Hey man, all right, Judges Chapter 2. So how many of you are wondering, as we just read Judges Chapter 2, you're like, Judges. So you know, where are all these Judges at? So we haven't even seen any Judges yet, right? So my point of, we don't have any Judges yet in Judges Chapter 1 and Judges Chapter 2, but my point in trying to get through these chapters in the Bible is to try to kind of, not only, we did this same thing with Matthew is not only just preach through verse by verse and kind of run off on different things, but I want to kind of try to give the context and the big picture of what's happening in not only the chapters, but in this part of the Bible. And in Judges Chapter 1 and Judges Chapter 2, we have a very specific purpose of these two chapters in the book of Judges. If you've noticed, you know, look at Judges Chapter 1, just go back to Judges Chapter 1. The Bible says, now after the death of Joshua, and then if you go and you look at Judges Chapter 2, you see that Joshua was alive again, right? So it's like, what is going on here? So Judges Chapter 1 and Judges Chapter 2 are not chronological. It's not meant to be a chronological history of what happens. Judges Chapter 1 and Judges Chapter 2 is setting the scene for the book of Judges. It is setting up, you know, it's recapping the situation. It's setting the scene. It's not chronological, but it's more importantly, and I hope that I can get this across to you this evening, it's a methodology that God is laying forth here on how he deals with the nation of Israel. He's showing, he's kind of giving you a Cliff Notes version of what he's doing and what the whole point of the Judges were. Look down at verse number 1 of Judges Chapter 2. I mean, and look, another thing I'm trying to explain to you, I tried to explain to you last week, these two chapters and the way that God uses this methodology, the reason that it's so important is because it applies to us today. It's the exact same methodology that God is going to deal with us today. It's the same methodology that God's going to deal with us as a nation, as we talked about last Wednesday. And it's the same methodology that God is going to deal with us as individuals as well. Okay, so look at Judges Chapter 2 in verse number 1 and let's get into it. And hopefully I can give you this big picture of Judges Chapter 1 and Judges Chapter 2 by the end of the sermon tonight. So we kind of see, we'll have the scene set to get into the actual Judges themselves. Look at verse number 1 of Judges Chapter 2. The Bible says, And an angel of the Lord came upon, came up from Gilgal to Bochem and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. So this is interesting. So I want to spend some time on this, just this one verse because this is a verse that people just, people completely misunderstand this covenant today. Okay, they completely misunderstand because God says here, He says, I will never break my covenant with you. So what is the covenant? The specific covenant is talking about, He's brought them unto the land. So this covenant that they're talking about in Judges Chapter 2 in verse number 1 is the specific covenant of this land that they came into. That is the covenant. So turn to Genesis Chapter 17. Let's look into this a little bit.  Does this mean that Israel, the children of Israel, whatever that means, just get this land forever no matter what? Is that what this means? Look at Genesis Chapter 17. Look at verse number 1. And the Bible says, so there's a few covenants to Abraham here, but we're just going to pick out the covenant about the land in Genesis Chapter 17. Look at verse number 1. We'll read a few verses. And when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. So he makes a promise there. And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I shall make thee exceedingly fruitful. So there's another thing that God is telling him. And I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in the generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee. Don't forget that right there. So a covenant is, you know, there's two sides of a covenant.  And to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee. So here is the promise of the land right here in verse number eight. And I will give unto thee, into thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan. That's what the land that we're talking about in the book of Judges is right now. They're in the Canaan land. They're in the promised land. They're amongst the Canaanites. That's who they're trying to, they're fighting these wars and battles against. For an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. So don't forget, you know, that last, I don't know what is it, five words there at the end, six words, and I will be their God. Turn to Exodus chapter 12. Actually don't, just go to Joshua chapter 23. Joshua chapter 23. So you see that they're going to have this everlasting possession and, so and means it has to go together, okay? If you have a logical function of you need, you know, you have an and gate, you need a one and a one to get a one, okay?  But the point is, is that that is attached to the covenant. So what is it?  A covenant is a legal contract. A covenant is a deal. A covenant is something where it's like, hey, you do this, you sign here that you will do this, and then I will do this. If one person doesn't, you know, come up with what they're supposed to do in that contract, it's a breach of contract, okay? Go to Joshua chapter 23, look at verse number five. There was all these things, you know, in Exodus 12, 25, there's all these things that they were supposed to do, the details come out.  Exodus 12, 25, and it shall come to pass when you become to the land which the Lord will give you according as he promised, he hath promised this. He promises the land that ye shall keep this service.  Look at Joshua 23, 5 is where you're at.   I mean, that's a promise right there. Now go to Leviticus chapter 26, Leviticus chapter 26. Now I love Leviticus chapter 26 because I think it's a pretty decent just kind of overview of, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then, you know, the good again of the contract, okay, the contract between, you know, the covenant between the Lord and Israel. Look at Leviticus chapter 26. So let's look at the good, first of all. Look at verse 8 and verse 9. The Bible says, look, this is the good. If I am your God, this is what he's saying in the first part of Leviticus 26. He's like, hey, if you're in the covenant, if you're keeping your line and I'm going to keep my line, that's what God says to me. He says it's an everlasting covenant. He basically says, I'll never break mine. I will never break my, my signature, ever. But, and look at verse 8. He says, look, as long as we're in the good on this covenant, he says, and five of you shall chase in hundred, and in hundred of you shall put 10,000 to flight, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish, there it is, and establish my covenant with you.  He's saying, look, five of you shall chase 100. That's why God got so upset when the spies came back. The spies came back and they're like, those people are huge, man. Those people are, you know, they saw the warriors, they saw the giants. They're like, we're like grasshoppers to them. It was only Caleb and Joshua who were like, hey, God will drive them out. That's it. That's why God got so upset and ended up spending 40 years wandering in the wilderness. Now look down at verse number 25 of Leviticus 26. Now we start to see, look, Leviticus 26 is just a good one. Just read the chapter when you get home. But verse 25, it says, look, if you breach the contract, look what will happen. So in the first part of Leviticus, they're in the contract and five are chasing 100. Like five guys are running after and 100 guys, warriors are running away from them because the Lord is with them. Okay?  The quarrel of my covenant. There's a problem with the deal here. God's got a problem with the deal. One side of the deal is not being held. He says, look, the quarrel of my covenant and when you're gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. Sounds like the opposite of the first part of the chapter. So if the covenant is broken, this is what will happen. Look at verse 36 for sake of time. The Bible says in verse 36, and upon them that are left alive of you.  It's like, look, it's like any, they're gonna be these people where it's like anything, they're just like. I mean, look what's happening today. Who's the most afraid people? Brother Stucky and I were just talking about this the other day. It's like the more godless and the more liberal and the more wicked people are, the more afraid of dying they are. That's these people right here. They turned from the Lord, they became godless and just the sound of a shaking leaf. They're like, what is that?  You know, this is how these people are living their life because they're just afraid of everything. You know, that's like the opposite of five people chasing a hundred, by the way.  Guys who know that the Lord is on their side, that's who. But look, these are the opposite of that. He's like, you're in breach of covenant. He's like, just the sound of a shaking leaf is gonna terrify you, is what he's saying here. And they shall flee as fleeing from a sword and they shall fall when none pursue it. They'll run when no one's chasing them. They'll be afraid and not only will this leaf shake and they'll start running, they'll just run away and no one's even after them. It's exactly what's happening today, by the way.  It tells us exactly what's happening. It tells us exactly what's happening in our nation because it's exactly what's happening to this nation over and over and over again, okay? But we're not talking about the nation tonight, okay? But look, look at verse number 40. But there's hope. You're like, I'm depressed now. Like, I don't even wanna come to church on Wednesday night even more. This is depressing, right? We went from five chasing a hundred to like a shaking leaf and we're all gonna be afraid. But look, this is the book of judges right here, okay? This is the book of judges in a nutshell, not to just give it away. But there's hope, why? Look at verse 40. This is why there's hope. Because God is long suffering, that's why. That's the answer, okay? But look, if they shall confess their iniquity, remember we talked about confessing your sins, getting right with God? We're not talking about individual salvation here. We're talking about getting right with God. What, nations are judged on this earth.    I mean, it's eternal, all right? And no man shall pluck them from my hand, period. Right, when you're saved, you're saved.  