just was so familiar, especially his description of the clicks he talks about. He was part of the punk skater click and he talks about the rednecks that they always were antagonistic with and the preps and the you know, the jocks. And his his he refers to it being very John Hughes-esque. And so, you know, it really reverberated with me. And I thought of this, Krista, when you were talking about the library aspects of the Batgirl book, he got a job in high school as a library page. And so he talks a little bit about working in the library and the librarians. And so that, of course, spoke to me. And then he's also, even though he's got this sort of tough exterior punker skater vibe, he's also developing this love of literature, which spoke to the English major in me. So, like I said, there were a lot of a lot of experiences that he talked about that were different than mine, but a lot that I could relate to as well. One of the things that he does really well, I think, is explore what it's like to be the child of immigrants. And then he talked about, you know, he doesn't really have a lot of... As a child, he doesn't have a lot of respect for his parents or his father, in particular, as the one he has a fraught relationship with. And he does a really good job of showing, you know, the problems with their relationship and the problems with his father, but also the ways he is really harsh on his father when he probably shouldn't be. You know, he talks about when he's very young, he talks about his father, every night his father, who was a lawyer in Vietnam and he works at a tire factory in Carlisle. He comes home and he reads the newspaper at the kitchen table with a dictionary next to him and he looks up every single word he doesn't know.  That doesn't really capture what the words mean together. Yeah. He talks about his dad with a tape recorder reading the newspaper out loud and trying to practice his pronunciation. So, you know, his dad is working really hard, but then he talks about how, as a five or six year old, he was frustrated with his dad. For example, they were reading a Star Wars book together and he asks his dad, what's a Wookie? And his dad's like, well, let's look it up in the dictionary. Well, they can't find Wookie in the dictionary. And of course, he's sure the word is there and his dad is just, you know, failing at finding it. Neither of them realize it's a made up word. Another failure of his father. His parents read the book 101 Dalmatians, the little golden book version of 101 Dalmatians to them all the time. And so his favorite character is the dog named. His dad always pronounces it colonel. That's how it's spelled. And so at school, then this book comes up and he talks about colonel and all of the other kids laugh at him. And so then he comes home and he confronts his father and says it's supposed to be pronounced colonel, you know, and his dad is really confused and looks it up and tries to decipher the pronunciation guide in the dictionary. You know, so he's pretty harsh on it hard on his dad. And you can see that his dad is really working hard. And this was such a poignant quote. He said, I needed to trust my dad's ability to navigate the world at large. And I was already doubting him. Five year olds were supposed to believe what their parents said. Maybe some kids parents still had the golden nimbus of infallibility but not my parents and not for me. So I, you know, I've heard other children of immigrants talk about that relationship with their parents and how, you know, the struggles their parents have to integrate into the culture colors their view of their parents maybe sometimes unfairly. So I thought that was really he does a really good job of capturing that. Basically, the gist of the book is how he tries to fit in and find himself again that sort of young adult period of time when you're trying to figure out your place. You don't want to stand out in a bad way, but you also want to figure out who you are. And so he talks about how he's got sort of, he's kind of got a trajectory to pronged attack. He says one was aligning with the punk skater kids at school and the other was academic success and he kind of keeps these two parts of his life separate. But I thought he described really well why adolescents in particular are really cling to their clicks. He said being a freak because of my weird clothes and hair was a respite.  These were things that I had chosen. Fighting rednecks because you were a punk was far better than fighting because you were Asian and fighting with allies was far better than fighting alone. I thought that really captured why kids gravitate toward groups. Then on the academic front while he's working at the library book sale he stumbles across this book called, it's by Clifton Fadiman. It's called the lifetime reading plan.  But he takes this book home and he embraces it and he's going to, you know, read all of these great writers. He now acknowledges that it was a pretty narrow view of literature but it definitely gave him what he needed at the time, which he describes as kind of an entree into the world of literature. And so he has a lot of ideas that can connect people across time, space and culture. And so then the book ends and he actually has tried out and he's been awarded the position of being a commencement speaker and he's getting ready to go off to college and he ends up getting accepted. How he's going to pay for college is a real big challenge and so he has to get a scholarship and he does get accepted and he gets accepted. And so he's got a scholarship called a Bard College and it describes itself in its admission literature as a place to think which seemed like a really apropos college for him. So anyway, that was a great memoir. And he's got an Instagram site where you can go and see all of his tattoo designs that he does. All right. I'll have to look for that. And I'm going to show the alphabetically she comes up first. This is about well it's told in free verse and it's an alternating view point. But it's two almost 17-year-old girls who are daughters of a man who lives in New