This is Stink Tech, Hawaii, Community Matters here. Aloha and welcome to The Condo Insider, everything you ever wanted to know about condo ownership and condo living here in Hawaii. I'm your host and also your guest today here on The Condo Insider. We're doing something a little bit different today in that I'm going to be discussing issues involving medical marijuana and how that affects your condominium association. Little background first on why we're going to be discussing this and that is the fact that I have been writing and teaching realtor continuing education courses for nearly 20 years. And I keep track of what seems to be the common issues when it comes to condominium living. And as you know from previous episodes we've discussed a couple of times the issue of emotional support animals and that's been the number one issue I think over the last few years. Following close behind is the issue of smoking and medical marijuana as it pertains to living in a condominium. So first off before we get into the issues of the condominiums it might be important to understand where these medical marijuana laws do come from. And you'll be proud to know that as of April of 2000 Hawaii became the first state to permit medical marijuana use and also in that legislature that Governor Ben Cayetano signed it allowed for the Department of Public Safety to help create the rules. Now I have always admitted that Hawaii was a little bit backwards in their process. Yes we were the first to allow medical marijuana but we were one of the last to do dispensaries which we've only just had in the last year or so. The reason I've been tracking the issue of medical marijuana in particularly in the place of condominiums and for long term property management is there are conflicts in the law and it also may create a scenario both in the condo and the long term management scenario that you may violate fair housing laws or at least state fair housing laws because there is conflict within the state and federal laws and that's one of the reasons I've been tracking these laws over the years or at least since 2000. One of the things we need to understand right off the bat that even though Hawaii allows for the use of medical marijuana this does not mean it is legal federally. So technically speaking you can still be found violating the law and prosecuted on the federal level. Now as far as I know that hasn't happened in Hawaii but you never know when that situation will change depending on what administration is in at the federal level. So speaking of that one of the reasons I've tracked the law over the years is the problem that the long term property managers have in dealing with this situation. If they have a tenant that uses medical marijuana and the law says that we cannot deny them a rental based on the fact that they are using medical marijuana the landlord is put in a position where they move a qualified tenant in and then later on how do they explain to an owner when let's say the feds do take action and seize the property because of that scenario and then they have to call up the owner and say well the state law said I had to accept this person as a tenant but the federal laws it's still illegal so they seized your property for medical marijuana use. Of course that scenario has not happened but we should all understand what the outcome and possibilities are under the medical marijuana laws and actually they point out that the federal authorities they all the arrests made only 1% account for marijuana arrest and that doesn't break down the fact that some may be medical and some may not be medical. So as I pointed out April of 2000 the legislature passed a law that allowed Hawaii to have patients use medical marijuana and since that time there have been about 4,000 patients being registered every year for the use of medical marijuana and now remember that was in 2000 so that's quite a jump in number over the years. Also in the meantime it's also good to know what qualifies a person to be on medical marijuana and right now the list at least for the state of Hawaii they say any debilitating medical condition which could include cancer glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, also severe pain, severe nausea, seizures including those of epilepsy and severe and persistent muscle spasms are some of the conditions that would allow a doctor to suggest the use of medical marijuana and also the Department of Health has been allowed to add any additional conditions into that situation. A number of years ago they did try to pass legislation where they would only signify certain medical conditions that would allow the use of medical marijuana but as studies have grown over the years it would have placed a situation where every year the legislature would have had to add to that list so rather than have a list that was very limited for a period of time they allowed the Department of Health to make additional additions to what is considered to be a qualifying medical condition for medical marijuana. Also the law allows for a person with medical marijuana use to have what is called an adequate supply and that has also caused a little bit of concern among long-term property managers and condo associations because basically what this means is that the patient can grow their own medical marijuana and what a lot of people don't realize also stated in that law that the caregiver of somebody who has a disability or condition that requires the use of medical