I just want to read from John chapter 10 and verse 27, John chapter 10 verse 27 and these are the words of the Lord. And the Lord is saying, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. So the Lord is making this absolute statement saying my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. So it just applies to all of us who follow or who are followers of the shepherd. We have received the Lord as a Lord and Savior. So we qualify to be his sheep and this is what the Lord says about us, about his sheep. He says, my sheep hear my voice. So he has designed us, created us, fashioned us as new creations to hear his voice and he knows us and he knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows us inside out. So he has fashioned us in such a way to hear his voice and he knows us. And the last part is that he causes us to hear his voice so that we follow him and says that and they follow me. So if we have qualified to be sheep, which is simply because we are born again and we have received him, as Lord, as Savior. So that is what qualifies to be his sheep, that we follow him, that we have received him. It says we have been designed to hear his voice. So if there is anything in us, if there are any question, any doubt in us, can I hear or can I hear accurately? We need to dispel the doubt because this is what he has designed us for. He has designed us to hear his voice. Now we might put barriers, we might go astray and far away so that we don't hear his voice. But the thing is, in his plan and purpose, it is his will that we hear his voice. So he has designed us to hear his voice and he says, I know them and they follow me. So this is our purpose to hear his voice. The chief end is to follow him, to obey him to every desire of his, to really go ahead and do it. So let's pray and let's just commit ourselves to God, commit ourselves to hearing his voice, whatever it takes to hear his voice and put away all barriers, everything that seems to drown out his voice, we need to put it away. We need to keep that aside. You know, maybe the things of the flesh, maybe other so-called voices. Let me say other so-called voices, talking about other inducements or Satan's invitations, just putting it aside. Say, I choose to hear the voice of the shepherd. Father God, we thank you for this reminder that you have created us to hear your voice. You have designed us to hear your voice, Lord, as new creations, God. Father, we thank you for this amazing privilege to hear the voice of the shepherd, to hear the voice of the Creator, of this omnipotent, omniscient God. Lord, everyone, our entire humanity is searching. Lord, searching for meaning, searching for truth, searching for intimacy, oh God. And Lord, you have created us, Lord, in your image, Father God, to hear your voice and Father we thank you. And Lord, we pray that we will purpose, Lord, to continue to hear that we will not put anything, Lord, between us and you, oh God, that nothing, nothing of the flesh, nothing of our unbenewed mind and thinking, God, nothing, no sin, Lord, no hindrance, Lord, that we will allow to come between, Lord, us and you, oh God, that we may hear you clearly and that we may follow you, that we may obey, oh God, what you instruct us. We just want to thank you that you have enabled us to do so. We give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus' matchless name we pray. Amen. Okay, so we're continuing with where we left off last class. So this is Principles for Divine Prosperity. We were looking at the last few points that is honoring God in our finances and we looked at tithing, giving, giving of arms. And yeah, we had an interesting discussion on tithing and how much and so on. So we just finished that entire session by saying that the word tithe itself means 110. So while we can give more, and in fact in the scriptures there are, you know, when people are, there is this institute, what God has instituted where people give tithe, people give offerings and so on. And so we saw the reasons why, you know, why certain things ended at the cross. And we looked at the blood sacrifice, we looked at, you know, other things that ended explicitly ended at the cross. And while we see other things continuing, like worshiping with instruments and so on, it's not anything explicitly mentioned that it's ended at the cross. So also with tithes and offerings. So we continue on into the new dispensation, into the new covenant that we continue with that. Okay, so we stopped there last class and today we look at, let me just share the screen. So today we look at a few more things, principles for prosperity, that is a very simple thing that we listen to the Holy Spirit. Okay, listen to God, listen to the Holy Spirit. When it comes to, when it comes to things of, like even things like money, planning maybe, spending, investing, we're going to look at all that in a little while. But the thing is to listen to the Holy Spirit. Okay, now, you know, many times we, when we, when it comes to listening to God or listening to the Holy Spirit, maybe when it, you know, things like money or spending or, you know, things concerned with money are not the usual things that we, you know, that we go to God for, or we ask Him for, you know, Lord, what should I do with this? It's not the usual thing.  So the one reason or one's very good reason why we can, right, why we should rather seek Him is because of His declaration, Isaiah 48 and verse 17, where the Lord says, I am the Lord your God who teaches you the prophet, right, who leads you by the way you should go.  So the Lord is saying, you know, I'm the one who teaches you to prophet, right, who teaches you to benefit, to receive a benefit.  And the Lord is saying that I'm the one who teaches you to do so, right. If we turn back to Isaiah 28, okay, Isaiah chapter 28, and if we read through verses 23 to 29, we see that the Lord being the omniscient one, the all-knowing one, we see that he, he, you know, while we attribute God to be the all-knowing one, while we attribute God to be the all-powerful one, that he is the creator God, many times we forget that he knows how creation works, because he created, that he knows how, you know, the systems and everything, the processes work because he created, that he is the all-knowing one.   Look at verse 29, this also comes from the Lord of hosts, who is excellent in counsel, sorry, wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance, like is wonderful in counsel, excellent in guidance, so we can trust him with our finances or financial decisions and we can trust him with the expectation that the Lord will cause us to prosper, the Lord will teach us to profit. Okay, so listen to the Holy Spirit, listen to God's leading because he knows and he leads. Okay, the other one that we can see is to receive God's prophetic word, well, Second Chronicles 2020 talks about how the Lord blesses, listen to his prophets so that you may prosper, Ezra 640 also talks about the ministry of the prophets and how the people prospered because of that, so the thing is this, you know, to receive God's prophetic word, which means that God, the inspired word of God, now the prophetic word can come through others, the prophetic word can be quickened to you, like for others, but the thing is this, receive it, it is God speaking, so without, you know, it goes without saying that we need to trust, I mean, we need to test, we need to receive it, we need to test it and then apply the word of God, right, apply the prophetic word, but it has to be tested and so on, so we do that, but God has instituted this, just as he instructs us, just as the Holy Spirit instructs us and wisdom, Holy Spirit teaches us to profit, the prophetic word enables us to get into or to walk in the plan and purpose of God, the plan and purpose of God for us is so that we will thrive and flourish, okay, so coming back to prosperity, you know, prosperity, it's not just about money, right, it's divinely orchestrated, divinely appointed means, divinely appointed ways through which God enables us to walk in divinely appointed success, like walk in success to thrive and flourish, right, so that's our God, so when we look at prosperity, it's not just about money, but money is a part of it as well, okay, then the third one, get wisdom counsel and knowledge, get wisdom, you know, there's nothing wrong in getting wisdom and wisdom comes from him, he's the primary source of wisdom, he's the primary source of knowledge, you know, he is, like we said, he is 28, he is 28, yeah, so what is, he's wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance, so this is our God, so it comes from him, so he's a source, so we can receive from him, so get wisdom, knowledge and counsel, now Proverbs 8 talks about the connection between wisdom, counsel, knowledge and how it is related to financial prosperity, okay, you know, you can read through all the other references also, talks about there is the connection to success and wisdom, the connection to knowledge and the connection between that and prosperity, right, so we can, you know, if you can just go through that, all these references in the book of Proverbs, okay, um, just one verse, let me just read out, Proverbs 8, one starts, it's about wisdom, it's, it talks about how wisdom cries out and understanding lift-up, the voice and so on, verse 18 says, riches and honor are with me, enduring riches and righteousness, you know, you just see that, enduring riches and righteousness, verse 21, that I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth that I may fill their treasuries, okay, so there is this, you know, very intricate connection between wisdom and knowledge and, you know, wealth as well, where the application of wisdom, where the outflow of wisdom or the use of wisdom, you know, causes and inflow of wealth, and we see it in the natural world, right, we see it in the natural world, we see it in the physical world, when, you know, when there is knowledge and when people use it, when there is wisdom, people use it and it causes, you know, there is, there is a transaction, the use of that causes wealth coming, right, so the Lord who is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, the fear of the Lord at the beginning of knowledge and wisdom and he is the source, he's excellent, wonderful in knowledge and counsel, so he causes us to prosper, he causes us to be successful, he causes us to thrive and flourish financially as well, right, so these are some principles that are for us in scripture, so that we can, and then these principles are there for us to apply, that we apply and then we see that, we see the fruit of that, fruit of applying, fruit of persisting, right, fruit of enduring and continuing to walk in that, right, okay, so any questions here before we move on to the next one, any questions in person, online, no questions at all, okay, at any point, you know, feel free, probably you can put it on the