York with his wife and his daughter there and then in the summer he spends every summer in New York. The daughter in New York thinks he's there for business. The daughter in the Dominican Republic says this is my best favorite time of year because father is here for the whole summer. Well he dies in a plane crash between New York and the Dominican Republic and that's when they find out about each other and about the two families. The girl in the Dominican Republic is living with her daughter. The daughter in New York's name is Yahira and they both are going through this feeling of loss and also betrayal and anger and so many emotions. And also even their futures are now in question to one degree or another because of the loss of their father. They do eventually connect with each other and have some conversations and one of the things that Camino is facing in the Dominican Republic is she had hope to go to college. She doesn't think she's going to be able to but the other thing that's happening is much more insidious. She has always gone by herself to swim in this little cove not too far from her house and this man starts showing up and she knows him but doesn't really know him and he's talking with her and she feels creeped out by him and her father had always kept him at a distance now her father's not there and she isn't bold enough to tell him to take a hike so she tries to be you know devious not be where he thinks she's going to be because he keeps telling her you're going to be mine I'm going to have you and so I'm in this position everything stand up for yourself you can do it and somebody come in and rescue her oh but I'm feeling the stress that Susan mentioned before I didn't want that to happen either but I didn't want her to end up being a victim of this man things work out not the victim of the man I have to tell you that part but it's such so well written and again it's in free verse but it's so well written you feel the feelings that both of the girls are feeling heartbreak and their anger and their guilt about being angry but they have a good reason to and also you keep wondering about this title why is it named clap when you land and I gave it all away in my description on the web page the author explains that it is a Dominican custom to clap when the plane lands the passengers back in the Dominican Republic so we should do that every time no matter where we're landing we're alive I think it's great that the planes land so often but this is such a heartfelt story and it got a start review in Kirkus which isn't easy to do and the final statement of the Kirkus review is a standing ovation so anyone who knows how Kirkus can be pretty tough on books to have that for your book is amazing and this is a wonderful book definitely wow and great cover design too I just noticed the airplane cut out I've been staring I put these slides together I'm staring at this for a couple of days and until you explained I didn't see the planes yeah alright and our final title for today today Tessa yeah so this is Eleanor all fan is completely fine by Gail Honeyman and it's been out for a little while now I can't remember exactly let's see it was written in 2017 so it's got a couple years on it and it's pretty popular book I know this is a novel we have in our book club kits selection so that's available through us but I've read this several times actually and that's one of my themes of reading during the pandemic I've read a lot re-read a lot of my favorite books just because I think for the comfort aspect I know what they're going to say to some extent and so I don't there's no like plot twist that I'm not going to be ready for or not be prepared for so that's been a lot of my reading and this one especially I love this book I don't even know how many times I've read it now but the protagonist in it is so noble and hateful at the same time like it's amazing to me she's so completely flawed and not in the way you normally see female protagonist flawed she's not I think I wrote like she's not secretly gorgeous behind her glasses like she's not lovingly clumsy she's just incredibly flawed and both internally and externally so it's also a book about isolation which I think is pretty on the point for this year but just she's self isolated herself from everybody around her regardless there's no pandemic in the book so but yeah so it's just about her like coming out of her isolation shell making a friend stepping out in the world a little bit and really great read it covers a lot of really hard things like mental illness physical and verbal abuse and suicide and self harm so a lot of deep subjects in there but it is also hilarious I laugh every time I read it so it has a little bit of everything in it I think alright yeah that's definitely a good thing rereading books that you've read before I've done that over the years too I didn't not this past year have it but that is always a good comfort definitely I think something where you know what's going to happen you're not going to get surprised by some horrible you know twists that doesn't make it a good title but awesome alright so and that's our final title for today now that's not our final title of Friday Reads but just a few that we picked out from the past year that we had some of us here had blogged about so thank you everybody for being with us here today thank you Susan and Amy and Tessa and Sally for joining me to talk about some of the books we've been reading see I am going to slide this over here so you can see you should be seeing that now there we go we had talked about at the beginning about a couple of pages websites that we have for this the book reviews page and these are all linked in our show description as well oh we got some comments coming in anybody wants to share anything any titles you've read or anything someone just says thank you this is great I definitely added some books to my list you're welcome sorry you've got too many books to read that's great I always end up doing that too what Amy mentioned at the beginning is hopefully something to get people reading to discover new books