And this is what God is talking about. Look, it says if they shall confess their iniquity, if they get right, and the iniquity of their fathers with their trespass, which they trespassed against me, and that which also they have walked contrary to me, and that I have also walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then, look what he'll do, then will I remember my covenant? My covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham, will I remember? And what will he remember? And he will remember the land, right there. You know, look, so the covenant was, I'm trying to get you to understand that the covenant was a deal between the nation and the Lord. It was a deal, there were two sides to this deal, and if the Lord is their God, the covenant was all good. And if not, not, like really not. Okay, the land, the land folks, that's why I don't understand why Christianity today has gone so weird on all this, because it's very clear. The land always had strings. It always had these strings. It was a two-sided deal. I mean, the first, and here's the thing, the first thing that went away, the first thing that went away, and that's what we're gonna look at tonight, was the protection of the Lord. The first thing that went away was they were overrun by their enemies. The first thing that happened was they lost the literal land. I mean, God's like, hey, you broke the covenant, they lost the land. I mean, it happened right away. I mean, look, is this covenant in, look, this covenant's in breach today. Is the nation of Israel believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?  It doesn't even make any sense. Okay, not the point of the sermon tonight, but look at verse number two. All right, so we're in one verse in. Here we go. It's gonna be a long sermon. All right, verse number two. And you shall make, and here's another interesting point, you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this? So he, look, he's setting the stage here. He's setting the stage. He's like, look, there is to be no peace. There is to be no deals. There is to be no compromise. Look at Judges, go back to Judges chapter one. Look at verse like 30 of Judges chapter one. Remember the end of Judges chapter one? We kept seeing this thing, and I didn't really get into it last week, but look, look at verse 30. Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kittron, nor the inhabitants of Naholo, but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and what? And became tributaries. All right, look at verse 33. Neither did Naftali drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemish, nor the inhabitants of Bethanath, but he went, but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth Shemish and Bethanath became tributaries unto them. Verse 35, but the Amorites would dwell in the mount, Harry's, Avajalan, and Shalbim, yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed so that they became tributaries. What you're seeing here is compromise. What you're seeing here is compromise.  And you're like, oh, that sounds, that's what they were supposed to do. That's what they were supposed to do, utterly destroy them, drive them completely out, and instead they started making deals with them. And they started living amongst them.  Because this is kind of how, look, and this isn't the point of the sermon tonight either. I don't want to really go too far off on this one, but look, that's how compromise always starts, by the way. Oh, you know, this is okay. This is okay. And you know what? There's benefit to us here. I mean, look, there was financial benefit here. Hey, why would we just destroy all this capital, all these cattle, all these people? Look, these people can live here and pay us. There's benefit to us. We're ruling over them.  We're ruling over. Can you see this happening? They're, I mean, hey, we'll just put our kids in school and then we can both work. And like, look, it's gonna be fine. We're gonna take them to church three times a week and we're gonna have so much extra income that we'll just be able to spend more time and have more materials to teach them at home, even though they're at school. But we can just have that. You see what I'm talking about here?  Compromise, it always starts out thinking, hey, this music isn't that bad. This music isn't that bad. It always looks like a good deal at first, this compromise. And then, you know, it destroys you in the end. That's how it always goes.   Look at Judges chapter two and verse number three. The Bible says, wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out before you.  He's like, look, you think that there's no consequence. He's like, you're gonna fall for all this stuff. And it came to pass when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, the people lifted up their voice and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim and they sacrificed there unto the Lord. And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. And the people served Joshua all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua. I'm not gonna get too into this. I talked about this last week. But look, anybody who saw the fights, anybody who saw the battles, anybody who saw the people actually fighting the fights did fine. Where they could see those battles that were fought. Even the elders that were with Joshua that fought the battles did fine. And Joshua, the son of none, the servant of the Lord died being 110 years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance into matheny threes in the mount of Ephraim on the north side of the hill Gash. And also all that generation that were gathered unto their fathers. So now everybody in that elder generation that was with Joshua during the fighting has died. And there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord one generation later, one and a half generations later. This is what we talked about last week. Nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. I mean, that's how fast it happens. And you look at today and it's exactly the same. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam. There's that snare. Who's Balaam? He's the false God. He's the devil that they were worshiping. These people of Canaan. These heathen people. And they forsook the Lord the God of their fathers which brought them out of the land of Egypt and followed other gods. There's the breach right there. So look out. Here we come. Here we go. And the gods of the people that were round about them and bowed themselves unto them and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and He delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them and He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Look, they immediately lost territory. You know, there should have been a meter. You know, I mean, the children of Israel's spiritual well-being could be measured on how many acres they controlled basically is how it went in the Old Testament. Because immediately after they breached the contract every single time, their enemies overtake them. I mean, God, I mean, and it's because the first action against them from the Lord is He removes His hand of protection from them. That's the first action. Look at verse 15 and you'll see that. The Bible says withers, withers whoever they went out. It says wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was what? It was against them. For evil as the Lord had said and the Lord had sworn unto them and they were greatly distressed.   Nevertheless, the Lord, nevertheless, I mean, here it is again. Now, here's the last part of Leviticus 26, right? Here's that mercy coming in. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. The book of judges could be called, you know, the book of mercy. Think of that. That's what it could be called because it's God's mercy towards a disobedient people. And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. What does that mean? That the Lord saw his children. He saw his children being oppressed and it vexed him and it repented him. It made him change his mind. That's what that means. That's what that repented means. It made him change his mind and show mercy so he raised up judges to free them from their oppressors. Verse 19. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down unto them. They seized not from their own doings nor from their stubborn way. Look, this is actually kind of neat. This is kind of showing us this cycle. It's the Cliff Notes version of judges right here. Look, there's a lot of cool detailed stories in the book of judges, but what we're getting here is the cycle. The cycle that, and it's the reason God raised up the judges, what happened after the judge, why he raised up another judge. He's telling you that here. That's why he's telling us this in chapter one and chapter two. But don't miss the pattern. Don't miss the pattern. Because the pattern is the miracle. Because the pattern will always be the same. The pattern, if you read history and study history, is always the same.  Because the Bible's a miracle. What did we talk about a few weeks ago? I mean, it's the only book that applies to every nation, to every person, to everything that's ever lived, ever. And it applies right here. We're seeing that demonstrated in the first two chapters of Judges, right here. Look, the cycles will always be the same. It'll always be this great faith. Then this falling away. Then this judgment. And then hopefully, mercy. And did you know, by the way, did you know that that's possible, that that could happen? Even here. Even today. That there could be a turning back towards the Lord. And then he would show mercy. Did you know that that's possible? That's what the Book of Judges is gonna show us. Is that that is possible? Look at verse number 20. It's not going well so far, though. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And he said, because that this people had transgressed my covenant. Why? Because they broke the deal. He said, they broke the deal, which I commanded their fathers and have not harkened.  Because you're like, how in the world has he been watching this cycle for 6,000 years and not just end the whole thing right now? I mean, it's the same cycle again and again and again. You think you're bored with it. Imagine what God must be thinking. Look at 21. Verse 21. And once again, in verse number 21, he shows them, he shows them right here. What's the first thing? The first thing, what's the first sign that's gonna happen once you've broken the deal? So we see in verse 20, they transgressed the covenant. Verse 21, I will also, henceforth, not drive out any from before them of the nations with Joshua left when he died, that through them I may prove Israel, whether they keep the way of the Lord to walk therein as their fathers did keep it, or not. Therefore, the Lord left those nations without driving them out hastily. Neither did, delivered he them into the hand of Joshua. The first thing is that he doesn't protect you anymore. Please don't miss that. The first thing, in last week, we talked about how this applies to us as a nation. This week, I wanna apply it to us as individuals. Us as individuals.   You're sealed by that Holy Spirit of promise. However, you have to understand. I mean, look, let me just ask you a question. Do you need the Lord to fight for you? Do you need the Lord? I mean, if the Lord says, I will no longer fight for you, does that matter to you? Do I need the Lord to fight for me? Turn to John chapter 16. You say, you know what? Things are going okay. I don't think I need the Lord to fight for me. I don't really have any fights going on right now. Well, there might be a reason for that, too. But let's look at what the Bible says. Look at John 16 in verse number 33.  