chat as well, right, okay, so let's look at chapter six, now chapter six is the final chapter in the course material on international stewardship, so chapter six talks about some practical guidelines, right, regarding our personal finances, now these are some things that you may be practicing already, some of you may be very well versed in it, right, you may be very experienced in it, but this is just a, you know, some of the simple practical ways of, you know, guidelines for personal finances, okay, so it is an overview and which means that if you want to go in-depth in it, then we do have the workshop, financial workshop, biblical finances and so on, so we have workshops happening, recently concluded one, I think, this was last month sometime, so you can attend, you know, anyone of those to get the right perspective, go into a little more depth into these things, these are practical things, right, so the first one, now some of the material is, you know, adapted from Christian financial professionals network, right, so these are, like we always recommend, you know, these are some basic ideas, okay, so if you want to, especially if you're tuning in from a different nation, you know, certain other rules might apply, certain, you know, which are specific to that country, but these are basic guidelines, okay, okay, so let's look at the first one, you know, the first one is biblical stewardship, okay, so the understanding with which we are getting into all this is that we are stewards, okay, who is a steward, a steward is an overseer, a steward is a manager, okay, so when it comes to finances, we see that everything belongs to God, okay, we need to understand that, especially if you look at Psalm 24 and verse 1, okay, Psalm 24 verse 1, okay, Psalm 24 and 1 says, the earth is the lords and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, says, for he had founded upon the seas and established upon the waters and so on, so the world is the lords, the earth is the lords and its fullness, right, so everything belongs to him, right, everything, he's the owner of it and we see that we are stewards because God created us and put us here to, he's given us certain responsibilities and just like he did with Adam and Eve, he put them in the garden and he said, you tend to it, you know, you gave them a responsibility of work and so on, so we see that we are stewards, okay, so what is stewardship, if you want to define it, it is the use of God-given resources, it is the use of God-given, they're not the abuse of God-given resources but the use of it, right, when you say abuse, it's a wrong use, right, it is the right use of God-given resources for the accomplishments of God's objectives, right, so when you say God objectives, it does not mean only, let's say, you know, spending of money to build a church, spending of money to build or, you know, to have public meetings, right, it is not only that, so when we look at accomplishments of God's objectives, right, we look at it as a kingdom of God, establishing of righteousness, establishing of justice, establishing of peace, right, so biblical stewardship comprises of that, let me, it's the use, it's the right use of God's resources, God-given resources and a steward, you know, what, when you look at the word of God, you see that a steward, the Lord Jesus says, a steward is expected to be faithful, okay, so faithfulness and faithfulness in the little things, right, if one is not faithful in the small things, if one is not faithful in the hundreds and the fifties, you know, then one will not be faithful in the 100,000 or the 50,000s, right, so one is expected to be faithful in the small things, so that God can entrust the true riches, that God can entrust the bigger things, right, so one is expected to be faithful, the good steward also protects, is not wasteful, but he protects, okay, so the steward is faithful, the steward protects, the steward also enlarges, okay, we see in the parable of the talents where we see that the Lord is actually asking, you know, what did you do with, you know, talent, actually that word there refers to the currency of those times, right, measure of wealth or currency, so it's, you know, we've applied it to, you know, talents and abilities, maybe, okay, do you have this, what has God gifted you with, right, there's nothing wrong in applying in those ways also that God has given us something and we are called to be faithful with it, we are called to use it, utilize it so that it can, you know, become bigger, better and so on, so if you look at the parable, it's about finances, so God gives us the wealth and at the end of it you see that the steward is expected to do something with it, expected to do it and the Lord commends the steward who does something with it, right, who uses it rightfully, who engages, I mean uses it rightfully so that it multiplies, right, so we see that, you know, these are all that are expected of us to be faithful, to be not to be wasteful, to protect, to even invest and it, you know, with all this is the God's objectives, okay, what is the accomplishment of his objectives, you know, with this, so when you look at our own lives, we see, okay, God, what is it, right, when you're seeking first His kingdom, you're seeking first His rule and reign over our lives and then His plan and purpose, Lord, what can I, this involves us also, right, so many times we don't involve, include ourselves, we think, okay, it is, you know, it can be, how can I be selfish, you know, everything needs to be, you know, given away, how can I be selfish, but that's, that's not how God sees it, first Timothy 6 or 17, very clear that God is the one who gives us richly all things, as a father gives to a child, as a parent gives to the children, he's the one who gives us richly all things to enjoy, but our trust is not in those uncertain riches, we trust in God, our trust is not to be in those riches, right, so a steward is, holds these things likely, holds the finances likely, you know, he's an instrument, he or she is an instrument of God's finances to just flow in and flow out through their lives, okay, so, so that is the thing, so, you know, which means that our entire life, whatever money comes in, comes out, you know, if we treat it that way, I'm saying, okay, God, you know, these are things that these are the needs, and these are, you know, and the Bible talks about that, Matthew 6 talks about how God knows our needs, so there's nothing wrong in spending on our needs, but also to go beyond that, right, and to be faithful, and not to be wasteful, and to make sure there's something good comes of it to be utilized for his kingdom, okay, so God would call each one of us to, you know, maybe do in a specific area, you know, in a certain endeavor and something that he's planned for us, so we can do that as individuals, as families, like to seek him and say, okay, God, you know, in what way can I help in your kingdom, right, okay, so may the Lord enable us to expand our scope, right, like I said, it's not just not just building a church or a church project, it's much beyond that, okay, okay, so then the second thing that we're going to look at is financial planning, okay, so since we, you know, God, God is a God of plan, okay, God is a God of order, you know, his plans or his counsel stand till the end, so God is a God, it's not, you know, unscriptural to plan, okay, and we look at, you know, another subject and I'm sure other subjects that you will see that it is not unscriptural to plan, so you know, the thing is that when we plan to include God, we plan to be led by the spirit, that's the important thing, and so to include God in our planning, so also when it comes to finances or, you know, there are different needs, there are these, you know, there's this resource that I have, there's this money, there are these materials, things that I have, now how do I use it in order to meet these needs, right, so I need to plan, how do I use it, you know, if I have 1000 rupees in my hand, so how do I, how can I use it to, you know, fulfill these needs, so which mean it requires allocation, okay, which means we do it, right, okay, I'm going to do this for my, whatever, you know, if you're a student, you know, you will say okay, I'm going to use this for my, for eating out, I'm going to use this for, you know, for buying my toiletries and, you know, cosmetics, whatever, I'm going to use this for noting, I'm going to use this for, you know, for a bus pass or commute from one place to another, so we plan it, right, we, the thing is, we need to, maybe some of us don't, right, we don't even think on those terms, so we need to plan, okay, there's nothing wrong in planning, so when it comes to, you know, finances, God is not against us planning and utilizing, okay, so some practical things to look at is, you know, even as we, maybe, start earning or receiving, you know, money to be used for, you know, practical needs, now these are some things that will come up, okay, if there is a, you know, gross income, then there will be the tithes, there will be the tax, so these are different heads, right, under which the money will be, you know, spent and first of all is, you know, our tithe and our offerings and what we are going to do with it in order to support God's kingdom, the work of God's kingdom and so on, so we start with that and then we go on to other things, you know, after deducting that, you know, tax is something which could be deducted at source in the sense if you're employed, the organization, the employer will deduct the tax and then pay it on your behalf, right, so it is tax is deducted at source, okay, so then, you know, you have the freedom with the tithes and offerings and then, so this is roughly, you know, how it could go, these percentages which are mentioned here, so a third of it would go into accommodation or housing, right, so for your stay, so a third of it would go and then the rest of it would, you know, if you see those different heads there, where there is, you know, different categories there, there is food, there is auto, meaning your travel or commute or vehicle maintenance, then there's insurance, you know, debt in the sense if there is a loan or repayment of it, then there's entertainment, clothing, you know, if there is savings, then there could be medical expenditure and, you know, if there are children, then, you know, childcare and school, education and so on, right, and if there are, you know, further on, if there are investments, right, so this is roughly, you know, a working or workable breakup, you know, this is, this is a suggestion, but when it comes to housing, this or rent, you know, they say that if it is, or, you know, housing food and housing food clothing and also travel and commute, you know, what you spend on vehicles and so on, then if that goes beyond 70%, okay, if it goes beyond 70%, then it becomes difficult to actually sustain, right, so the thing