maybe you hadn't before and so hopefully I always end up whenever somebody posts one of these on a Friday I end up I have bought some books based on someone's reviews in our Friday reads yes it added to my collection some of them I've read so far and some of them I'm still on my to be read list and as Tessa mentioned that last focus on our book club kit collection and we also it was pretty popular for a while so we also put together a page of read-alikes so if you find a book from us that you really want and can't get but are in the mood for something similar that's under the collections at NLC menu there's a read-alikes page all the way over to the where is it at it might be under book club kits up at the top there's a read-alikes page click through that I know Ellen or all the fans right near the top of the list and it will have other books that are similar that's awesome so if you are looking to read some of these books some of them that we have reviewed are here but are just promote our book club kits if you want to read something we've got collections of these multiple copies we'll send to you and then go here to find other things there's a lot here that's awesome I know people are always looking for helping for and this we could help some of you librarians too with your readers advice or yourself if you're not sure someone says I love this book now what and this is where you can get your book club kits so this is the list of all of our Friday reads we've also got a broken-out fiction and nonfiction and also on our blog we've tagged them all Friday reads so if you go to our blog and do a search you'll also get just all of them with the most recent one this is one from last Friday and you can see all of our blog posts here if you wanted to go that way to see what we've all read over the past 2014 when we started doing this that's when it was I mean some more comments coming in thanks for the suggestions great titles yeah we are you know I'm not sure how many of our staff are on this now at the commission is there 10 or 15 of us doing it now? that sounds right somewhere around a dozen yeah and I think like last year I did three because there's so many of us that are doing this so not bad yeah you have a good variety of titles here because there are so many of us here and so many people with different likes and different types of reading they do and so it's going to run the game here it's great so there's a list of books that you can look for get here to our Encompass Live page so on our Encompass Live page as I said we are recording today so it will be here in our archives probably by the end of the day tomorrow I should have everything ready and posted on here it'll be right here at the top of the list most recent ones will be here we will have the the slides you'll have a link to those if you want to use those and see those book covers and links to both of our Friday reads pages the book reviews page and then the where they are tagged in our blog we'll be on there as well on everybody who attended today and we're registered for today show you get an email from me letting you know when the recording is ready it'll be up here at the top of the page here and while we're here I'll show you this is our full show archives if you want to look up for a particular topic see if you've done a show on it you can search for that here we have you can search the full archives or just the most recent 12 months if you want some just really current information that is because this is the full archives for Encompass Live and I'm not going to scroll all the way down because there's a lot here but going back to the beginning of our show our show premiered in January 2009 so we have over 10 years worth of weekly shows here so if you do search the full archives just pay attention to the original broadcast date it's all on here it's not right here some of the information here will stay on the test of time shows like this with book reviews of course but some things may become outdated there may be old information services and products may have changed or even don't exist anymore links may be broken websites have moved so just pay attention if it's an older date you might have some of that you might have to be aware of as you are watching our archives but we are librarians we do archive things and keep things for historical purposes and we will have our full show archives on here as long as we have somewhere to host it right now we host all we have a YouTube channel the library commission does and that's where all of our recordings are kept so that will wrap it up for today's show and next week our show is our pretty sweet tech last Wednesday of every month is our pretty sweet tech with Amanda sweets technology innovation librarian here at the library commission she always talks about something techy related and next week how I turned my dad's house into a smart home and she used Amazon Alexa you could use other products but she's going to talk to you about how she did that for her dad so please do sign up for that and keep an eye on our schedule here I'm talking with a few people now about what our topics are going to be for April so keep an eye on our schedule to see what will be coming up we also have a Facebook page for Encompass Live I've got it linked and open over here if you do like to use Facebook give us a like on Facebook you'll get notifications here's a reminder to watch for today's show speaker information when our recordings are available so we post things on there we also post on to our various social media Twitter Instagram not sure anywhere else using the hashtag Encompass Live so you can always look for that hashtag out and about elsewhere so that wraps up today's show thank you everybody for attending thank you all of you for sharing your books with us this morning all of our speakers today and hopefully we'll see you on a future episode of Encompass Live bye bye thank you