Look, I mean, look, you may think that things are difficult and things are tough in this country right now. And especially the last couple of days, I've realized that, you know what? We don't really have any problems here. When you look at the scope of what problems could actually be. And I'm not downplaying problems that you have in your life, but please don't think that. But look, in the scope of things, things could be a lot worse. Look at John chapter 16 and look at verse number 33. I mean, look, you say, I don't have anybody up against me right now. These things have I spoken unto you that in me you might have peace. Well, the Bible says in Jesus we will have peace. Like our relationship with Jesus, we always have the option of having peace.  It doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to have peace between us and Jesus, but it's always available there. It's always available there. In the world, though, in the world, you shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Turn to Matthew chapter 10. So look, he's saying, in the world out here, in the world that you're living in, he's like, you shall have tribulation.  Opposition to you. Whether it be because of your faith or whether it be just for whatever. Tribulation is just hard times because of people in the world, because of situations in the world. Look at Matthew chapter 10 in verse number 34. The Bible says, think not, look at what Jesus says. Think not that I've come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. So this religion, this new Christianity that teaches out there that we just lovey-dovey, there's never going to be any problems. You know, the prosperity gospel is destroyed right here.  That's exactly not what the Bible says. Look at verse 30.  That's the opposite of peace. For I've come to set man against, at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Look, even the people, look, he's being extreme in his language here. He's saying not only is, you know, the people in your own house are going to be against you. He's like, because of me, because of me. He's like, I've come to divide everybody. I mean, and many of you know this. You know, Jesus, the gospel, it divides people. It divides people. People will oppose you. People will be against you. People around you.  You say, well, you know, nobody's really against me right now.  If no one's against you, you're probably not taken seriously by anybody if nobody's against you.  Period. That's just the way it is.  And as you make more and more moves, more people are going to be against you. That's just it. And once you realize that and you understand that and you have the Lord fighting for you, it's fine. It's fine. But you better understand that you want the Lord on your side. You, I mean, look, you need the Lord on your side in this type of stuff. Well, I mean, one place, the one place that you don't want to be, this is kind of the whole point of Judges chapter one and Judges chapter two, is you don't want to be in this place where people are against you. You know, ironically, because of your faith. Ironically, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. People are against you because of that. And then you're just like, you know, think of the people in the Promised Land. I mean, why were they there? They were there because of their faith.  I know you look like grasshoppers to those people, but go there.  They were there because of their faith. They went into the midst of all their enemies. They were there because of their faith. And then they just abandoned the Lord. I mean, think about it.  Where are your enemies now? They're all around you. I mean, that's what happened to the children of Israel. Look, remember the sermon, Your Jordan River? Look, this is, you know, as you make moves in your Christian life, the covenant for you is that as you make moves and you're faithful to God in your Christian life, the Lord will fight for you. The first thing he will stop doing is if you break that covenant and he will stop fighting for you.  You're still saved. He's going to stop fighting for you.  I mean, I'm going to get to church. I'm going to get right. I'm going to do all these things. I'm just going to fall into grievous sin. I'm just going to forget the Lord at that point. That's why most people don't come to church like this. If people want to continue in, you know, grievous sin. People want to continue drinking. People want to continue in fornication. They want to continue all this stuff. Look, they're going to hate it here. They're not going to like it here. Because not only are we going to literally throw you out for some of that type of stuff, but God's going to chastise you like crazy. He's going to stop fighting for you.  It doesn't make a lot of logical sense that people would do that. That's why most people don't. Because God's chastisement will first come in the form of him not fighting for you. That's the bottom line. He'll just remove protection from you. It's what he did with that. He'll just let people overcome you.  He'll let tribulation take territory from you. Think of it that way. We're going to cover a lot of this Sunday morning and Sunday evening in great detail, but let me just give you something to think about. Turn to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3 in verse number 12. Look at 2 Timothy 3 in verse number 12. Let me just give you kind of an overall theme this evening. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3 in verse number 12 it says, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Look. First of all, why would you get to yourself to a place where you're living godly in Christ Jesus? You put yourself in the middle of those enemies. That's what that persecution is. It says when you live godly in Christ Jesus, you will get persecution. But God will fight for you. God will take care of you. So why would you put yourself in the middle of that fight and then break the covenant and then give up on the Lord? I mean, it makes no sense. I mean, these are things that we talk about. Why would you get yourself here? All the things that we talk about. Why would you separate yourself from the world?  Get things right at work. Get things right with your children. Get things right with your life. And then just abandon the covenant. It makes no sense. But people do it all the time. And you can see the actual effects of that on people. I mean, it's ugly. It's ugly when that happens. I mean, you would be better off.  You'd be better off, honestly, in your life just going to a dead church. Because you're going to just be beaten over and over again. I mean, and God just removing his protection from you. That's how God operates. It's kind of like he that is not with me is against me. I mean, it's kind of like that's how God operates. So if you're not with him, he considers you against him. And if you're against him, he'll first remove that protection. I mean, that's why, you know, I'm not going to find a lot of people that really enjoy coming to a church like this that are just half in. You know, just kind of got one toe in.  If that's what's going to happen. If that's who you are. You'd be better off in a dead church doing nothing. Honestly. I mean, sorry to ruin your midweek with the truth. But that, I mean, that's the cycle that God is showing us here in Judges Chapter 1 and Judges Chapter 2. And it always repeats itself. It works on the nation level and it also works as an individual as far as God and how he's going to treat you in your life I mean, it's I mean, it's the living in Christ Jesus. Do you understand the correlation of 2 Timothy 3 verse 12 there? It's the actual living in Christ Jesus that brings the persecution. It was the moving into the promise land that brought the enemies all around them. I mean, it's just, it's beautiful irony when you think about it. They moved in on faith and then they needed, I mean, they needed a covenant. It was like a force field. Think of it like that, sci-fi people. You know? And they needed it to hold it back. And as soon as they lost, they broke that covenant, you know, that their enemies just rushed in on them and why we needed the judges. Alright? Now look, it's like taking a boat ride. You know, hey, let's go out sometime 20 miles out on the ocean and I'll bring 20 miles worth of gas. That's what it is. That's what people are doing, right? We'll drive out in the middle of danger and we'll have enough gas to get us there. One, hey, things are going great. We're out of gas, we're there. That's the good news. The bad news is we're out of gas and we're gonna die now. I mean, that's what people are doing. It's like jumping off a cliff. It's like jumping off a thousand foot cliff. I'm gonna rappel down this thousand foot cliff and I got 500 feet of rope. What are you doing? Look, if preaching is like, oh, I go and I listen to preaching and I'm like, oh, he's ripping on these people, he's ripping on these people and it's like entertainment. It's like a replacement for TV. You're gonna end up at that 500 foot rope. You're gonna have 500 feet below your below you is what's gonna happen. I mean, so pay attention. Pay attention. Great things are ahead, right? Get a thousand foot rope and let's go. That's the point of tonight. That's the point. Let's get 40 miles worth of gas and let's go out there and let's come back safe. Let's do it right. Let's get it. Let's do it the whole way. The whole way. After all this, judges one and judges two is setting the scene. Do you see it now? It's setting the scene for this cycle.  What we do again and again and again and it also is showing us how God deals with that. So look, I mean, it's showing us the three stages. Remember Leviticus 26? It's showing us the covenant, right? It's showing us the breach of the covenant and then it's showing us here's the good news. Here's the good news. It's not just a 500 foot rope. There could be restoration there. It's showing us the covenant, the breach but also the restoration. Now, look, that the judges are God's demonstration of his long suffering and mercy towards his people. And guess what? You're his people. You're his people. So when we read these stories about the judges, I want you to understand it applies to us. Because we are God's people. Look, the miracle of the Bible can be seen here. This cycle will repeat itself until the end of the world. Until the end of the world. And what's the point? You say, what's the point? It shows us the point is this. You say, I already know the book of judges now. You already gave away the whole story. Well, there's plenty to learn from it in the details. But the point is that as we see this cycle it shows us, it gives us hope. Because ultimately we know that in some way, shape or form we are going to fall into this cycle at some point in our life. But it shows us the path to God's mercy. There's nothing that you can ever do to break that seal. The Bible says, God holds your salvation. There's nothing you can ever do. But look, you can be beaten by God. You can lose the protection of God. But judges, one and two, shows us that there's always a path back to that mercy, to that restoration. And that's good news. That's good news. The key is recognizing when we need to find that restoration. And we need to start looking for that path back. Alright? We'll start to see a judge next week with Bower Heads and have a word of prayer.