is to make sure that it's, you know, see now our income or where we are financially is not going to remain the same, right, even as we trust God, even as we work, even as we employ all these principles of, you know, financial prosperity, you know, we're not going to stay in that same place, God will take us from one level to another level, right, so we don't have to be fearful and afraid, you know, of what will happen, you know, will I ever be in a comfortable place, right, will I ever be in a place where I can be a blessing to others or will I be in a place where I can maybe enjoy these blessings for myself, God will take us, God will take us from where we are to where we need to be, so we don't have to be fearful, right, so God will take us, the thing is to, during that process, the thing is to keep these things in mind, okay, so which means that we need to have, it is good to have a budget, okay, it's good to have a budget, it's good to rack what are those things that we are spending money on, okay, I don't know, maybe you, some of us are there who would write down, okay, this month this is what I spent on, you know, this is the money I got, I received, and this is what I spent on, I spent so much on food, I spent so much on, I bought this, I bought that, you know, some of us may be very, very disciplined in that, but some of us could be like, I don't know where it went, you know, I got so much, the beginning of the month, but the end of the month, I have no clue, no idea how I spent, where I spent it, you know, at least now if you're using Google Pay or you know, things like that, you have a track, right, you have a statement, if you're using, you know, money digitally, at least you can go back and look at the statement and say, okay, oh, this is where it went, and no wonder, you know, there's nothing left, I used to do on Swiggy, I used to do on this, you know, no wonder there's so much, so little left at the end of the month, right, so you can at least track, okay, the thing is to have a budget, okay, so when we have a budget, some people say, okay, does that mean that you don't have faith in God, that God will not provide, but it's not that, a budget is to just to help us plan in advance where we can spend, look at it that way, you know, if you can, you know, if you can look at budget as something where I can cut down on wasteful expenditure, okay, I'm spending too, maybe I'm spending this money on this, you know, and it's something that I can cut down on, right, it is unnecessary, it is wasteful, or maybe I can, I can, you know, reduce it and use it elsewhere, you know, things like maybe there's too much on entertainment and too much on, you know, maybe eating out, maybe too much on clothing, right, well, I can always change it, I can say, okay, let me adjust it, I know I don't have to do that, right, so a planning and, you know, a budget will really help, it helps to see, okay, this is how much, where I'm spending, I'm spending so much on, right, I'm spending so much on this, it'll help us to plan, it'll help us to cut down on wasteful things so you can spend on what is necessary, okay, okay, so far everything's okay, so financial planning, financial stewardship, okay, so it's good to have financial goals as well, okay, financial goals, where we trust God and we say, okay, Lord, you know, I'm maybe a financial goal could be maybe buying a vehicle, right, why are we, you know, I say, okay, why do you need one, well, well, let's say your income is at a place where you can afford to maybe buy a bike, maybe maintain one, right, so we can always buy a bike or a car, right, there are loans and all that and some of you can get one, but the challenging part is to maintain it, is to, you know, run it as in you need to have fuel for it, right, so that's the thing, so if you're at a place, if you're at a place where we can afford to buy a vehicle, for to run a vehicle, maintain it, okay, so we plan ahead, okay, what is that goal, what are some things that I can, you know, it's actually a statement of faith by saying, okay, God, you know, by this page in life, you know, in so many years or in so many months, God, I need to be able to, you know, you know, use or buy this, so what do I need to do, right, in terms of work, in terms of maybe saving, spending, right, what is it that I can change to reach that goal, okay, so there are those some things to keep in mind when it comes to, again, financial stewardship and planning, so what are some financial goals, it could be about housing, it could be about maybe you reach a stage where you're thinking, okay, maybe we can, you know, buy a house, you know, it seems like too much now, but then maybe, you know, 10 years from now or 15 years from now, you know, we'd like to do that or come to a place of, you know, owning something, okay, so these are financial goals which we carefully consider and do it, right, so it can be in the area of individual things, but also in terms of ministry or church, you know, can have some financial goals, okay, but we are primarily talking about personal, right, personal financial goals, okay, then also, you know, when it comes to financial stewardship, we can think about our lifestyle, okay, well, you know, what is the correct Christian lifestyle when it comes to money, right, the Bible doesn't talk about it, the Bible, in the Word of God, we see people who, you know, who are rich, who used finances, we see people who are, you know, business people, we see heads of state, we see all kinds of people there, so, well, the Bible does not really say that this is how much, you know, of course, it talks about offering to God, it talks about worshiping God without finances, but it doesn't say this is the kind of lifestyle you should have, so we decide, right, we choose, we say, okay, as long as it's not extravagant, as long as it's not selfish, selfish, you know, only for myself and not considering others, right, as long as it's within biblical principles, we choose, we decide, we have the freedom, right, if you look at Matthew 25, 21, okay, let's feel free if you have any questions on this or any thoughts that you want to add to, let's look at Matthew 25, it was 21, it's about the parable of the talents, right, you see this, so it says, well done, good and faithful servant, you are faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord, okay, so when it comes to lifestyle, when it comes to, you know, faithfulness, well, that's the criteria, right, am I being faithful in what God has asked me to, am I faithfully spending it, faithful in spending, faithful in utilizing, okay, so these are things that we need to look at rather than, okay, I'm spending, you know, what will the other person say, you know, sometimes we live our lives out of fear, fear of man, right, fear of man saying, okay, what will they think, oh, I need to and my family, you know, let's say you're in ministry and then you want to take your family out, so, you know, the thing is, what will they think, you know, they'll think that, okay, you know, this pastor, this evangelist is doing this, you know, what will they think, you know, that kind of question, so the thing is, you know, what we God think, right, forget about the first question is accountability to God, right, so that's the thing, so the life, when it comes to lifestyle also, you know, is it, you know, is it something that I'm wasting, is it something that I'm just spending it on my own pleasures and everything, but just ask that question, right, so we see it's very, very relative, it changes, right, maybe, you know, in a city, it could be very, very different or it's a thing, you know, it's about where God has placed and how much he has blessed in terms of things, in terms of income and so on, so we need to consider all that. If you look at Philippians 4 and verse 11, okay, Paul writes something very, very practical and it's wise, he says, not that I speak in regard to need, but I have learned in whatever state I am to be content, okay, I know how to be abased, I don't know how to abound, everywhere in all things I've learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need, okay, so he says that I've learned this, you know, I've learned to be content, okay, did somebody put their hand up, okay, I don't see anything, just thought I heard, okay, so he says, I know I, in whatever state I am, I am content, okay, so we see that contentment, godliness with contentment is great gain, okay, and the state of contentment is something which is so valuable, which is something so precious, right, so when it comes to our lifestyle, are we content, right, so Paul says, I know, you know, whatever state I am to be content, and he says, I can do all things through Christ to strengthen me, so it is in that context of knowing that, okay, I know how to be when there's nothing or when I know I'll be fine, even when there are things, so material things don't have a hold on me is what he's saying, you know, I can be content and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, so that's the context, right, so that's something for us to consider when we're considering a lifestyle, what kind of lifestyle should we have, you know, contentment is something that needs to be at the core of it, right, and with that, then, you know, money won't have a hold on you, okay, money won't have a hold on us, you won't be dictated by money, but rather we will, we will plan, we will allocate and we will take the upper hand when it comes to money, okay, okay, so we go on to the next one, okay, what about borrowing, is it okay to borrow, is it okay to take a loan, what do you think, anyone, is it okay to borrow, is it okay to take a loan, what do you think the Bible says, is it sin to borrow, everybody's quiet, okay, let me ask you people, Anand, what do you think, is it okay to borrow, is it okay to take a loan to buy a vehicle, range it over, okay, Nina says not a sin, but maybe better to avoid, okay, it can lead us to sin, maybe depend on the context, okay, Shokma says okay to take loan, okay, okay, anyone else, okay, so not a sin, but maybe to avoid, it can lead us to sin in the sense, yeah, you can get into a pattern, of borrowing and going from one, you know, one, let's say, one loan to another loan and it can actually lead us heavily into debt, okay, so one thing about loans is that we need to understand that while it's great to apply and get and to be sanctioned alone, we need to understand that we need to pay back, right, loans, when you're earning, people come and especially credit cards and all those things, we need one thing we need to understand that loans need to be paid back and it needs to be paid back in interest, with an interest, right, so we need to okay, just think about that and then we will meet in the next class and probably next class will be our concluding session, let's see, okay, fine, thank you, right, you guys have a great weekend, God bless, bye-bye.