My name is Garrett and I have the privilege and the honor to serve as one of the pastors here at this incredible church and this incredible place that we all get to call home. And I have the honor today of teaching the next installments in our Gospel of John series. I hope that you've been enjoying this series as we are going through the Gospel of John and looking at the magnificence of Jesus and seeing how it touches and applies to our lives today. Last week, Pastor Sean, you just heard a recap from last week, Pastor Sean preached a powerful message out of John chapter eight on us knowing who we are because we know who our father is. And so it's important that you, if you miss last week, that you go back and you watch it or you listen to it because it provides context and even a forward progression as we go through the book of John. And so if you missed it, I wanna encourage you to go back and watch it or listen to it. And today I'll be picking up right where Pastor Sean left off because right after John chapter eight becomes John chapter nine. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? How that works? Yes it is. So today, whether you have a digital copy or you brought your analog copy, your old school Bible, let's, which I have today, let's turn to John chapter nine. John chapter nine, something big is about to take place in John chapter nine. We are gonna read verses one through 25. It says this, as he, being Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he may be born blind. Now, at this time, there were some, there's some things that are really distant from us. And so theologically speaking, a lot of people believe that sickness was always the consequence of sin. And so the disciples are asking a cultural question and even a theological question to Jesus. Did this man sin and did his sin cause him to be blind or did his parents sin and when he was born because they sinned, did it cause him to be blind? In fact, the Jews had some beliefs that would say that if the parent sinned when the baby was in the womb, the baby would have an infirmity because of it or an inflection as a consequence. Some even believed, get this, that a baby in the womb could sin. And so this is what they are asking. They are trying to figure out. They're trying to get a diagnosis, if you will. A firm place of where this sickness came from when Jesus answered them. It was not that this man sinned nor his parents, now get this, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground. This is awesome. He spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, go, wash in the pool of Siloam which means sent. So he went and washed and came back seen. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some said it is he, others said no, but he is like him. He kept saying, I am the man, I'm the man. So they said to him, then how were your eyes open? He answered, the man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam then wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. Then he said to him, where is he? He said, I don't know. They brought him to the Pharisees. This is where it gets really good. This is fun right here. And this is where if you think the Bible is boring, I just want to let you know that you're boring and you need to wake up, okay? Okay, so they brought him to the Pharisees and the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day because of course they want to harp on this. It was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked how he had received his sight and he said to him, he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see. He's getting frustrated. Some of the Pharisees said this man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath. But the others said, see they were more concerned with that fact than they were with the miracle that happened right before him. He said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs and there was division among them. So they said again to the blind man, what do you say about him since he has opened your eyes? He said, he's a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked, is this your son who you say was born blind? How does he then now see? His parents answered, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, he is of age. Ask him, verse 24. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know. One thing I know. One thing he says, I do know that I was blind. Now I see. Jesus, we come to you this day and we thank you for this day that you have made. We make the purposeful intentional choice to rejoice and be glad in it. Lord, I pray a dangerous prayer that was prayed or spoken to you 2000 something years ago. Lord, we believe, but help us with our unbelief. Help us Lord. Help us to see your word. Help us to see you for who you are. And Lord, I ask for an incredible work to be done in this room in all of our lives today. Lord, as your word says, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but your word will stand forever. And we trust in that in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. While preparing for today, my typical bend is to go theologically deep into things. It's to highlight areas of things that were happening culturally and some things that are maybe hidden to most of us theologically unpack them and then apply them to our lives. And as I was preparing for this week, I felt convicted by the Lord to not do any of that, even though some of that may come out just unintentionally. But instead, the Lord put two things heavy on my heart and both of them have to do with our healing, with our healing. And the first thing that the Lord put on my heart is, it kind of caught me off guard. It's slightly obscure, but it is significantly relevant to each and every single one of us in this room, regardless of where we are, who we are, what we've been through and where we are going. It is relevant to each of us today. It is called bitterness, bitterness. You might ask Pastor Garrett, bitterness, what does that have to do with the blind guy in John chapter nine spit in mud and being healed? Well, I am so glad that you asked that question. Thank you for having a conversation with me this morning. I'm gonna quickly turn to Exodus chapter 15. In Exodus chapter 15, this is what happens, starting verse 22. Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of sure. They went in three days into the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Mara, they could not drink the water of Mara because it was bitter. Therefore, it was named Mara. And the people grumbled against Moses saying, what shall we drink? And he cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log. Why, let's see, this is where I have to go theological for a moment, why a log? Of all the things, why a log? The word log, in the original language, if you break it down, it means tree. Hear this, it means tree. This is a prophetic foreshadow pointing us to Christ. This is a prophetic foreshadow of Christ. On a tree at Calvary, we're cast the bitter waters of our sin. Through the death of the one who bore them, the waters are now made sweet. Oh, what a savior we have.  Oh, what a healer we have. Moving on. So he threw it, being the log into the water and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule. And there he tested them saying, if, most powerful two-letter word in the Bible, if, if. If, if, he says, if you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes, not my eyes, not a political party's eyes, not your friend's eyes, not Facebook's eyes, not the TikTok's eyes, in his eyes, in his eyes. If you will do what is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments, he keep all his statutes. He says, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians. Now hear this. He says, for I am the Lord, get this, it's personal, your healer, not just the healer, your healer, your healer, not just the healer, but your healer. Friends, this is the first time that God revealed himself to his people as healer. In the Bible, in scripture, this is the first time that he makes it personal. And he says, guess what? I am your healer. I am Jehovah Rafa. I am the God. I am the Lord who heals you. Now don't miss this. This is key. The first time God reveals himself as healer to the people of God was by healing the bitter waters of the people of God, of the people of God. Beloved, God doesn't want his people drinking from the cup of bitterness because he doesn't want his people bitter. Please hear this again. God does not want his people drinking from the cup of bitterness because he doesn't want bitter people. He doesn't want his people bitter. He healed the bitter waters back then with them. And I believe he wants to heal the bitter waters today with us, the bitter waters of our hearts, the bitter waters of our minds, the bitter waters of our souls, the bitter waters of what that person did to you and said to you, the bitter waters of that loss, that disappointment, that trauma, that experience that you had, God wants to heal the bitter waters of our lives. He wants to heal us. You see, while not everyone will experience what it actually means and feels like to be physically blind, every single one of us, all of us will experience what it means and feels like to be blinded by bitterness. Every single one of us will experience that. And here's why. Because bitterness makes us blind to everything except the thing that we are bitter about. It's all we see. It's all we focus on. It consumes us. It consumes us. Bitterness makes us blind to everything except the thing that we are bitter about. And then when left unhealed, it consumes us to the point where we spread it to others. You know what I'm talking about. Ever heard of the World Wide Web, the Interwebs? Ever heard of something called social media? Oh, Pastor Garrett, I'm just sharing what we call sharing. The Bible called slandering. Be careful. Be careful with what you share. I'm just sharing how I feel. We need to stop making addendums, concessions and taking hall passes to the word of God because I'm just sharing. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. Even worse, when left unhealed, guess what we do? We pass it down to our children. Hey, here's your inheritance. Have my bitterness. Here's your inheritance. Be bitter about this people, this thing. Have my bitterness. Understand our bitterness speaks more about the cup we are drinking from than what happened to us. The bitterness I am talking about could be with a sibling, a parent, a spouse, a friend, an ex, a pastor, a pastor, a coach, a boss, a colleague, an elected official, the government, the church, culture, business, a people group. It could be any one of those or multiples of those. Whichever it is, beloved, he was Jehovah Rafa back then. He is Jehovah Rafa right now and I believe that he wants to heal the bitterness that is blinding us today. The bitterness that is poisoning us, consuming us. The bitterness that is choking us to the point where all we have is tunnel vision about that one thing and now we're blind because of it. The second thing the Lord put on my heart today was for physical healing. Now, this particular miracle is one of two miracles that scripture identifies that Jesus used actual spit to bring about the healing in a person's life. The other time that he did this was in Mark chapter seven. Turn with me to Mark chapter seven real quick. Mark chapter seven in verse 31. It says that he returned from the region of Tyre and went to Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of Decapolis.  He put his fingers into his ears and after spitting touched his tongue. So we have the blind man in John chapter nine.  