in a strong community with a shared goal and a common purpose can make the impossible possible. Thank you very much. Would the clerk please call the roll? There are 15 present today. And all their person, Andy Schneider, is excused. Tonight we want to recognize Jacob Hitman from Troop 818, the Atomacular Conception Church. Jacob has completed the requirements and was received as Eagle Scout Award at a Court of Honor ceremony held November 13th. Jacob, please come forward and will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Jacob's Eagle Scout project was to renovate the Immaculate Conception Cemetery Chapel. This project included painting the exterior, interior, and altar. The floor was refinished. The pews were cleaned and a small heater was installed so the chapel could be used in winter. Congratulations, Jacob, and thanks for joining us tonight. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from our last council meeting. All the person, Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. There are no resignations tonight. Next we'll go on to Mayor's Appointments. City Attorney. One set of appointments from the mayor submitting the following appointments for your confirmation to the Sheboygan-Squared Bid Board. Rick Scroggins, Amy Horst, Jane Davis-Wood, Eileen Simmons, William Holbrook, Paul Rudnick, Chad Palishek, and Sarah Spicer for appointments to expire on December 31, 2018. Those appointments will lie over till our next meeting. We'll move on to Confirmation of Mayor's Appointments. City Attorney. First one is submitting the following appointment for your consideration, Alec Bartoli, to be considered for appointment to the Sustainable Sheboygan Task Force, whose term expires on April 23, 2016. Next, submitting the following appointments for your consideration, Michael van der Steen and Chad Palishek to be considered for appointments to the Sheboygan Area Tourism Commission for the term January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017, and submitting the following appointment for your consideration, Paul Rudnick, to be considered for appointment to the Sheboygan-Squared Bid Board to fill the unexpired term of Jake Toman, whose term expires on December 31, 2016. Alderperson Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. I move to confirm. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Item 1.7 is a presentation on Sheboygan Soup. And tonight is joining us tonight is Amanda Salazar to educate us on Sheboygan Soup. All right, give me a second here. I've got to move it way down. All right. Well, first I'd like to say thank you to Mayor van der Steen for having me here tonight. I'm really excited to present this Sheboygan Soup concept that myself and a few other volunteers have been working on for the last, I'd say, about six months to really kind of kick this off the ground. So to give you an idea of what soup is, soup is at its core is a community-based crowd funding dinner. Sheboygan Soup is organized by volunteers who care about Sheboygan and who want to help the community feel empowered to improve the city which we live in. The soup concept isn't new. I'll tell you, I heard about it first at a young professional summit that I attended about a year ago. Detroit's been doing this. Austin's doing it. La Crosse just picked it up. Green Bay is doing it as well. And the idea is, is soup, Sheboygan Soup isn't the grant funder, but our job is to plan an event that creates a place for people to gather and share ideas in a safe environment. The community and the participants in soup decide which project will receive funding. So just to kind of talk to you a little bit about how soup works. So the first phase is the planning phase. Basically the soup organizers, which is we're all volunteers. We all have full-time jobs. So we're doing this on Friday mornings for an hour at a time. But we kind of come together and we are marketing the dinner. We did an open house about at the end of October and we had just through us inviting each volunteer invited five. And we had an attendance of over 40 plus to the open house. And it really was just an open house, a concept of sharing ideas and really talking about how can we empower our community to really collaborate together and create projects that maybe haven't been presented or things that maybe we haven't thought of. So we want all walks of life, all different backgrounds. It's just a really even open playing field for a community to just engage and to talk about positive change. The second phase is a proposal phase. So Sheboygan Soup will solicit submissions and collect proposals that will also seek approval through a committee that we're putting together. So we hope to have some key people to really making sure that these projects, one, are feasible, and two, to really make sure that the person proposing the project understands how much money it actually really requires, right? Not that someone, for example, someone wrote down, can we recreate the zoo? Okay, that's thousands and thousands of dollars. But it's just really helping the community understand what it takes to make some of these projects happen, but also to provide a platform for them to share ideas that they have. The third phase is the proposal selection. So we'll select five volunteers. Four proposals will be selected, and those proposals will be presented at the dinner-based, the dinner that is, sorry, four proposals will be presented at the dinner, and they will be everyone who attends the dinner. It's a donation, a suggested donation of five dollars or more. We will have soup provided. Of course, that's where the soup plays in. Soup will be provided, and everyone will have an access to vote once. And then the proposal that receives the most votes will then move forward and receive all the money that we make that evening at the dinner. And then after that, the volunteers will ensure the success of the selected project and keep the community in the loop of how the projects are moving forward. So I hope that this is shared with all of anyone that you know that's interested. I hope that you're able to attend this dinner. We're looking at April 27th, which is a Thursday. We still haven't found a location quite yet, because we are hoping that we have 300-plus that will attend the dinner. And we're hoping to really kick off this platform so that it is an annual thing that we kind of do, and it really helps kind of empower your community. I'll say as a young professional myself, there are eight of us total. The seven others that I work with all feel the same that I do. We all work here, we live here, we play here, and we also want to participate and make better change. But it would be an honor to have your faces there as well, so you can kind of hear the impact that these projects can make and how your community members want to make a change. So that's all I have. Amanda, thank you very much for your presentation tonight, and we really appreciate the work that you and the soup committee is doing here in Sheboygan. Great, thank you. I look forward to seeing you all in April. Next, I'd like to have the Sheboygan squared business district manager Dave Hoffman come forward. We have a proclamation. Whereas the government of Sheboygan, Wisconsin celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions that they make to our local economy and our community. According to the United States Small Business Administration, there are currently 28.8 million small businesses in the United States. They represent 99.7% of all businesses with employees in the United States and are responsible for 63% of the net new jobs created over the past 20 years. And whereas small businesses employ over 49% of all businesses with employees in the United States and whereas 89% of customers in the United States agree that small businesses contribute positively to the local economy by supplying jobs and generating tax revenue and whereas 93% of consumers in the United States agree that small businesses are critical to the overall economic health of the United States and whereas Sheboygan, Wisconsin supports our local businesses that create jobs, boost our local economy and preserve our neighborhoods and whereas advocacy groups as well as private and public organizations across the country have endorsed the Saturday after Thanksgiving as Small Business Saturday. I'm Mike Van der Steen, mayor of the city of Sheboygan, do hereby proclaim November 26th as Small Business Saturday. Dave, I'd like to present this to you. Do you have any words? Shop Sheboygan, there's no place like home. All right. Thank you very much. A couple other announcements. There's going to be an open house on Wednesday 1130. That's going to be at six o'clock at the senior activity center. That open house is going to be for the purpose of presenting the draft strategic plan that staff and alderman have been working on recently. We're looking for some feedback and input from the community and this will be their opportunity to deliver that. We also want to tell people that fall leaf collection ended as of last Friday. However, we will have a crew that will be out doing some additional cleanup. It'll make one pass each week through the community. It may not be on exactly the same schedule as your normal leaf pickup, but if you miss that or if you're motivated to take your leaves down to the drop off site, we'd really appreciate it because we only have a partial crew that's out to do this last cleanup. All the other trucks are being converted to ice and snow removal, so we have to be ready to deal with that when that part of winter shows up. Thank you. Okay, next we'll move on to the consent agenda. That'll include items 2.2 through 2.22. Alderperson Donahue. Thank you, Mayor. I move to accept and file all reports of officers, accept and adopt all reports of committees, and pass all resolutions and ordinances. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on any of the items in the consent agenda? Alderperson Boren. Thank you, Mayor. On 2.7 having to do with the fire rings, it's my understanding that this is just filing the original document and that the fire rings will continue as in the past. Is that a correct understanding? That's correct. All right, thank you. Any other discussion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll for passage? 15 ayes. Motion passes. Section 3 is reports of officers. Items 3.1 through 3.4 will be referred to various committees. Under resolutions, 4.1 is a resolution by Alderperson Bellinger authorizing the emergency repair and reconstruction of the sanitary sewer main on South 27th Street between Fairway Drive and Jefferson Avenue. Alderperson Bellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I would move to suspend. Second. Thank you for that motion. Is there any objection to suspension? Please proceed. The reason for the suspension is that during routine inspection of this water main, it was determined that it was an extremely poor condition, collapsing and infiltrating, and it would not last through the winter. And immediate emergency repairs are required to address it, and that's the reason for the suspension. And with that, I would move to pass a resolution. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll? 14 ayes. One no. Motion passes. Items 4.2 through 4.10 will be referred to various committees. Under reports of committees, item 5.1 is an RC by finance to whom was referred, RO number 153 of 1617 by the Board of Water Commissioners seeking a small parcel of 2.5 acres of vacant land in order to construct an elevated water storage tank in 2018 and recommends the request and the attached counter offer. Alderperson Wolfe. Thank you, Mayor. I make a motion to accept and adopt. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll? 15 ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.2 is an RC by law and licensing to whom was referred, RO number 116 of 1617 by the city clerk submitting various licenses and recommends denying taxicab license number 1486 based upon her failure to accurate reveal relevant convictions on her application, her record of violations related to the license activity, and her record as a repeat law offender and failure to cooperate with the committee. Alderperson Wolfe. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move that the report of committee be accepted and adopted. Second. Thank you for that motion and support under discussion. Is LaShelle Tatum here? She is not here. She's been invited to the committee. I believe this was her third invitation and has not appeared and due to her record and her inability to appear at our committee, we have denied her license. Any other discussion? Alderman Gerron, did you second the motion? I did. Thank you. Thank you very much. No other discussion? All those in favor? I see we have to call the roll. 15 ayes. Motion passes. Item 5.3 is an RC by law and licensing to whom was referred, RO number 140 of 1617 by the city clerk submitting various license applications and recommends denying a fermented malt beverage in Class C wine license application 3-2-2-5 for SAP Lee based upon the agent's record of violations related to the license activity and also the probation rules which prevent her from buying, selling and possessing and consuming or being in the presence of alcoholic beverages and also based upon the other member of the LLC's failure to accurate reveal relevant convictions on his license application and his record of violations related to the license activity as a repeat law offender. All the person holds you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I report that I move that the report of committee be accepted and adopted. Second. Thank you for that motion and support under discussion. Is Alexandria Hernandez and Antonio Neone here? They are not here. We believe that they will come back to our committee when they have an agent that would qualify to be able to be given this license, but at this time our committee did not feel that we could under the direction of our city attorney present them with this type of license. So we have denied this. Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll? 15 ayes. Motion passes. Second. Five point four is in RC by finance to whom was referred resolution number 121 of 1617 by Alderperson Wolfe authorizing amendments to the terms of the Development Revenue Bond, Series 2010 RCS Empowers Incorporated Project and the execution of related documents and recommends that the resolution be passed. Alderperson Wolfe. Thank you Mayor. Make a motion to accept and adopt and pass resolution. Second. Thank you for that motion and support. see none will the clerk please call the roll 14 eyes one no motion passes item 5.5 is an RC by law and licensing to whom is referred RC number 2 3 5 of 16 17 by law and licensing and general ordinance number 24 of 16 17 by Alder Person Ballinger repealing and recreating article 4 of the chapter 30 of the municipal code relating to sales of drug paraphernalia and repealing and recreating section 70-8 of the municipal code entitled adoption of state law regarding controlled substances and recommends that the ordinance be passed Alder Person holds you thank you mr. Mayor we refer this back to our committee after discussion at our last council meeting and it was sent back to our committee and despite the allegations that it did not reflect the statute it does it is not word-for-word repeat of the statute but rather takes provisions from multiple places and places them in one single single location and after discussion our committee voted in favor of passing us we need a motion yet Alder Person holds you oh I apologize I move that the report of committee be accepted and adopted second pass the ordinance and pass the ordinance sir a second second okay we have a motion on the floor under discussion Alder Person Jose I'm going to vote against this because I think that the premise put forth for the the passage of it therefore is a lie if if the premise put forth was as to mirror the state statute it does not mirror the state statute and therefore the premise is a lie and I'm going to vote against the lie thank you any other discussion Alder Person borne thank you mayor at the meeting where the other interested parties that appeared at the last council meeting were did they appear and where the agreement with the committee's decision Alder Person hold you Mr. Mayor the one establishment did have representation and he chatted with us and at the end of the meeting the hook a bar came and was there there was no one else there that I can recall and he agreed with the understanding knowing that because we have this all over the place and bringing it all together into one area we're not rewriting the law we're just putting it all in one place and he was okay with that okay thank you okay next Alder Person Donahue I just rise to a point of personal privilege I just really don't think that we advance our agenda or represent our citizens when we call people liars or tell people that things we don't agree with our lies there can be honest disagreements among all of us and there are a number of them but I think in the this is a civil body not only in the sense of it represents civil government but we need to be civil and have civil communications and I just I'm offended personally when I hear words like liar and lie it's just we can do better thank you for those comments Alder Person Jose well I just like to say that on November 8th the United the majority of states in the United States said that they're tired of political correctness and people are people's viewpoints are not going to be stifled anymore and if I if I see if I see a spade I'm going to call the spade if I see a lie I'm going to call it a lie is there any other discussion the clerk please call the roll 13 eyes to nose motion passes under ordinances item 6.1 will be referred to the salary and grievances committee under matters laid over item 7.1 is an arrow by the city clerk submitting a communication from the Shboygan area school district submitting the approved tax levy for the 2016 2017 school year Alder Person Donahue thank you mayor I move that the communication be accepted and filed second thank you for that motion and support is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed motion passes next we'll move on to other matters city attorney I have no other matters I'm sorry you do have you referred to the law and licensing committee you need it's submitting various license applications for the period ending December 31 2017 June 30 2017 June 30 2018 it's an arrow by the city clerk and that'll go to the law and licensing committee next we have a contemplated closed session Alder Person Donahue I moved to go to convene in closed session under the exemption provided in section 1985 sub 1 sub e of the Wisconsin statutes for competitive and bargaining reasons require a closed session related to a development opportunity in the 600 block of North Goat Street second thanks for your motion and support would the clerk please call the roll for closed session 14 eyes one no motion passes we'll take a short three minute recess and then reconvene and I just like to let the viewers at home know that we will be adjourning in closed session so this will end our broadcast for the evening thank you


Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to everyone to all the viewers I'm back we back I'm joined by the brother Faraz Abid for another how I learned Arabic story and you guys know how it goes bring you guys brothers and sisters who have learned Arabic who went from the state of not knowing Arabic to the point of knowing Arabic and we asked them how it was and how it was throughout learning Arabic and how it is now that they know Arabic so uh Salamu alaikum warahmatullahi first of all brother Faraz how are you so uh you're calling us from the UK today right yeah from the United Kingdom okay mashaAllah so I will let you I will give you a couple of minutes to first introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and in a general way because I will get into the questions later but in a general way where do you where do you learn Arabic and just you know in general a little bit by yourself uh so from Peterborough United Kingdom I learned my Arabic and Islamic studies etc in the United Kingdom I've been to a few are places mainly for holidays but Egypt I went for a bit and I've done a bit of hips and I'm married so yeah okay that's that's a good disclaimer because uh you know the sisters who will see you they will be like oh it's the brother married I want to tell you so uh so okay so you you before you because you told me you went to Egypt you you mainly learned Arabic in in the UK but before you you went to other countries did you actually already learn Arabic and was you able to speak in etc no I mean I wasn't able to speak first um I only started learning Arabic because my dad used to go to classes okay when I was about 14 15 I used to just join him in the classes and listen in and then it I started getting interested in the language and that's when I started off picking it up okay I mean I'm always I'm always amazed uh when uh when I see brothers who started uh I mean it's maybe because when I started learning Arabic myself I was really motivated and I was you know I was determined to learn the Arabic language but in Spain and I always tell these to the brothers we don't have much you know things going on for young Muslims mainly young people who start practicing etc and so I didn't find nowhere to to learn Arabic and the places they were too expensive so you know uh thank god that we have you here to share uh your story today with us so so what was your your age when you when you first got into a class Arabic class I started in the local masters around 13 14 okay um I just used to go because my dad used to go weekly once a week and um because he was interested for his own reasons and then he just bought me along right I wasn't interested first but uh slowly slowly I started uh seeing the importance of uh Arabic and uh the logo right so those studies were like general islamic or it was just literally that day um as in when I used to go when I was young yeah yeah when you first started my first time my dad was learning from these the Madina books those the three level Arabic books he was learning from them and I would just sit in and listen and see what they were doing and so yeah right right now you you know you know that you're about to start learning Arabic and you know that you know you found a class in a place to to learn what was you afraid of uh you know starting out um I wasn't I mean I wasn't afraid of any uh as in because I was younger um and I wanted to do my A levels and go uni do a normal thing but what happened was uh with my uni degree I wanted to do Arabic I wanted to do language with it because some courses have Arabic with the subject and um and it was I saw how hard it was because I used to I used to go with my dad and sometimes I wouldn't go because I wouldn't know I don't know it and um that that's really what I was afraid of because it was laziness as well I think I'm still lazy now so in the beginning you said you wouldn't you wasn't really interested but it was more your father started to push you a little bit then yeah you started to get interested now yeah yeah it was a little bit like that for me as well but I mean it was a when I was younger my father used to to push me to and Alhamdulillah all the Madaris in in Spain all the places where like to learn are either Pakistanis or or Bengalis and my father he would push me to go on Saturday but uh but I was young I didn't like it you know and then I stopped going like when I was 10 maybe and then when I was 16 I started to get interested again so you know thanks to our our parents for trying out yeah for trying okay so um you know once you started to to actually get interested in and uh you know you started to get motivated to actually learn more and more about the Arabic language what was the the thing you desired the most from learning Arabic to to understand it to read it to write to speak all because I used to go I've been in Umrah a few times and what happened Umrah is in Tarawih Salatu Tarawih when the Imam starts crying and the Jama'a starts crying and start crying is all you're thinking what's going on here what happened yeah and I'm just looking at my dad thinking