So the paper I'm going to present here is tentatively titled, Considering the Benefits of Hosting Refugees. Evidence from refugee camps influencing labor market activity and economic welfare in Rwanda. I should say this is a joint paper with Melissa and our colleague Ozgay Bill Gilley from Utrecht University. So before anything else, we should take a step back and say, why is this topic important? Motivating this study probably really isn't that necessary for the audience in this room. We all kind of know that displacement now is somewhat of a topic on high on the agenda. UNIX-ER annual update, it's highlighted that displacement continues to rise and remains at a modern day high, really, since record keeping began since World War II. So currently, we have about 66,000 million displaced individuals around the world. And about a third of them are refugees. Important and sometimes it's lost in the conversation is very important for us to kind of always keep note of the vast majority of these refugees moved to neighboring countries, never making it anywhere near, let's say, Western Europe and North America, even though in popular media, sometimes forget this. This typically somewhere between 84 and 89% depending on resources, say that refugees reside in low and middle-income countries and around 35% in fragile states. And beyond that, the third main point of why this topic is important in general is that it seems, at least depending again on your sources, that the length of displacement, the length of time in displacement is on the rise. So there's a need to consider not just the short-term effects of the refugee shock, but more importantly, the medium, longer-term effects that were some of the core development issues that we're all discussing. Following up on that, I think this map does a pretty good job of just kind of giving a geographic idea of where displacement by and large is taking place. So these are the top 10 countries of origin for refugees in the world today. This is just the statistics from the European Commission. And what we see is of the top 10, but seven of them, seven of them specifically, are located in their central or eastern Africa. So yeah, you get Congo, you have Sudan, you have Somalia, et cetera. So it's not just, you know, it's really important that this is clearly just countries of origin, but to think about those regions in general, given the fact that most refugees are staying in those regions, to really look at the effects of displacement on those refugees within those regions themselves. In this case, obviously we're on the falls within the region of. So with this paper in particular, what do we want to understand? Our main research questions are twofold. First of all, how do host communities adjust the market activity in the presence of refugees? And second, what are the consequences for the host communities in terms of that kind of goal? To do this, we use data from an original household and community survey collected in May of last year within refugee camps, three refugee camps in particular, and surrounding host communities at various distances through those places. To give you a quick preview of those results, on average, residing within 10 kilometers from refugee camp needs to increase wage employment for host community members. On average, residing within 10 kilometers from refugee camp needs to greater asset ownership for those same individuals. And females in particular, nearby camp, seem to be more likely to be self-employed. So this work really is speaking to a literature that isn't that long in the making and isn't that deep, but there are specific people including the likes of Isabelle here and Carlos that are very much trying to tackle this economic support migration type of issue and going a little deeper. Many of them are using this data set from Tanzania, from the Kagera region, but there are others as well. But in general, I guess, in this literature, what we can say is that there's a consensus, by and large, of the arrival of refugees, as the potential, at least, to breathe new life and dynamism into the local and regional economy. We can say that, yes, refugees come in, there are issues with supply and demand, there are issues with the local labor markets, there are adjustments, and there are lively activities that are created. There might be redistributive effects that need to be taken into account, but by and large, there's something happening once to see a population or a significant population move into America. The seminal paper by Chambers in 1986 really helped set the framework of how to look at some of these issues and frame the issue in a more nuanced way regarding unequal effects in the host community. So it's not just everyone may benefit or everyone may be hurt, but there are maybe specific parts or groups within that host community which might particularly benefit, make advantage of the benefits that are available. Whereas there might be others that are losers when refugee populations are distributed. Stemming from that paper, some of the papers, the more empirical papers looking at the specific objectives here or the outcomes that we're interested in here, specifically labor market and economic welfare. In terms of labor market, you have a few papers, one of them by Isabelle and her co-author Carlos, who find that locals face higher competition in general from refugees in certain sectors and are less likely to be involved in agricultural work or casual labor. And then another paper looking at Syrian refugees around the Turkish border from Tumen, you have this idea that NATO's informal employment declines with the presence of refugees while their formal employment rises. So again, you're seeing this kind of substitution effect once a population moves in with various skills. And then second, in terms of economic welfare, there hasn't been as much work I'd say in this area. Most of it has been on the labor market effects, but there are a few and by and large, we find that when a refugee population moves into an area that there are positive wealth effects, including particularly with regards to asset ownership and consumption. We'll just give you a little bit idea of the Rwandan context in particular. I'm not sure how many of you are aware of, everyone understands more or less the context of Rwandan and their genocide and their own issues of displacement, but Rwandan itself has been a country that has taken in quite a few refugees over the years. Today there are about 75,000 Congolese refugees in particular in the country, and the vast majority are in a protracted situation, meaning they've been living there for more than five years in one to five camps. We today will specifically be looking at three camps and I'll talk about them in a moment. Officially, and this is important for the premise of this whole entire study, is that Rwandan government has not imposed restrictions on Congolese refugees regarding their rights to work, their access to education, and their freedom of movement. So in principle, the Rwandan or the Congolese population is able to leave the camp, they're able to find work, they're able to access land if possible, they're able to access education. In practice though, the local integration of Congolese refugees still remains quite a big obstacle and especially in host communities has been a persistent challenge. And by and large, this is one of the main reasons for this. One, the limited nature of access to land, Rwanda is a highly, densely populated country and the land is somewhat limited, so for a Congolese refugee to come in and try to buy land is somewhat difficult, and at the same time, the restricted nature of just the local labor market. It's difficult for a Congolese refugee to find formal wage employment. So by and large, a lot of times, some of these populations have been there since the early, the mid to late 90s. They've remained dependent on humanity and within refugees. So as I mentioned, the three refugee camps that we are looking at here are Gehembe, Igheme and Giziba. The year establishment is there, so just give you an idea of how long they've been open. Basically, Gehembe was open in 97, Giziba in 96. It's important to note that 2012 has a little asterisk against it because Igheme originally was open in 1995 for the Burundian refugee population at that time. In 2009, that camp was decommissioned due to the Burundian population returning at that moment, but then the Wanda government decided to reopen the camp due to a new influx of Congolese refugees who were fighting in the North and South Tidway area around that time. In terms of the population, so you can see that the total population of these camps ranges from about 14,000 to about 19,000 individuals, so it's nothing to sneeze at. More importantly, in terms of the relative population of the local host communities, it ranges from about 9% to 19%. Again, these aren't huge numbers, but at the same time, they're not minimal either, so relatively they're a significant increase in population. In terms of our research design, so here's a nice little map just to give you an idea, geographic idea, where these camps are located within the country, so this is a map of the one that the administrative cell level, and so we specifically surveyed within each of those three camps, Yehanbae in the North, Yehanbae in the South, and Yeeva in the West, as the little yellow cell in the middle of those concentric circles. In the orange areas, we randomly surveyed households, so that's within 10 kilometers of that camp that we surveyed there, and then we also randomly surveyed in house, or randomly surveyed households in communities beyond 20 kilometers. So in a sense, what we're trying to do here is create this counterfactual scenario where we can compare households within 10 kilometers of the camp versus households outside 20 kilometers. As you mentioned, that 10 kilometer, 20 kilometer decision, it kind of stemmed from, well stemmed from the literature, stemmed from discussions with other researchers who were very much aware of this context, and also just some practical issues. I mean, basically when we talked to people about where refugees were interacting with local communities, they always said, you know, with local markets, and through the fact that there isn't much public transportation in this context, a lot of people get around just like food, or possibly by bicycle, it seems like most of the interaction would be happening within a 10 kilometer area in those local markets, whereas it was less likely, much less likely for refugees to be interacting with hosting these outside 20 kilometers. So following up on that, our empirical approach, generally as I said, is pretty straightforward. We're just going to report winner probability estimates of the main variable of interest, which is camp proximity. Again, this is just going to be a variable for whether the household is located within 10 kilometers, or whether the household is located beyond 20 kilometers from each camp. Plus, we want to look a little bit or dig into some of these heterogeneous effects. So we include interaction terms to identify some heterogeneous effects on even effects based on gender. We also look at camp-specific effects. And I don't think we're going to have time to think of camp-specific effects in this presentation, but it's in the paper if you're hearing. And then beyond just these baseline estimates, we also include a bevy of robustness checks, due to the potential for selection bias. I'm sure many of you have already been considering. So one thing is that there could have been, once these camps were established, there could have been local Rwandans who moved into these areas in anticipation of a booming local economy. To try to mitigate that, we limit our sample to only those people who were either born in the community that we're surveying or moved into that community prior to the establishment of the nearest community. In a sense, we're mitigating that positive self-selection. Secondly, you can imagine that these camps didn't just fall down from the sky. They were placed in certain areas for specific reasons, might affect our outcomes. In all our discussions with government officials, for example, to try to get at this why, why back in the early 90s, early to mid-90s were these camps located in this specific region. The main answer they got was, there was land available. Yes, why was there land available? It was just there was land available and that was the main thing. So thinking a little bit further about why much of the land available in the country that has such a high population density and has such a high restriction to the land access, we started thinking, okay, maybe it's because that land was in for a while, or maybe it was just less desirable than other areas that might