Now we have God giving this other man a wet willy and touching his tongue. We have some interesting stuff going on here right now. You know, for many of us, the use of spit may seem strange and it's definitely unconventional. I think we can all agree that this is a little unconventional. It's minimally unhygienic and possibly offensive for some of us. I bring this up because what might seem odd or off to us in our day was seen completely different in Jesus' day. It was seen completely different. You see in the ancient world, the use of spit was more common than we might think for a medicinal use, if you will. Spit, especially the spit of a distinguished person who for most people in this area, Jesus was a distinguished person. Spit was believed to possess certain medicinal qualities. So much so that their famous Roman philosopher, Pliny, he wrote chapters on the use of spit for healing in these ancient times. He wrote things like the use of spit can cure being bit by a poisonous snake or the use of spit can be used to cure leprosy and the spots of leprosy and the use of spit can be used as an anointing agent to help infected eyes. See what's happening here. Do you see what's happening here? Obviously, beloved, we know that spit and mud did not heal this man nor did any combination thereof. We know this, Jesus healed this man. It wasn't the spit, it wasn't the mud, it was Jesus who healed this man. The fact that Jesus used methods and customs of his time and used them to bring about a miraculous healing in this man's life does not teach us that spit and mud came together to form a medicine in order to bring about healing for this man. Rather, it teaches us this, that anything in the hands of Jesus can bring about healing. Anything in the hands of Jesus can bring about healing. You know, over and over again, the Gospels tell us how Jesus would often take something natural and then do something supernatural with it. So what matters is not what we get hung up on, especially when it comes to healing. What matters is not what is used or how it happens. What matters is whose hands. We put our faith and our hope and our trust for healing in. That's what matters. That's what matters. The point is, believe and have faith and trust that Jesus is going to heal you. Please hear this. Believe, have faith and trust that Jesus is going to heal you. And I'm not just talking about the big, big moments and the devastating diagnosis. I'm talking about anything and everything, any affliction, any sickness, any disease, any infirmity, a cold, cancer, doesn't matter. Anything. Have faith, believe and trust that Jesus is going to heal you, but please hear me.  And this is why, this is why, are you ready? Are you ready? This is why it's vital you're here. This is why. Portage, are you ready? Downtown, are you ready? This is why, please hear me. Medicine and miracles are not rivals. They're not at rival with each other. We have made this big dichotomy of the two and we need to stop doing that and we need to put our faith, our hope and trust in Jesus. And we need to say, Jesus, I am doing this, but I know you're my healer. This medicine's not my healer, you're my healer. This spit isn't my healer, you're my healer. Jesus, you're my healer because medicine and miracles are not rivals, church. Our faith, hope and trust are not in a doctor or not in medicine or not in the method. Our hope and faith and trust are in Jesus. And just like with the spit, he can work a miracle with all of those people and all of those methods in order to bring about your healing. He can, he can. In 1999, I was a senior in high school and for the last 12 years prior, for the prior 12 years, I spent over 300 days a year, do the math, starting at the age of seven. I spent over 300 days a year. I'm not exaggerating, this is not pastoral hype. If you knew my dad, you'd be like, yeah, this is legit. I spent over 300 days a year, seven years old, practicing a sport. I told my dad I wanted to play football and my dad was a semi-pro football player and he is a very, if you think I'm intense, that's cute. He said, you wanna be a football player then I'm gonna teach you how to be a football player. Seven years old, probably 75 pounds. I was in the front yard with my dad laying out my dad, he was 230 pounds. He bought pads for me, he bought pads for himself and I was tackling my dad at the age of seven and eight in our front yard. That's how we spent our evenings, that's how we spent our weekends. I had private coaches early, early on with speed, with strength and with forms of the positions that I was playing. I spent the majority of my childhood learning how to be a football player. And my hips and my feet still tell the story today. Well, in 1999, I was a senior in high school and I had worked so hard at this game that I loved that I was being recruited all across the nation. My wife can tell you about the boxes of letters that I was receiving from colleges, day in and day out to play football. And in the early winter of 1999, I made a verbal commitment to play football for the University of Oregon. While leaving school one day, right before graduation, I was on my way to go to my strength coach and I was stopped on the backside of a hill and a girl from my school came up and over that hill in California and she rear ended me. The rear ending that took place even though it was under 20 miles an hour because of the way the energy transferred through the car and into the position that I was seated in my car, I fractured my L2 and L3 vertebrae. My back was fractured. For the next two years, I lived in a full body hard cast. I couldn't tie my shoes, I couldn't put on my socks. Sarah dealt with the emotions that I went through every single day even though we were dating at that time. She dealt with my pain, my emotional pain in every way. I had monthly MRIs and CT scans and all these testings to see if my back was going to heal itself if things would take place and the progress that was happening would help bring healing to my life but nothing got better. After two years of going through this, we finally made the decision that the doctor that I had wasn't gonna help us take the next step that we needed to take and so I was transferred to one of the leading spine specialists at the university at UCLA, at UCLA University, I'm sorry. And we began to see this leading specialist and he looked at everything, the years of scans and tests and procedures and everything that we did and he just concluded, hey, we're just gonna keep doing this. I think either you needed to make a decision to either find a way to live with it which will be hard and painful and we don't know what else can come of it or we need to fuse your back together. We made the decision to fuse my back. Well, at a Wednesday night service in my back brace, knowing