what's what's happening here and I think that's when my dad felt that it was important to learn Arabic as well so um Allah just reveals ways for you to do things yeah that was my turning point as well I remember there was a speaker in in France that I used to listen to and uh this was in my beginnings of starting to practice and he said he said he had a question on on it was the question was basically a complaint about the Tarawih that it was too long and so he said well maybe it's not the Tarawih that is long but maybe it's you that you don't understand it just becomes you know boring basically so maybe what you need to do is is go ahead and learn Arabic and I this this answer you're always stuck in my head and since then I was like okay I need to need to learn Arabic because that that happened to me you know I used to go to Tarawih and it's literally like exactly yeah how many we have now okay we got six we got we got seven okay okay these are the seven to one okay you're just counting the Raka'as exactly the same no so uh so what no you can see the difference as well when you never used to understand it and now our time flies in Slot Tarawih how we just yeah yeah yeah that's crazy you know it's the first time actually when I when I came here to Mauritania I have never experienced praying 26 Raka'as because some of the some of the you know in the in the Maliki Fiqh for example yeah there is an opinion that they say it's 36 Raka'as so here in front of my house they do 26 Raka'as and I have never experienced that but you know they kind of like it's still a Jews I think but it's played in 26 Raka'as and it's three hours but it goes quite fast because you you know you listen into every day to the to the to whatever the the Imam is reading basically you just follow it so it's really nice it makes a difference so okay so once you start learning right and go into class what was the the method you guys used or the book um oh so so the method we used was basically the ustaz would explain the lesson so I was using various books Nahu, Surah, Ajromiyah, Dazim al-Fasya, Ajromiyah, Shalhumiyah, Diyamel, some speaking Arabic speaking books but the way the ustaz would explain the lesson and then what we would have to do is we would go go back and the next day we would have to translate that page so say if it's four lines or a page of Arabic text you would explain that text and then we would have to go go away and the next day would come back with the translation and our best way of explaining it was that yeah was that from Arabic I think by any chance no no no this the madrasa I went to the principal he he had his own text it's called Imdad al-Nahuf, Imdad al-Sarf and um and then yeah and but we used Muqad al-Majromiyah and the other classical texts but he had his own Surah al-Nahuf the principal had his own Surah al-Nahuf so you guys went straight away into into Nahu? he um you know we went straight away into Surah but we did a bit of Madina books for a couple of months first just to get used to the um the the time so Zalika Tilka man and auntie and just to get into that and then straight we went straight into Nahu because it was uh it was boarding I was boarding for um three four years there so I was basically it was nine to five but it was learning nine to five and then in the evenings we would uh do the homework could do the texts and everything either in the next day we'd have that ready so what I'm very curious about what what about the vocabulary vocabulary yeah so uh after every lesson there was around 10 20 words okay which we would have to pick up um so as well as translating or explaining translating that page or the paragraph we'd have to learn the words as well okay um so if there was a if there was a page on uh Zalika Tilka Tanika and Ulaika then we would have to learn some words so to so um so Ulaika Muflihoun Muflihoun um and the sentences with it okay so pick up some vocabulary so it was like learning the Arabic language to understand the Quran kind of thing yeah yeah yeah it was uh it was for sure yeah yeah all for sure okay so um so did you ever came across uh you know the method like do you guys do the Tasturifat as well like for example yeah yeah I remember those days okay I think I think you you guys uh like the Asian communities they actually use this even more like they they go all the way to the have either the haven yeah it was headbanging uh it was headbanging yeah because when I say what when I like vocabulary uh I think the best way to learn it is this way you know yeah using the grid yeah yeah yeah so uh yeah hundred I worked out so so for how long did you study strictly just Arabic strictly Arabic was about two years and then we went into and the Arabic text itself so we went to Arabic texts after two years of studying the grammar okay so so uh so how many aha moments do you have through throughout the process uh I had quite a lot you know after every lesson when you understand the lesson and you can clock those sentences yeah or the first moment you know when you go to Salatu Tarawih and you understand yeah man this is a jamma or this is a plural or yeah this is a fair or yeah yeah I know what's happening here and um you you understand what's going on that's the that's all the moments I had I started having them after learning so when I came used to come back home on the weekends and especially Ramadan I used to be like yeah you know I know I know what he was talking about all the khutbah even a juma so that's the juma so yeah I know what the Imam was talking about and I'll it'll be like that everything starts it starts to click everything starts to click everything starts to come together um especially after um because there's a mission as well Darul Lum Arabic studies is a mission it's uh I've realized that as well because only 10 of us graduated there were 30 of us that started and 20 slowly slowly like some went for personal reasons some went because it was too hard some went because they couldn't board they had to go home they felt homesick so it was and some went because they failed the exam so that's yeah only 10 of us ended up graduating yeah I heard about that Darul Lum I mean it's quite I think it's quite uh quite known in in the UK so so is it like a four-year program or something yeah it's uh it's four years and then you have to we don't have to but you go abroad or you go somewhere else to further your study because obviously the one disadvantage is I think anyway is speaking Darul Lums in UK we don't speak Arabic it's more grammar and more texts and stuff uh but speaking wise that's why they told us to go Egypt to go to Jordan and man and all these other places okay and that's the question that I was I was gonna ask you right now like for you to to tell us without being humble what will you rate your Arabic conversational skills from one to ten um this conversation is about five to six it's not um what happened was after Egypt I come back I'm speaking English all over again and it's like I've forgotten how to speak Arabic yeah but I mean as soon as I go to Arab country it'll take me one two weeks and I'm back into the flow again it's just I don't know why I think it's just that natural it's natural how it's okay it's just yeah it is it is I mean if you look at I remember I remember watching a documentary on on how how the body of the human being works basically and they used to so it was they were testing the capacity of of the human being basically and they were they will give to uh to a person it glasses that has mirrors that are actually crossed so basically when you use your right hand you you actually see yourself using the left hand and so when you want to turn right you're actually into turn left right so the first the first two weeks I think it was it was exactly two weeks like you know the person was bumping himself against the wall and and you know try like making making a mess everyone's trying to pick up the the glass of water but after two weeks uh he was using like you know it was it was by rote it was mechanical you know I mean so it happens as well with my with my language is for example right now I'm speaking in English and and my mother tongue and my native tongue is Spanish however I feel more comfortable speaking English than Spanish right now because uh you know I mean for example I've been married for to my to my wife she's a she's native uh English speaking for almost seven years so right now it's like it you know it became like I speak it every day basically but Spanish if I'm not in Spain or if I don't call my mom or if I don't call my father I don't speak it like that you know I mean yeah so I mean it's the same with with Arabic you know when you when you stop practicing then you just lose it yeah it's been I think four or five years for me now I haven't haven't uh but I've been trying to keep on top of it because I'm teaching here in their part time in the evenings and uh on the weekends I teach in mustard so um they keeps my Quran going but not the texts not the conversation nothing else so uh I got the I got the first bit then you went a bit too fast no I basically said that did you enjoy private classes or or group classes better oh private classes or group classes okay uh it depends you know on the stars mm-hmm group classes are okay but private classes you gain more because you can ask how much you want you get your time is with the teacher and himself or herself um because you're alone mm-hmm group classes are good if you already have learned the topic and you go you used to do every evening we used to sit in a group there's three four of us um we used to like revise over the day what we had gone through there was four of us so if if I never knew something another person another student would have told me yeah yeah that's how you translate this word or this is a better translation and explain the whole thing so I don't think it just depends mm-hmm so um so when you when you went to Egypt where were you in Egypt where exactly did you go uh I went Cairo I was going to go to Al-Azhar I was going to go to Al-Azhar uh but I only stayed for a few months and then I had physical problems mm-hmm I had to come back because my hip had hip problems okay and so I ended up in Cambridge for a year doing studies there for a year mm-hmm so do you get do you get the do you have the opportunity to get into any center in Egypt I have the opportunity yeah I have the opportunity to jump into Al-Azhar um and I think there's a place in Yemen as well um but yeah what you're saying yeah I have the opportunity to jump into that course no and do the um do the full thing now but uh it's been a few years and I ended up getting married in those few years no I don't know you can definitely push you back center no and uh that's it now I feel like I'm I don't know but honestly it's just like it feels like it's far away the studies it's feel like I don't know it feels like I've done them 20 years ago it just that's how it feels no no no so what would you what would you say you are you are able to like with the Arabic you have right now what does it help you to do for example uh I can pick up any texts and I can understand and read them mm-hmm I'm able to understand um some of the stuff in in the and the Quran etc mm-hmm what else um basically when I look at a word when I look at a sentence etc I can pick up more than the average person someone who hasn't studied so I can pick up I'll see the more of the secrets that it opens and message it opens to us no um and is also able to teach as well so it gives you um it gives you a lot of stuff it gives you respect as well I don't know if you notice but like when you come out from learning this stuff people automatically respect you when you go to the masjid and masjid and um and Allah gives you all of that amazing I mean he says in the Quran subhanahu wa ta'ala he says yeah so so uh okay so what do you think it was the hardest part of learning English hardest part right the hardest part was uh keeping on the course there's there was bumps here and there saying you know what this is too hard or something's always pushing you back no um especially when you have to remember everything in arabia you can't forget something it's