have something to do with it. Kind of pulling on that thread and going beyond that, we're thinking about an instrument that might be able to proxy for agricultural conditions. We're here using a measure for long-term precipitation. Precipitation's right. This measure is based on data from NOAA. It is highly granular, so it's at the half degree by half degree, looking at long-term precipitation from 1984 to 1994, so for establishing those camps. And yeah, we use that as an instrument to try to understand a little bit about that selection in terms of the camp location. And then you might be thinking of, what about the exclusion criteria and that precipitation might have to do with your outcomes? Well, we also checked it against the 1991 census and we find and show you in the techniques, but we find NOAA's physical significant relationship between our outcomes. And then finally, we also take the 2012 census data and try to create an analogous of an analysis as we possibly can. So it's kind of similar of a setup of this within 10 kilometer versus outside 20 kilometer measurement to see what we find there and see if basically our results, using our data, for example, are robust. In terms of the outcome variables that we're really interested in, again, two main ideas that we really wanna get at here is labor market activity and economic welfare. In terms of labor market activity, we specifically look at primary daily activity and three specific categories of it that are mutually exclusive. So first wage employment, self-employment in business or self-employment in farming or livestock production. And then beyond that, you can imagine that many people, it's something our sample is about 75%, and official statistics is actually similar, that most people in this country are involved in farming or livestock production in one way or another. So we went a step further and said, okay, if those people are involved in farming or livestock production as a primary daily activity, what about secondary activities? Possibly, if a male-headed household is working on the farm and the female-headed household could be involved in a local shop or a local trading or something that could help supplement their weekly or monthly. And then in terms of economic welfare, we focus specifically on asset ownership. We generate an ownership index based on a long list of leisure items that I can also show you in the appendix if you're interested using multiple correspondent analysis. And we also look at a subjective measure of the current economic situation. Generally, this is just based on a five-point market scale where one is the most negative based with the household head of finding the situation very difficult, verse five, where they're finding it very difficult. So just to jump right into the scripted statistics of these outcomes, broken up or broken down by the distance to camp within 10 kilometers or outside 20 kilometers. Focusing first on primary daily activity, we find that there is a difference in terms of wage employment for those individuals. It's almost individuals, I should say wage-employed individuals residing within 10 kilometers of the camp are almost double to be involved in or double the likelihood of being involved in wage employment compared to those individuals wage employment outside 20 kilometers. They're also slightly higher to be self-employed in business. It's only a significant 10% level though. And obviously the difference is made up by those people outside 20 kilometers being more likely to be involved in farming or livestock farming. In terms of secondary activity, we find a difference in terms of self-employment in business. It's small, but it's significant. And then in terms of economic welfare, again, we find a positive and significant difference in terms of asset ownership as well as security. I won't go into different covariates that we include in our models, but I'll just highlight a few that I think probably are the most people think of when they think they can include models of these types. But one thing that we need to take into consideration is the distance to markets that this house will have. So obviously they're interacting with refugees, how far away they are to those markets is important. Also the distance to the local city, the nearest city. So obviously a household that's close to the secondary city with a more robust local economy is going to have an effect here. And then just in general community population. You can see that households outside of 20 kilometers are actually further away from the nearest market. Households outside of 20 kilometers are closer to the bigger cities, so the capital, Tagali, or secondary city, and the population is similar. So in terms of baseline results for primary daily activity, jumping right into the main results and main findings, here we find that residing within 10 kilometers of a camp versus residing outside of 20 kilometers, households are an individual, a wage employment individual, is 14% more likely to be involved in wage employment, about 7% more likely to be involved in employment. And we break this down by gender. So the way to read this is, that's why it's a female male here. It's females within 10 kilometers versus females outside of 20 kilometers. Both females and males within 10 kilometers are more likely to be involved in wage employment, whereas in terms of self-employment, only females within 10 kilometers of a camp that are more likely to be involved in self-employment. As for secondary activity, we find no results, no significant results when it comes to wage employment, based on distance, but here again with self-employment, we find something happening here with gender dynamic with females in particular, that females are 9% more likely to be involved in self-employment business as a secondary. That's based on people who are primary daily activity, farming, farming elastic. You can say that of these households that principally are involved in farming elastic production, some of these females are taking advantage of the fact of the increased population, potentially trading. In terms of economic welfare, we find a positive, specifically significant result in terms of asset ownership. So it's tough to interpret, because it's based on an index, but you can just say it's positive and significant, and we see across both email-headed households and mail-headed households where we go holds, and we find no result when it comes to that subjective measure. Moving on to the robustness check, so as I mentioned, we first took a limited sample to try to mitigate this idea that people could be moving into these areas after the refugee population arrived. And here, if we just look at the baseline figures that were to show you, compared to the limited sample, the results by large hold, so it doesn't seem like there is any positive selection happening or affecting our results. In terms of asset ownership, similar. The actual estimate reduces slightly, but qualitatively, there's no difference in terms of the two. Moving to the instrumental variable approach, again, using a long-term trend in precipitation. Hoping first on the first stage, we see that there's a negative relationship between precipitation for the long term over the last 10 years, compared to being located near a camp. So it seems like our premise, this idea that camps were located in places where potentially agricultural conditions were worse off, makes sense. And then once you apply the instrument to the second stage, the estimate jumps up quite high, but again, it's still qualitatively positive and significant. And then using the same setup for asset ownership, we find that this is a fiscal significance drops to a 10% level, but again, marginally significant. And then finally, using the 2012 census data, we find pretty much the same results. It kind of gives us a little bit more support to what we're finding with our own specific sample. Then we find a positive relationship when it comes to wage employment, both for females and households. We again find a positive relationship in terms of respect to camp proximity or self-employment as well. If you remember in the baseline results, this was only for females. Here we find it for both females and males. So there's a slight difference there, but again, it's pretty much supporting what we found. And then finally, I should mention that we also conducted focus group discussions to try to provide a little bit more nuance to some of the airborne estimates and provide a little bit more interpretation. I'm just gonna have a couple of minutes. We're gonna highlight a few. The first kind of speaks to this general effect and one participant, one responded in the host community outside of the MBA camps that since the refugees arrived here, economic activities have increased, many houses were built and selling activities were multiplied. There are different market centers which were created because of the camp. So in general, it just speaks to this idea that really something was happening at the local level once the refugee population began. Even further, talking to a refugee in Kaziba camp in particular, we mentioned when we first arrived, there were no businesses, but after our arrival, there are so many types of businesses, schools, no health centers. When we arrived, that's when everything started, life came, jobs were great. And it's just kind of supporting this idea that really the refugee population moving in is having an effect on us. And then finally, we don't touch it too much in the study anymore. We did an original version, but just trying to break it down into kind of the winners and the losers in the local population that there are uneven effects in different groups. One responded, host community responded outside the MBA camp that what we are aware of is that the wealthy people in this community take products to refugees camp because refugees are hungry and they have money. Products are bought here at a low cost and taken there for sale. Wealthy people in this community are the ones who take products. There. So again, it's not that everyone, for example, may be benefiting, it's that there are certain sections of society, groups of society that are really able to take advantage of the fact of these refugee population coming in. They might be just better located within the local economy, they might be more wealthy, et cetera. So yeah, we should just keep that in mind when we're talking about the average of that. So just to summarize overall, residing within 10 kilometers of refugee camp makes them more likely than individuals engaged in wage employment compared to farming or livestock production. Likewise, households nearby camp have greater asset ownership in comparison to those living beyond 20 kilometers. Specifically, we find that females and males both are more likely to be wage employed relative to the same gender counterparts to their way. Whereas females in particular are nearby camp, are more likely to be self employed both as primary and secondary activities. This really speaks to this kind of gender dynamic at play here that we've been wanting to take a little further into. And then you'll finally just to kind of talk a little bit about why we might be finding some of these things and what the implications they have. And in general, this is speaking to the literature as well. It's something that Isabelle has found in her own work and others as well. But refugees compete with native workforce for the native workforce for informal agricultural activities and potentially pushing natives into formal labor activities like wage employment or self employment business and formal and informal. But beyond that, the presence of the refugee population just more generally presents market opportunities, especially at the margin in terms of small scale trading, commerce, construction, even in working for a local NGO that moved in that certain members of the host population are able to take advantage of. And then finally, in terms of policy implications, in light of the refugee presence and despite their minimal formal integration, it appears to be, there does appear to be a local shift away from subsistence-based agricultural activities. And this is in line actually with the Rwandan government's vision 2020 plan. So that's something actually that they can kind of say that this is a helpful thing. And then following up on that, final notes, we might say, okay, considering these development-oriented facts or this narrative at play, it might be high time for policy makers or international organizations or you do it to a certain extent to really be considering these benefits that the refugee population might be bringing to the host. And in the sense that we can try to set policy and minimize the potential harm. And I'll leave it there. Thank you.