this was about to take place and knowing that my life was gonna be changed forever because of this procedure, I slowly crawled to the ground which was very difficult for me to do, even in a back brace and I laid down on the ground and I just begged God to heal me and I remember weeping and just saying, Lord, if you'll heal me, I will devote my life to serving you. I will never turn back. I'll never second guess you. I'll never doubt you if you will heal me right now. I remember a bunch of people coming and kneeling beside me and laying their hands on me and then saying this, Garrett, your body is cold but where your break is on your back, it's searing hot and I felt this heat, this really, really hot iron right over my L2, L3. That Friday, two days later, we went to UCLA to have my final consult before the procedure took place and as always, I had to have a scan done. So I had a scan done and I wasn't wearing my back brace. I wasn't in pain anymore but I'll never forget what happened next.  And I said, what'd you say? He goes, well, two weeks ago, we took scans and put them up on the thing that, whatever it shows it, the screen thing, that thing, you know, he goes, there's your break right there. Do you see it? Do you see it? Yeah, I see it. Yeah, I can point to it. Puts up the other one. That's the same spot. Where did it go? What did you do? God healed my broken back by way of miracle. Amen. This is where it gets really good. In 2013, we started to plan our church. For those of you who know, we planted a church in Colorado and then God called us here two years ago, almost today, we were packing our moving truck today to come here. And in 2013, we started preparing to plan our church and I was having immediate esophageal issues, painful esophageal issues. It started at random, but within a year, it rapidly progressed to all the time. And here's what I mean, I couldn't swallow food. It would back up right here at my sphincter. It would back up to the point of here where it choked me and then I would have to vomit my food up. It got so bad, it progressed so rapidly that I couldn't drink much water. I would be drinking all day. I would only hold a certain point down.  My body was becoming so malnutritioned that I was rapidly losing weight. I couldn't hold food in all while planting a church. In 2016, the doctors who I were going to were struggling to find a remedy and so we went to a specialist in Denver and I'll just tell you this. I had some of the most horrendous things that like our firm, a sci-fi channel done to me in order to figure out what was wrong with me. Probes jammed down my esophagus and then like they would shoot electricity into my esophagus to get it to respond. What they figured out is I had a rare disorder called eclasia. They don't know where eclasia comes from. They don't know what causes it. It's a very rare disorder. And the only condition is to have a procedure called a Heller's Myotomy, which is where they cut the sphincter right here that goes from your esophagus into your stomach open so food can pass by gravity. And so I had this procedure done. I had to have it done. It was the only way for me to actually live. I had gone from 205 pounds down to 145 pounds. I was a stick. I looked like I was going through other type of things. The only way that I had nutrients in me was by drinking organic bone broth that we made daily in Pediasher. And even that, I would still have trouble keeping it down. So I had this procedure done and then we got home and within hours of me being home after this, after having this invasive surgery, I found myself on my bed curled up in the fetal position in the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. And to remind you, I broke my back. My elders came and got me. They loaded me into the car and we rushed to the ER. After tests, the ER could not figure out what was going on, but they wanted to keep me overnight for observation because of the pain that I was having. They figured out that I was having acute pancreatitis, but they didn't know why. And my levels from the blood work were skyrocketing and they were elevating more and more and more. And so they were worried about what was taking place. Well, the ER doctor woke me up early in the morning, the next day after I was heavily medicated because of the pain. He woke me up and said, I was up all night. I've been reading and researching. I even pulled up medical books that I didn't even know I still had trying to find out what's going on with you and I'm worried. And so I want to go back in and I want to make sure that maybe when they were doing the procedure, they didn't poke something and that you're leaking. I want to make sure you're okay. It's great, please just take care of it, it hurts. So I went back in and this is what happened.   Everything looks good. And so as I was looking around, I was like, there's nothing here. So it just may be a reaction to the first procedure. And I began to pull my instruments out and then I heard a voice say, flip the gallbladder. And so I looked at my team and I said, who said that? No one said anything, doctor. It's just us and no one talks in your room unless we're asked to talk. He begins pulling them out, flip the gallbladder. Who said that? No one, flip the gallbladder, he heard again. So he thinks, okay, I'm gonna flip the gallbladder. He flips it over. On the front side, I looked like a 30 year old. On the back side, it was gangrene filled with massive stones and about to burst. He estimates I had 36 to 48 hours before it ruptured and I became septic. So he removed my gallbladder.  