like as much you're not allowed to get anything you have to remember all of it and uh that's what I think that's that's the hardest thing and also lazyness procrastination oh man I that was deadly uh I've had that all my life I think through all my studies and uh I had to discipline myself especially when I went to darul luma I had to have a lot of discipline and that's the hardest thing I think discipline and being able to keep keep practicing practicing practicing these uh yeah yeah I mean this discipline is because as you might know I have a an online program it's it's uh it's called Arabic like an adab and our main three things like we you know our slogan kind of thing is teaching people how to learn arabic in one year with simplicity discipline and uh focus you know so discipline I mean if discipline is I once read a quote it says it says discipline is the only requirement to master another you know another another thing or another field basically is the only requirement yeah discipline is something that you need to have otherwise you're going to find it too hot yeah but that's with anything that's with anything no okay so what what will you say is um um like how often how often impact how often impact it has had to you your life uh you know learning arabic uh it's made a huge impact um I've become more if you saw me 10 years ago saw me now whole difference my other change discipline has changed I've become more um like calmer more peaceful calmer passion up more because all these texts it teaches you it puts you in your place no it makes you a better muslim and uh and now um what was the question again now I say how often impact he has had in your life and how things are different now yeah now things are very different um like I said I've changed as a person um salah has changed me like going to the mustard here and there teaching especially teaching coming across different students um and arabic in general as well like when I go to turkey Morocco Egypt Saudi Arabia all these different at Dubai you see the different cultures and you can understand different things but um it's had a huge impact it's changed my whole life really now um it's made me better person so going back I just I was actually looking for the quote going back to the to the quote it's actually self-discipline is the only skill required to master any other skill that's what I meant yeah so to end uh this this um this interview I would like to ask you to give an advice uh to the average person that knows and acknowledges the importance of learning the arabic language however for whatever reason they haven't started yet um I would say um again a lot of people asking me this as well I would say that they should find time if they're working or if they're busy find time at least one hour a week or two hours find a private teacher even if it's online uh Skype etc and um do your arabic like that but you need to find a teacher it's hard to um it's hard to start something new with a book if you get like if I it's hard to teach yourself basically yeah yeah so if I if I start and you're holding you say I never knew nothing about Tajweed never knew anything and I started myself I would never get anywhere whereas if I studied it with a teacher for a year and then went on my own way then I would know how to do it and what what to do here and there so at least start with a teacher and that way you can build yourself up afterwards if they want to carry on like that but that would be my advice to find someone in the local city and just get on top of it get on to it it's important what you say find time because a lot of people for many things in life they say they say oh I just don't have time it's not that you don't have time you just don't make time because if you really truly are sincere with you look at what you do when you have when you're not doing what you you know what you what is taking off your time most of the times it's just like you know laying down on the couch or relaxing instagram scrolling things like that you know so making time and it's good as well to busy yourself with something that benefits you uh you know in life so uh so yeah thank you very much for us for making time for us to share uh you know your story and uh and I would like to end this interview by plugging myself and saying that if you watching this and you are interested about learning the Arabic language I would highly recommend you to go down below this video you will see a link that will bring you to my study case in my study case I explain how I went from zero to fluent in Arabic in 10 months with one single book and one single one single hour per day so you guys can check that out there and uh in terms of uh of uh of Akhana Faraz thank you very much again and uh I hope that Ramadan is going is going well as well I hope he wasn't too all right so for all the viewers


Yay, look at that happy snake. So I'll talk about some of the things we're doing with Microbithon and for Microbithon. But first up, some highlights. April 29th, nine years ago was the first line of Microbithon written. And they're up to newsletter number 12, do check out microbithon.org and sign up for it. And you'll get details and cool stats like this. This was from the latest newsletter. More commits, more contributors. In the last one year, 1,210 commits, that's up 817 from the previous year. There is about 13,000 commits altogether, 147 contributors from 93 from the previous year. They released V1.1617, 118. They gained new features, you can go through all of these. And then GitHub Sponsors has grown. So they managed to get up to $4,150 last year it was per month. Last year it was $1,250. Last year, GitHub Sponsors didn't allow organizations to sponsor. So I think I did a personal one on the monthly and then Adafruit donated $8,000 because it was their eighth birthday. And that's the way we did it. We did it one time there, but you know, you don't get listed on it and we don't do this stuff to get listed. But like there are some people are like, oh, why is an Adafruit contributing? It's like, well, we do, they just didn't list it. So we're really pleased to say two things. One, there's a new version of MicroFi that I'm having, 1.19. And we're synced up with our releases with Circuit Python in the community synced up. But I didn't want to mention what we're doing. So for MicroPython, now that organizations can sponsor, you can check out github.com. Oh, look. slash MicroPython. And you can see we are now a sponsor. We're in the first spot right now. I don't know how they arrange it. Maybe it's the latest or maybe it's the most because we just dropped some coin. And we're the 85th sponsor that's listed on there now. And they were at 84% to their goal. And now they are at 93%. So you can get it even closer. If just a few folks do it in this chat right now, github.com, forward slash MicroPython, you can do it. And our credit card got pinged. And now it's a monthly thing. We're doing at least $500 a month to get this started. We want to get the word out. And we'll be following up on our blog post. We'll be following up on socials. And what we're going to try to do is just keep parity with how much can we donate to MicroPython. But also make this so it doesn't end up just being a couple of companies. It's a community effort. So we all have a reason to keep this thing going. We buy hardware for MicroPython. We donate to MicroPython. But we also want to make sure it doesn't turn into just three or four companies doing this. And CircuitPython is kind of on its own doing its own thing in its own community. And long term, I expect just like the direction now, there's more non-Circuit Python boards than Adafruit boards. So we're all going to have to figure out ways to continue to help open source. But this is a direct for sure way. So go to MicroPython's GitHub and do a sponsor. You can do it. Heck, by the end of the show, we can get to 100%. It's only 3% now. You can do it. It's going to make some noise. For CircuitPython news, I wanted to say check out CircuitPythonShow.com. Melissa's on there. Yay. Yay. So the latest one, this is episode 8. Melissa is on there being interviewed. And more congrats, Paul, who's been doing a fantastic job on this. And there was two projects in the CircuitPython world celebrating May 4th. Todd Bodd is one. He's in chat. And then there's another one, R2. So I was going to play both of these. What's this? It's the world's smallest targeting computer. I better not turn it off. And that's Python on hardware. Thank you, Blinka.


The results of this study suggest that adherence to the Mediterranean diet during pregnancy and lactation may be beneficial for reducing fat deposition in breastfeeding mothers. This article was authored by Chiara Tabasso, Domenica Milardi, Linae Corti and others.


Honourable Prime Minister of St. Lucia and will Philip J. Pierre, Minister of Tourism, Dr. Ernest Hiller, Minister of Infrastructure, Stevenson King, other members of government, the owners, the Mullen family, distinguished guests, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is a warm afternoon but it's really good to be here as we witness the ground-breaking ceremony of Secrets St. Lucia. Thank you so much for being with us for this ceremony. My name is Nasseri Jolie-Fanis and I'll just be guiding you through this short program leading to the ground-breaking that is truly a very exciting moment here in St. Lucia. And without further ado, let me invite our first speaker to the podium, Ms Irene Predoux, who is the Regional Vice President of Commercial Inclusive Collection in the Latin Region. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. I am Irene Predoux, Regional Vice President, Commercial Latin America and English-speaking Caribbean for the Inclusive Collection, part of World of Hyatt, representing the largest Luxorial Inclusive portfolio in the world. We are excited to be here today to celebrate this milestone. We are pleased to be joined by the owners of Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa, Mr. John Mullen, Mr. Jeff Mullen, and Mr. Matt Mullen, along with Honorable Philip J. Pierre, Prime Minister of St. Lucia, Honorable Ernest Healer, Minister of Tourism, St. Lucia, Emilio Hun, Regional Vice President, Operations, Latin America and English-speaking Caribbean Inclusive Collection, and Kailia Harrison, Director of Sales, Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa. I am thrilled to be here today to celebrate this exciting moment together. The development of Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa reinforces both Hyatt and Inclusive Collections on wavering commitment to growth throughout this destination, and this new resort is a benefit to the local St. Lucia community through a variety of opportunities. As a brand that brings sophisticated couples seeking a luxurious romantic gateway, Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa looks forward to welcoming guests celebrating life's special moments to this breathtaking destination. In addition to attracting new visitors, the resort will aid in providing additional employment opportunities for local residents. Located on this stretch of Pichor Perfect Beach and minutes from the world-class Rodney Bay Marina and the capital city of Castris, Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa will offer stunning views of the dramatically tapered mountains. Upon opening, Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa will offer 351 rooms and suites, with luxurious amenities including 16 food and beverage outlets, with six fine dining options and the world-class Secrets Spa by Pebonia. The Inclusive Collection looks forward to the opening of this elevated and well-appointed Secrets St. Lucia Resort and Spa in the near future. On behalf of everyone at Inclusive Collection, we would like to acknowledge and express our gratitude to the Mullen family again for their continued support of the local community and the beautiful islands of St. Lucia. Again we congratulate everyone on this groundbreaking today. Thank you all for joining us. Thank you for those opening remarks Ms. Prado and for giving us a sense of what this resort will entail. And now from our St. Lucia