Yo, this is Matt Keaton and I'm here to talk about one of my favorite moments from 2020 Well, actually 2021 because it was the last game of the season with the Titans against the Texans Everything was on the line for the AFC South Championship There was 18 seconds left on the clock. Tanny brings the boys up to the line Snaps the ball it looked like he was gonna get sacked But he let loose an absolute dime 52 yards to Arthur won all the way down the field to set us up for the game Texans said to rush for He drops Canna Hill looks he throws deep down field going for AJ Brown. He's got it AJ Brown makes the catch 25 Tennessee Everything was on the line to get the AFC South right there and that passed 52 yards to AJ Brown Set it up and showed that the Tennessee Titans have what it takes to go all the way


Wao, John Kiremiti hendet maring anan. That is so crazy. Did that nan be an aspect that you probably considered? Was that an aspect that you thought about? I have not even thought about marriage. And let me correct you. It wasn't a mistake as you put it. That's what God wanted to happen to me. God wanted me to have someone who can rehabilitate me. Because if it was for your friend's mother, I would still be in prison. She is the one who talked to me. And at the end of the day when she realized I was still stuck in crime, she decided we go home. So I agreed with her. We kind of watched her from where I could not interact with anybody. He is also a philanthropist and above all he is a social reformist. I am so excited, very honored today to be sitting down with the one and only John Kiremiti. Hi Kiremiti. I'm good. How are you feeling today? I'm feeling good because I have always been good to my servant and my friends. So at whatever circumstances, maybe who I am now. As you can see the smile on my face, John Kiremiti is the funniest of them all. I have just been laughing here behind the scenes and I am so excited to listen to him. In case you guys know, you all know Mr. John Kiremiti, my life in crime. You guys read this book in high school probably or in primary school depending with what year you were in school. But personally these are books that have contributed to the knowledge that I've had when I was growing up. Let's start from the beginning. Mr. John Kiremiti, we know that you were in prison. And then you left prison. Let's start from, did you write some of these books while in prison or you waited until you were out? My writing started when I was still in prison. Infact I started writing when I was 7 years in prison. And I was sent there for a total of 28 years. Unfortunate thing, I appeared and the sentence was cut into two. So I had to serve 14 years. In my 7th year is when I started writing. And then this is when I came with the idea of my life in crime. I felt there was need to let people know what happens, what are the consequences of one being a criminal or being an outlaw. That idea is the one that pushed me, tried so as to help lives of the young generation. Now, like I mentioned earlier, I was working with your daughter back in the days. And she has given us this story of how life was when you came back from prison and all that. Let's start from why you actually went to prison.  I went there because of robberies. And as I mentioned, I was charged with a number of counts of robbery with violence, which of course I had committed. So this is why I was sent to a maximum prison. It was then in the only big prison, Nagvisha maximum. Actually we were among the first group to go to Nagvisha maximum prison. It was newly built and so given maximum protection. Well, fortunately, my sentence of 28 years was slashed and I had served 14 years. And during those 14 years that I felt of writing, interestingly it was because I read a book by an old Alunas Moggichal who was to become my friend when I was released and across the bridge. I found it very interesting because he was trying to show how crime, people go about crime, how criminals are meant. He even talked about going to prison. And then when I read, I saw he didn't know much about prison because he had never said this is why I decided to write about what crime really is and what prison he is like. So I sent another book in prison that was in 1977 and years later I was released. How old were you when you went to prison? 21 years old. Very young. But now you see I'm asking myself like what actually just got you into crime. Is it your upbringing because I also read somewhere that you dropped out of school and that's when probably crime started. What do you think led you into these actions? It was exactly pointed out why I went to crime because when I dropped out of school, I could not go back home. And I always told people that my parents were teachers so the fear here was if I went back home I would be retributed. So I decided to hang around in Nairobi and unfortunately I joined the wrong group. I actually even slept in the streets and I stayed in the streets for a few months but then with some education obviously you know how to put two and two together to make a form. I realized I could take myself out of the streets and that's how I went about it. Unfortunately I had already entered or known a number of criminals so when I left these three kids I joined the other bigger group and the bigger those a bit aged. At that young age oh wow now you see when you got to prison at 21 years I want to know what was actually going through your mind when that particular moment that you learnt that you're going to prison for 28 years? I'm a very fortunate guy or I've made myself that because nothing worries me. When I know I've been imprisoned and there's no way out of it the next thing that comes into my mind is how do I go about this? How do I see my 20 years imprisonment through? And the first thing was to think about an appeal which I did and the sentence was slashed and then from there I was ready to go through the 14 years and I wasn't the first person to be in prison there are others who had been in prison over 60 years and they were in prison especially in Naivasha there were snaps attached to where you're sleeping if you have three in the same cell the one at the center's photo will be there one on your left or the other on your right and they even indicated in the number of years you have been imprisoned and when your sentence expires so I went around looking at these things and I saw there are people who while still in 70s were to be released in 20s 20s, 10s, 20s, something so seeing this for the sentence if you are given like a friend of mine called Kamanji was given 50 years imprisonment well you can imagine that's just exciting and I realized he was going through age globally he did not even care yeah because he had no option and when you have no option I think we have better play the music is coming yeah that's how I manage now you know sometimes we blame parents for not doing a good job when it comes to bringing up their children and that is why some say that's why they end up in crimes do you think you could blame your parents for not probably showing you the right way I'm a ulu kuatu kichangumu you know it's an interesting question I wanted to remind you and tell me because you visited the hospitals you've gone to maternity wands have you ever seen a maternity wands labored parents who give birth to rambas or doctors or philosophers professors and those children are born the same innocent but as they grow what gets into them is what they become I started being wayward but when I was still a teenager even when I was 13 years I wasn't a good boy and even my parents are not at least I had made sure I got to schools right near them and but that would help because the only form one can get is self-maint kata uki jali biwa na nini kata uki wa fanya nini you cannot change for instance I received 48 years 48 stroke of the king oh yeah and that did not inform me all of us so changing comes from within your heart you look at the things you look at your past you look at what you have gained that extent then you start rehabilitating yourself and you do it by now moving from the kind of people you link with to another group because that helps a lot you stop moving about with those you know are bad guys and you try to look at those we call soft although they may not be as good as you or what but then you can still since you know what you are doing kuta and goji are two kai now pakau kai now so is to save yourself yeah you started writing nata seven years into the prison was that the time you feel you know the rehabilitation had started to work on your character or had you changed before and what has what what actually led to that change in fact I felt that I should let people know what happens because I think I was born a writer because even when I was in prison I would try to smug out some information for people to know what prison is like and so even when I got out I started continue I even own my own newspaper in moranga which people which people call the sharpener because it was sharpening them yes and it did a lot to change the street kids in moranga and those who are probably thinking of becoming criminals at the same time will also concentrate on trying to tell the administration where they are going wrong because whenever I start doing something I don't fear anything so I would even talk about who is who I would even talk about the governor and the things he is doing of those things so that curry is the one that pushes me to date so at okay I get that now let's talk about family when you went to prison did you have a family had you met Miriam your wife at the time when I went to prison I lost everything I think the only person I made with was my elder sister and my mother because they are the only ones who could come to see me others were not able to come after all there were so many restrictions one had to say your connection she has to be allowed to see me so let me say the elder sister used to come and she is the one who helped me with books she would smuggle in books for me through a friend Rwanda and then my mum would come and try to tell me how things are and so there was luck I had some luck because I had someone who cared most people there get it hard it's a tough place to be like I'm telling you right now if someone tells me to go to prison for two days and he'll give me two million I'd rather do without that two million shelling yeah because lack of freedom is the worst thing that one can ever experience personal freedom so at what point now did you meet Miriam I was still in the streets doing this and that if you can remember I talked of coming across actually it was a bus pass dropped somewhere looked at the photo it indicated why she was schooling and decided to take it to her not because I was