His voice, a man that did not know God heard the voice of the God. Here's why I tell that. The first story I told you, God healed me by way of miracle. The second story is this, God healed my disorder by medicine. Again, medicine and miracles are not rivals. One of the things that John 9 teaches us, one of the things that my two healing testimonies testify of is we don't have to know how God heals. We just have to believe and trust and know that he heals. Sometimes it's a woman touching the robe of Jesus as he walks by like in Luke 8, 43. And sometimes it's Jesus touching the eyes of a blind man like in John 9. Sometimes it comes when other people lay hands on your infirmity like in my testimony with my back. And sometimes it comes from a whisper in a ER room when a doctor is giving care to his patient, like with my disorder. Whichever it is, church, understand it doesn't matter if it's a moment in a service medicine, in a hospital spit or mud in the desert. Our attention, our attention is our faith and hope and trust. Our attention are not in how we are healed. Our faith and our hope and our trust are on who heals. And that is Jesus, Jehovah Rafa. I wanna ask our band to make their way up our team or worship team as they're making their way up. Beloved, I don't know how God healed me. I don't. Like the blind man from John 9 who said in verse 26, all I know is that I was blind, but now I see. All I know is that my back was broken, but now it's whole. All I know is that I had a disorder, but now I don't.  Everything goes to his hands. Every single thing. I want us to know today that what matters is not what mode, it's not what method. God heals by what matters is who gets the glory. Verse three, Jesus answered. It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him, in him.  God didn't cause my esophageal disorder, but he used my esophageal disorder to display his great works. The point is God will use our difficult afflictions to display his great works, especially when we put them in his hands, when we give them to him. And this is my hope for every single one of us today. This is my hope. This is it. That you would know that one of the ways that he loves to display his great works is by healing his people, is by healing his people. He may use a doctor and a surgeon to heal your body, but, hear this, he is Jehovah Rapha, so he is your healer. He may use a counselor. He may use a therapist to heal your mind, but he is Jehovah Rapha so he is your healer. He may use a pastor or a retreat to heal your marriage, but he is Jehovah Rapha, so he is your healer. He is your healer. He may use a friend. He may use a rebuke. He may use a log to heal your bitterness. But he is Jehovah Rafa. So he is your healer. So beloved, he is Jehovah Rafa. He is your healer and he wants to heal. And I believe, I believe that he is a testimony of healing for us today. Today. And so would you stand with me and let's respond by belief and with faith and with hope that he is our healer.


Thanks for checking this video out. Your mountaintop news video is coming up in just a minute.  Why isn't your ad here? Call me. Earlier this month, the Appalachian based company, BitSource, joined Kentucky to the world as part of a video series to highlight economic development in eastern Kentucky. Friday we spoke with BitSource founder Rusty Justice about Accelerate Kentucky, a new initiative to create jobs in our region. Well our purpose is to educate, it's actually the, it was the initial event where we're announcing the formation of this new group. Accelerate Kentucky is a statewide organization focused on improving the stakeholder model of innovation and entrepreneurship. So the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Kentucky is really not very friendly for business growth, small business growth, or this formation of new businesses. While working on a stakeholder model, Justice says the goal is to make regions more accessible to entrepreneurs and job creation. And so we've completed that program and as a result we've launched Accelerate Kentucky. And so it's people from all across the state, from all the five stakeholder models, stakeholder groups and each one of us are working to promote the conditions necessary for the growth of business in Kentucky. Really a good way to explain it is kind of an obscure thing, but the way to think of it is businesses as being seeds or plants that are already in the garden. We're focused on improving the soil that these things grow in as we talk about business. Justice continues to say that the program focuses on different areas of expertise, helping others accomplish their business goals. We communicate, we inspire and we inform. So that's really what we do. We get people together to talk about it. We encourage the ones trying to do it and then we inform those trying to help them in ways they can be more helpful. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joel Chorjol.


So here you have a keyboard. Yes the keyboard dock. What do you call this? So can you try to close it and see how it looks you can So how soon is this gonna be available? Nice, so can we try does it work? Yes, just want it to work and Nice. Yeah. Hello. Cool. So there's no price or something like that yet? We'll see you later. Yeah, maybe a few months later or how soon? Yeah, but at the approximate rate 100 euro. 100 euro, maybe? Yeah, and can we can we film over there some other accessories over there? Yeah So what are you showing? What is this? This is a Bluetooth remote with a handset function So you can go through all the menus with this remote control and also you can take calls If you're using a tablet with a solar function and voice call function What function do you say? So voice call function voice call function. This is like a Like a Bluetooth headset. Yes, you can accept calls So you can use it on any any device not only Sony or only the Sony Only for Sony so this is gonna be available with the at the same time as a tablet or Yes, and how about what's behind here there? What is this? This is a magnetic charger. This is the charger that charges the tablet, but also we have speakers The sound nice So a speaker's all this is speaker and this what is this? This one, we have a two-phone speaker here Powerful sound. What is in front? Is it not speaker? It looks like speaker Volume and surgical so you can use this for kind of like video conference Cool more more accessories. You will have many things. Let's go over there So there's cases All these cases will be available and you can play with the PlayStation controller So the world's limit and lightest waterproof