End, we invite the Honourable Minister of Tourism, Dr. Ernest Hiller, to offer remarks. Thank you very much, Ms. Resort ceremony. Honourable Prime Minister, Honourable Philip J. Pierre, Senior Minister, Honourable Stevenson King, Pumlan Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, City Chairman of the St. Lucia Investment, investment Lucia, Chairman and CEO of St. Lucia Tourism Authority, the distinguished head table, especially the Mullen family, distinguished invitees welcome this afternoon to this ceremony. This morning we hosted a press conference, the Chairman and CEO of the Tourism Authority and myself, to present our media review on the performance of St. Lucia. In fact it was a little more than media, it went up to the end of July. And we shared with the media the good news that year to date our arrivals are 12% up on what it was in 2022. And even though we had a 12% increase year to date on 2022, we've had declines in both June and July. So it tells you if we had not experienced those declines, how significant our increases would have been. And you may ask the question, why did we have declines for the month of June and July? I think from very early in the year the CEO had warned us that the summer would be very, very tight. And she explained to us then that as Europe opened and fully remove all protocols for COVID and the fire is open, the scarcity of equipment that the aviation industry is experiencing right now would affect us as most planes would be heading to Europe and to the fire is. The airlines seem to have a problem, either you have no equipment or you have no crew. And the two of them combined have really affected the aviation industry. But there is still a tremendous demand for travel and Saint Lucia has benefitted from that. From July 2021 when we came in, we appreciated the work that had been done by the previous administration, but we decided to intensify our efforts and to really go out hard in the market to put Saint Lucia up front, removing a lot of the COVID protocols and embarking on an aggressive marketing campaign. And that has paid off. But like everything else, other destinations are catching up with us and it means now we have to go out in the market and to be even more aggressive and to even offer a better product than we have been offering. And this is where this project is of special significance to us. I must say to you and I have to be honest, we're very disappointed we're going to be losing a family option that we had before. But in place of that family option, we will be offering probably the most luxurious secrets option anywhere in the eastern Caribbean. So as we go out promoting Saint Lucia, we have another product of the highest quality that we can add to our portfolio that we can speak of. Today is not a day for me to give you the sales speech of just how attractive Saint Lucia is and all the options that we have for visitors who come in. But let me say to you that this Saturday, we will be hosting the World Travel Awards for the Latin America and Caribbean region. And we really honored as a destination to have been asked to host those prestigious awards. You would know that for the last few years, I think almost 14 years, we have been voted the world's leading animal destination. Of course, our big competitor is the Maldives. Last year, for the first time, we won the Caribbean leading adventure destination. And I noted in the nominations for this year, we are nominated for a couple of other awards. So if all goes well on Saturday, we may very well cop another award to add to what we already have. I believe Saint Lucia is an exceptional destination. I believe our people adds tremendously to our extraordinary physical beauty that we offer. So to the family, I want to say to you that the decision to invest in this property will be worth it. Saint Lucia is a woody destination. It is a preferred place for investment and you've made the right decision. The only issue we have now is how quickly you will complete this project because to remove 350 rooms from the bedstock is significant and it is affecting our numbers. So as quickly as you can complete the project, the happier we will all be. So thank you very much and once again, let me see if I look forward to the completion of the project. So in response, we now invite Mr. Jeff Mullen to offer remarks on behalf of the Mullen family and owners. Welcome, Honorable Prime Minister, Honorable Minister Hilaire, Honorable Minister King, members of the government, Chairman Arnold, Chairman Antoine, CEO Charles Jules and representatives of the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, representatives of Saint Lucia Hospitality and Tourism Association, representatives from Saint Lucia Air, C Port Authority, members of the media and friends. Welcome to Saint James Club, site of the future, Secrets Saint Lucia. I am Jeff Mullen. I'm the president and CEO of the Mullen Real Estate Capital. I'm joined here today by other members of my family, my brother Matt and my father John, founder of the Appalachia Group. As well as our colleagues from the Hyatt Inclusive Collection and key representatives of our design and construction team, it's our absolute pleasure to welcome you to the groundbreaking ceremony of this exciting project. As was mentioned, this has been a long time in the making. As founders of Appal vacations and aim resorts, we have been involved in the Caribbean for over 50 years and we have opened dozens of hotels along the way. We first came to Saint Lucia 30-some years ago and were absolutely blown away by the island's beauty and rich national treasures. From the people to the landscape to the cuisine, Saint Lucia is absolutely spectacular. During a tour a few years ago of this property, we knew immediately we wanted to be in business here. So when the opportunity arose to acquire the Saint James Club, we jumped on it without hesitation. And as you can see, this property has tremendous potential and with the right amount of Saint Lucia love, we'll get there. Honorable Prime Minister, we commend you on the structure, the support and the professionalism of the team you have built. To name just a few, invest Saint Lucia's knowledge, support, and promotion in the Honorable Minister Helaire's unwavering availability when needed are invaluable to investors like us. We are aligned with Minister Helaire's initiatives and the promotion to promote guests exploring the experiences on the island and the economic impact it will have beyond the hotel, as well as his work positioning the island as a premier destination. Both of which are instrumental to Saint Lucia's sustainability. With the help of many people here in attendance today, we have embarked on a journey to convert an existing hotel into a secret resort and spa Saint Lucia brand. A brand we help pioneer defining unlimited luxury and romance. A brand that attracts year-round guests from the most important source markets. Today marks an important milestone in this journey. It's the day we stop drawing things on paper and start constructing them of the project. As mentioned by Irene, this property will feature 351 luxurious guest rooms in an adults-only environment. We are creating a new preferred wing with ultra luxurious accommodations and suites, all with beautiful views of Saint Lucia's breathtaking landscape and beach. Our project will feature 16 new food and beverage venues including six fine dining outlets. We're building a brand new spa which will feature the latest in hydrotherapy and wellness experiences in six new treatment bays overlooking the property. And finally we are undertaking a comprehensive renovation of the grounds including an enormous landscaping project with a specific emphasis on incorporating the lush beauty of the island in the character of Saint Lucia. We are also delighted to be working with a very large contingent of local professionals and construction firms to support the build-out. We are grateful to our general contractor Kodalpuhu. We have completed similar projects in the Caribbean and I am particularly excited that all of our architecture, structural and engineering is being done here locally in Saint Lucia and I thank our value consultants for the tireless work. Honorable Prime Minister, members of the cabinet and friends, thank you so much for this incredible welcome you have provided to my family as well as support you have offered for our project. The efforts of the Saint Lucia government have been essential in our acquisition and soon-to-be transformation as quickly as possible. And we are delighted to have the privilege to collaborate with yourselves and your agencies in this regard. We recognize that the hotel has been closed for a while and we are looking to get this property open as soon as possible targeting and opening in less than 12 months to get our employees back in place, create new jobs and support increased airlift to the island. We once again very much appreciate the efforts of so many people in making this exciting day happen and we can't wait to welcome you as our guests in the near future. Thank you. Thank you so much Mr Mullen. I have no doubt that your remarks have satisfied our Minister of Tourism and it's so great to hear that you have been satisfied with the partnerships that have come from our various entities here and they have worked with you towards seeing the fruition of this project but I'm not the one to respond. I now invite our Honorable Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre, to offer remarks before we move on to the ground breaking ceremony. Thank you very much Mr Seremonis. We recognize the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Tourism, Dr. Udessile, Senior Minister Stevenson King, Poorman Secretary, Chairperson of the Senutia Tourism Authority, members of the Mullen family, invited guests, I recognize Mr Peter Foster Casey, invited guests, staff, good afternoon. In my business, he who turns the sword doesn't always cut the ribbon. Sometimes you are very fortunate. You turn the sword, you may even hurt your back. But when the time comes to cut the ribbon, other people decide that you're not cutting the ribbon. This is why it's very important that this hotel, we cut the ribbon in one year. So I want to assure the Mullen family that the government will do whatever we have to do. All we ask from you is to be fair, to be fair to the people of Senutia, to be fair to the workers of Senutia, and to ensure that Senutia is at the top of illicit priorities. The government will do whatever we have to do. We will obey the law and we'll create the enabling environment for you not only to continue construction of the hotel, but to build another one. My minister said that he's not making a sales pitch. I make no apologies, I'm making a sales pitch. My pitch is for you, although your hotel is called Secrets, my pitch for you is not to keep Senutia Secrets, to tell people that Secrets is in Senutia and they must come to Senutia to enjoy their Secrets. This is my pitch to you. I really welcome you. I welcome you to Senutia. I want to thank everyone who has made it possible. I want to tell you that we intend to continue to make the industry of tourism our largest owner. We hope that you can create the necessary linkages between tourism and the other sectors so that people can benefit. It's important that the people benefit. It's important that we give you an environment where you can benefit, where you can create more return on investments for yourself. So you can expand. Our people can expand and everyone can be happy. Welcome to Senutia and wish you all the best. Thank you. The tourism industry has been the main driver of our economic growth. Our first objective must be to build a sustainable and resilient tourism industry. The government will do whatever we have to do. All we ask from you is to be fair, to be fair to the people of Senutia, to be fair to the workers of Senutia and to ensure that Senutia is at the top of illicit priorities. Our second objective is to ensure that the benefits of tourism are cruel to as many as possible. We must create a framework for the growth of the industry that allows for more solutions to participate and own the industry.