looking for a girl it's because I have a soft heart I'm a good person in spite of having been around I have a very kind heart and a very soft spoken person so that's when at that point you went and took it to her and you spoke and what did you tell her that's how our relation started yes and it appeared like we needed each other and that's what happened but when I went to prison for the end of it yeah so when you came back you had to look for her okay I knew what she was because she had told me and she used to visit me in prison but at a certain point I told her you should not be coming because now you've come for about three four years do you think you'll still go ahead by the time I'm dealing with my 28th year how would you be you want to tell me you'll stay like that until I come out so I gave her that friend she didn't like it but at least she had no option I even asked her not to be visiting me because you know when I came out I told her not to visit me because she had told me that she would not come because she had no option and she won't make it so I wanted to have that freedom I wanted to stay with prisoners there in land believing that I was able to so that I would be able to go out no I would be able to go out but when you start thinking about what you left outside there you will be able to go out because now you will start missing that life so when I came out I joined Udu society although or not as an employee there was a father who used to be very friendly I would work with him he would come to visit me through him I knew about street kids I joined people employed by Udu society they became my friends so I would move out and out with them and in the process I met my current wife who is your friend's daughter okay that sounds okay now did you explain to her now you see I am from prison and probably you could have some trauma from there and the way she handles you is a bit different how did you approach her with that conversation she didn't even know who I was she only knew of a very good young man who didn't know anything and she realized there was the young KMT people know after I stayed with her for about six months but uh since I was a good boy we continued she did not mind incidentally she was a nun okay I remember yes so as you hear the scientists say you know unliked posts that's right yes but like posts repelled oh wow John Kiremiti ended marrying a nun that is so crazy did that nun be an aspect that you probably you know considered was that an aspect that you thought about I have I have not even thought about marriage and let me correct you it wasn't a mistake as you put it that's what God wanted to happen to me she wanted God wanted me to have someone who can rehabilitate me because if it was and for your friends mother I would still be in prison she is the one who talked to me and at the end of the day when she realized I was still stuck in crime she decided we go home so I agreed with her we went home from where we could not interact with anybody and then you are blessed with three beautiful daughters brilliant daughters I have interacted with them I can say for a fact I know you're very proud of them but you also mentioning something that you are so grateful you did not get a boy child why is that I've preached that I've said this so many times that I wouldn't mind to repeat it here I'm very proud of those daughters and God will listen to my prayers because I wouldn't have wanted to have a son I might be having a son somewhere out there I don't know but sometimes I try to think if for instance I had a son and he tried to behave like I did where I was young then he wouldn't agree and because probably he wouldn't even want to listen to me when I told him that crime does not pay and if he was still young he would have killed him and then maybe would have clashed and obviously I know how to use a gun I would have used it on him yeah I don't choose whom I have to use a gun to as long as we do not agree that is during that time now do you ever probably not now as your kids the girls were growing up did you ever have any worry that one of them could get into crime did you ever have such worry that has never touched my mind but let me tell they are very very brave girls they are like boys they know how to handle themselves who has kutisha tambojawao aren't actually when you happy so they are like me the difference is they are girls very very brave girls as you have witnessed and this is why I am very proud of them whenever they are whenever they go and you know they keep on knowing wanting to know how I'm doing there are times even when the mother complains why do these girls how daughters call you only they have forgotten that of their mother don't know depends on how you behave what you have in them or how you treat them that's it because for instance I never banish a child I talk to them tell them this is bad this is bad you did but but the mother hooo they tell her ooo she knows how to treat them when they are wrong but I do not know to say they have ever gone long but even those small things that children do she wouldn't allow the member she was a nun and she wanted it still wants them to be and behave like a nun would ooo what are those ino values that you are very keen to instill in your daughters come again those values that you are very keen to instill in them probably just two values number one for then have always wanted them to know there is a future in front of them two they should not depend on anyone they should know that they are own helpers don't depend on your dad don't depend on your mom when your mom said you something know how to handle it well when I said them something they know how to okay go about their ways because I have instilled wisdom in them I have instilled that I call it a 60 cents a 60 cents when you know what you shouldn't do and when you are suspicious of what you are about to do is wrong so having prepare them with that and other things well I set them free and I'm very proud of them yes brilliant now let's talk about how many books have you written so far and how many have been published I've written six in fact there were seven in total five of them are already in the market but the sixth one the abductions quant has not been done but let me say I hand the management saying they are going to produce it then it appears they don't even know where the manuscript is they are times when publishers you make you get annoyed and for a person like me to get annoyed means bad because when I'm annoyed I don't even know who is who like now I understand they don't even know where the manuscript is and we have already decided on agreement but I want to give it time yeah I see when I as head of the day no they don't have it then I'll take action yeah now one of your books was made into a movie is it my life with a criminal or my life in crime uh uh in my book no that's about so much I understand yes Netflix as the readers and film watchers the book they would wish to be turned into a movie and I see I got about maybe 90 percent but so I think they will do it but I do not want to talk much on that subject because right now it's a subject that is going on you know there has to be some agreement between the writer and the publisher and so this is something that I hope will be will go well and something that is going on yeah we are looking forward to see that because I mean it would be great to just watch this come into vision now because Netflix Netflix is an international firm so when it comes to Netflix you obviously expect something good yeah so I'm happy about that but then we have to wait and see the terms everything when it goes well for us yes for sure okay now when you look at the production and the books you've written and the stories you've written I want to know is there a scenarios where young people have approached you with you know the same crime stories and probably seeking advice from you have you had such experiences what kind of experience like the what kind of experience are you probably what you have in mind because for example my life in crime no the crime itself maybe young people just come to you and they are just seeking advice maybe they are from prison or just generally around that people know I changed and if someone comes with that kind of question to me or that kind of a subject I think they wouldn't like my answer because I know crime does not pay and it will be okay for me to tell them and let them know what you are trying to do we'll see you in prison and I would actually also let them know times have come you know during our time they will announce the TVs look at what's happening today so it's time when people realize maboha iya iya meisha fanya kasi kwa bidi waka duita tu dukwa na iyo zahutu dukwa tu na jua tako na kituki na kuchupua and at the same time vitedo hivyo vina takam tuana akili extra akili ataka mami nige kwa na nga crime still nige survive saba mami nige jua kuna cizi TV I don't know what to know lakini sasawara waka hukua atawa jui bila watafanya you think because you have hidden your face you cannot put a mask yes and you know after throwing it away the suit you will be seeing this is the person the way you walk everything so time has come for people to realize crime jaya crime in a malizo is this quote behind here that you told me it carries so much meaning the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago the second best time is now you mentioned that it holds a lot of meaning what is that look a lot it's not even talking about trees it's talking about even life itself if there is something you did not know 20 years ago it's time for you to know it now so everything that passed you don't look back even me something doing that time and when that thing is good do it now i think nwa chai na wami se mahivu and i agree that how is a typical day for you keriamiti how is a typical day for you now now it is i don't think i can talk about that not that it's banned but because i don't even know oh really my person i don't even know how my day is like because i wake up today and feel i don't want to go anywhere and i just hang around there is time when i wake up very early and start moving start going so life is like that don't plan things that we will not plan because it's only God who can know when your plan is going to work so i see it think and of course pray that my day becomes good in the morning and when i get to the bed i pray that i sweep where i see tomorrow i've seen so many friends there are some questions or obviously that could come to your mind i was the only one in crime industry i wasn't the only one in prison and these guys are still here wakotu huko sazginana edana gudana mwange trikwana naona this man i mean zheka zahindi amma amma pacha na ma skini mwingi but then i attribute this to not using what i call the 60 cents una kuja nesma miitoka prison kilamutu anadyo nili kuwa jela maybe wanali tukia una ku tukia nawa they are prison materials kutamutu anadyo nili kuwa jela so usually even think about them think about yourself and how you can rehabilitate yourself because no one can rehabilitate you it's self-made self-rehabilitation and okay you are heavy and uh mata na irobi iwa na nyuubaza five story midbuta na moja kaniya biya iwa selling tires metimented me is in his angle na nyuubani angle saza nige sema nini kusima ume jaribu ume jaribu waya sana sana 60 cents una kuwa na five story building na ume tukia jela ume jaribu yes so lives like that at ways kupanana since water sinana kama bila in tunili jurikana juia wadishi kama water doha zaku juia kilamutu anadyke waga rika bituzigi naata weo shanga lakini e awa kuwa kama mimi i want you to know I'm the one who started education in prison na saza uneskia wadu anafaniyaata, cpa, huku, anafaniya mi tihani yote kuna mi tihani unafaniya huku injaba wakuna huku prison but i started this because nikuwa tuna kahiwio I realized kama wadu naona na tokapokotu ana ima ngombe na vi tukama hezo unaku tata jina kia resi kuandika I realized kusama anta awa tata nikuwa tikiwa because I was given a position where I was midyunil kuwana ingiza afungwa na wadikiwa ila lembo na uikawa lembo kwa kifua your name and your number the number you are given midyunil kuwana wa peya na kuri gana na register ila ikona I realized I realized kwa tikiwa nama jina yao so tuki kana maya ma bia ati jina wadikiwa so we started showing them one, two, three marjina and kwa kaza kusama na wadikiwa na wadikiwa na fly sana wapokotu wadikiwa na mahasai na wadikiwa na and then as we stayed wadikiwa kansa kwi gia jela wadikiwa na degrees wadikiwa mesoma sana they took over sada hata wadikiwa na fanya cpa kuko so that's it but then I'm the one who began that so it goes down in history to be the person who started education in yaa and they know it very nice in case you didn't know now you know John Kiriamiti did that as we finish up you told me that you still read books to date do you know approximately how many books you've read so far I cannot even guess not 200 but I know it's hundreds yes yes I have a library at home even as I travel like when I was coming to Nairoi from Langa I've carried two books I might read the two books within those four days I'll stay here so I read and I cannot stop reading I cannot know therefore the number of books I've read but there are many and as I told you I have a library a big library at home at home yes nani uko ucha hey clearly that is a lot of knowledge we have to keep on reading how do you think the reading culture especially right now when we have social media has been lately you know there's this feeling that people do not read but I quite disagree with maoniawa ya watu people read I know I have those five titles and they all go people read because you give them something good to read they want to become a writer and you know what you want know the people you want to reach kama ni philosophy where I kia ma philosophy of how kama ni ya watu aschini kama wango now I kia what they want to read and when I tell you before anything else I make my reading very simple and I touch on everyone who would want to know and this is what they did in my works nidiyangani omitabu zigina na onam tu aki adiga kama hapa tuko hapa na nangari na onam oh he tied to hata mi when you see 11 na se mani and I'm a writer so you think writers should know we should give people the things they want to as long as we know the subject we continue writing think of us when you come about a subject a certain subject look at what you can give you think that the subject concerning the subject you have in mind they caught me a crime writer but then books like the sinister trove is not as no crime writer is for who are two we call na tricks who kuna in attack intelligence yes please let tell your fans something what do you do like them to know what lesson you do like to share with them please talk to them there's something I want to tell you fans be my fans or be what you call yourself if for instance I go with you and we went to about 50 uh house you have 50 stories you look down and tell me I'm going to jump there I'll tell you if you take you about three minutes together dive because I cannot tell you to dive you know when you dive there you'll die what do I tell you dive go meet your death so guys have nothing to tell you but I want you to know you have you are full of knowledge if you can be able to read a book and complete you can be able to write one and complete it you are all writers only that you have not started writing think of what others want to read and please try and then no one is born a writer or a rinda we are all born the same but then when you teach yourself to do something you do it see do you know not that kuna mafudu wa bao see is not that kuna pa tiyani tegeneza kaka kameza kapa sita reza with all this knowledge you think I have tegeneza atamuiko so you see kira mutua kuna ijiaki promote what you know or what you have in mind but you guys be good to yourselves before anything else John Keramiti says be good to yourself and he also says if you teach yourself something you will do it thank you so much John Keramiti we are most welcome atami nimi fly kupadana na wewe na piya ati wewe rafiki ya watoto wangu so I think you are like them be brave asante sana all right brave is my second name thank you so much guys for watching this episode of buzzard stars with the legendary John Keramiti make sure to leave a comment down below but in the meantime thank you so much for watching my good name is Miskithinji


Yeah, welcome back to another Microsoft soundbikes. Today we're gonna look at the Minecraft skills manager or MSM as it's called for short. I'm Gez. I'm Stratus. Yeah, let's jump straight into it. So MSM is a tool for managing skills as the name suggests. So we're just gonna quickly go through the basic functions of it. So maybe let's just jump straight to the command line. So we are in the command line and if we type microp-msm-h, we should be able to see everything that we can do with MSM. So yeah, the number one thing that most people will be doing is installing a skill. So if we did microp-msm-install, we can then pass the name of any skill. And it doesn't have to be an exact match either. It's gonna do some fuzzy matching for us. So what's the skill that we know about? Stocks? Yeah, sure. So it's building entry. It's found a best match, which is microp-stock. Now that we know that there's microp-stock, we can do a microp-msm-install microp-stock. And that's obviously gonna have a much higher confidence match and we'll try and install it. This one's already installed, so that one doesn't count. But so yeah, we can use the name of the skill. We can also, if there's multiple skills that have similar names, we can also use the author. So we could say microp-msm-install cocktails and then space the author. So in this case, F-O-R-S-L-N-A-U-N-D. And so that's gonna look for cocktails, but only if they're authored by Ausland. If we're not really sure about what's out there, we can do a MSM list. So MSM list gives us a big long list of things. But if we wanna narrow that down a little bit, we can do a microp-msm-search. Let's look for something like volume. So see what skills are out there that do something with our volume. So here we can see we have microp-volume. That's the official one that changes your actual volume. And then there's auto-volume by Andlo, which listens to the world outside and changes your, tries to modify your volume automatically based on the environment around your device. So that's a cool one. We can remove a skill. So MSM remove, and then we can use the same parameters as install. So we can either just specify a name. We can also do an update, so microp-msm-update. And if we do a specific package, a specific skill name, then it will only update that skill. So our Home Assistant skill, because in our other videos, we've been editing the skill locally on this machine. It's saying that there have been changes here. They've not been committed to the Git repository. And so it's not gonna automatically update that skill. And so that's specifically in there so that we don't blow away the work of developers. You put a lot of time and effort into the code you put in there. We don't wanna just go and overwrite those changes. So it does mean that anytime you edit a skill on your device, MSM is not going to update it automatically. And so we can go in there and stash those changes and then it will work. But for the moment, it just plays it safe. Yeah, and then the other thing we could do is an MSM update with no skill after it. And that's gonna go through every skill on the device and update them one by one. The final one that I'd mentioned is, you can delete all of your skills and then run MSM default. What that will do is install the default skills for your machine. So you can run it now. It probably won't install anything because we haven't removed anything. You can also, you can blacklist a skill. So imagine you really don't want the Minecraft weather skill. You can add Minecraft weather to your blacklisted skills list in your Minecraft configuration. And then when you run MSM default, it does check that blacklist and sees that this skill should not be installed. And so it doesn't do that. One of the things that I'd note there is I blacklist things to make my startup time faster. So for example, you said the weather, but more appropriately, I'm not going to check the stocks.  I just end up blacklisting them all. And that way, Minecraft doesn't have to worry about loading them and the system comes back up much more quickly. And I do that a lot when I'm devying a lot. Like I'll just go through and blacklist a bunch of the things because that way I just get at the skills that I need to load to test this with. Is there anything else you want to cover with the MSM here? I don't think so. I think we've covered everything. There's more information in the documentation. So jump on docs.microsoft.ai if you want to learn more. So we talked today about MSN and how we use this as a package manager to maintain the skills that Minecraft ingests and makes your system functional. And it does all the things that a normal package manager does. Lists, removes, updates, and so on. If you need additional information, you can hit up the help documentation or you can go to the docs.microsoft.ai and look out there.  Yeah, definitely. Come join us in the, in Minecraft chat or in the forums. I think that's it for today. So... Absolutely. Auf wiedersehen. Auf wiedersehen. Until next time. Bye. Bye.