marijuana also has the ability to grow for that patient as long as they're a caregiver. Now what is an adequate supply? Well according to Hawaii statute that would be seven plants in various stages of growth and also three ounces of usable marijuana on hand at any given time. Where this becomes an issue is in a condo association or in a long-term rental where is the person going to grow their medical marijuana supply? I've seen instances where they're actually growing it right on their lanai at the condo association. So this is an interesting aspect which I think personally will be resolved in a couple years now that we do have the ability to have dispensaries and what has happened because of the dispensaries is that caregivers who are currently now allowed to grow for their patients and are protected under the statute will not be allowed to grow for their their patients by December 31st of 2018 which means that they will now have to get their supplies from dispensary illegal dispensary within the state of Hawaii. The only exception to that rule however for the caregiver is that the exception would be is if the island you happen to live on or the patient in the caregiver live on does not have a dispensary. So a good example of that would be let's say Molokai which doesn't have a dispensary would allow the caregiver or the patient to be able to grow their own medical marijuana. Now remember I said that the previous law said up to seven plants well act 70 which was passed or excuse me act 170 which was passed by this year's legislature actually increased that amount to 10 plants in various stages of growth usually it would be immature plants and sustainable plants and a combination thereof. One of the other things that is important to realize because we see this happen and we see concerns about it is the statute does not allow for medical marijuana use in public places so they can't just be out in front of Walmart or someplace like that using their medical marijuana or smoking it so to speak. They also cannot use it on the bus or a moving vehicle or in the workplace now I'm not going to discuss medical marijuana and employment that should be done by somebody else who has specialty in employment law. You also cannot use it on school grounds or use it in an area that the endangers the health or well-being of any other person. So that sometimes becomes an issue with the condo association which we'll get to in just a bit. So the other thing you need to realize with medical marijuana is what are the doctors allowed to do and it's interesting to note that doctors do not write a prescription for medical marijuana there's not a prescription pad where they actually write out that the person can use medical marijuana they actually write a recommendation for medical marijuana use on a prescription form. They also are not allowed to assist the patient in getting medical marijuana and they are not allowed to cultivate or possess marijuana on behalf of their patient and they cannot assist the patient in using medical marijuana and they cannot recommend the use of medical marijuana without a justifiable medical cause. So those are important things to remember. So now we get into the issue of what happens in long-term rentals and condo associations. Well back in 2014 your legislature passed Act 60 and I'll read it out for you as it states a provision in a rental agreement allowing for the eviction of a tenant who has a valid certificate for medical use of marijuana as provided in the statute in any form is void unless the rental agreement allows for eviction for smoking tobacco and the medical marijuana is used by means of smoking. That is an important clause in Act 60 from 2014. Basically what they're saying is that we can't evict you because you're a medical marijuana patient however if the landlord the condo association or such has a non-smoking policy then you can enforce the non-smoking part of it meaning that you're not allowed to smoke cigarettes nor are you allowed to smoke medical marijuana on the property. That's important to understand because the trend over the last couple of years with a lot of condo association is not just to ban smoking in common areas which is already covered under the state's smoking laws it gives them the ability to ban smoking 100% at the condo association. So as an example the association would vote to amend their bylaws and let's say get 67% of the owners to approve they can ban smoking throughout the condo association including inside the unit. If they have done this then they can also ban the smoking of medical marijuana that doesn't mean they're preventing the person from using medical marijuana they only are preventing them from smoking it on the property or within the unit and landlords have done this as well in rental units by indicating that they have a no smoking policy with all of their rentals which is probably covered by about 99% of the property managers in the market today. So before we move on to more let's take a quick break and when we come back we'll discuss more of what a condo can do in regards to medical marijuana. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. Ted Rawson here folks you're a host on where the drone leads our weekly show at noon on Thursdays here on Think Deck where we talk about drones anything to do about drones drones remotely piloted aircraft unmanned air christmas whatever you want to call them emerging into Hawaii's economy educational framework and our public life we talk about things associated with the use the misuse technology engineering legislation with local experts as well as people from across the country please join us noon on Thursdays and catch the latest on what's taking place in the world of drones that might affect you. Welcome back to the condo insider and our discussion today on medical marijuana and the law and how it affects condo associations quickly I'd like to also point out that I should have added in that Hawaii has some of the strictest smoking laws not just medical marijuana but regular smoking and over the last couple years a couple of things that the state has done within their smoking statutes is to also include electronic cigarettes into the smoking ban meaning wherever a regular cigarette is banned so our electric cigarettes and vaping devices which have become very popular and very common now and even on the aspect of a condo association if you have banned smoking you can also incorporate the fact that vaping is also included into the state's non-smoking laws so if somebody is using a vaping system to take their medical marijuana that is also banned under our statutes and just as a side note Hawaii was one of the first states to also make it illegal to buy cigarettes or vaping devices unless you're over the age of 21 and Hawaii being the first to do that many other states are now following suit over the last couple years passing similar legislation now for all intents and purposes I will admit that I am a cigarette smoker and nothing gives me greater joy than walking into let's say 7-eleven and buying a pack of cigarettes and having them ask me if I'm over 21 that actually does make my day but continuing on with the medical marijuana situation people are concerned particularly property managers and board of directors at condo associations that if they try to ban the smoking of medical marijuana are they going to violate somebody's disability rights or fair housing rights both under federal and state law and the issue is that you cannot reject somebody for strictly for the use of medical marijuana what you can control is the smoking of it and this has become a very big concern in condo associations in regards to the smoking of medical marijuana or better yet taking it out on the little and I of the condo association or doing it out in the common areas because you're not allowed to do it within the unit and again those are also protected areas and one way associations can attack the issue of smoking on the line I whether it be cigarette smoke or medical marijuana is you can add to the house rules that there are no noxious fumes coming from the lanai which would include like electric barbecues and things like that which can bother other people's right to quiet enjoyment of their unit so one of the issues that has come up recently in my discussion with condominium managers and property managers is when somebody complains that they can smell the medical marijuana coming from a unit and the problem with that is is how do you actually pinpoint that it's coming from the unit so I always recommend to property managers at condo associations make absolutely sure you know it's coming from that particular unit before you post a notice because it might be coming from another unit and everybody is assuming it's coming from the unit next door when in fact it may be a unit on the other side of that unit where they're actually smelling it another issue that comes into play is people have concern that they have employment where they're drug tested regularly and if the neighbor is smoking medical marijuana then that is going to show up in their drug test well that actually is not the case you may be able to smell it but you're not going to have it affect your drug testing at whatever your employment is because you'd actually have to be standing right there next to the person smoking it and actually sucking it in as well in order for it to be in your system enough to show up on a drug test so again as I mentioned before one of the ways a condo association can deal with not only the medical marijuana but also the smoking aspect altogether is to amend the bylaws get the proper vote of the ownership and ban smoking 100 percent in your condo association this is actually happening throughout the state of hawaii where they're mending their bylaws to make smoking 100 percent not allowed at the condo including inside the unit we all know that of course with medical marijuana that the smell is a lot stronger than with regular cigarettes and so that's why it has become so noticeable within a condo association but again back in 2015 they added more to the statute they added in that there are protections for reasonable accommodation it prohibits discrimination against medical marijuana patients and their caregivers by schools landlords courts with regard to medical care or parental rights and plan community associations and condominium property regimes basically what it is saying particularly in the issue which I thought was interesting and parental rights is the court cannot use the fact that you are on medical marijuana to restrict visitation rights let's say in the divorce case and a school cannot suspend or expel a student because they are on medical marijuana the first thought that pops into your mind in those situations though is you're thinking of some teenager in high school walking down the hallway smoking a joint and saying well this is my medical marijuana as we said earlier you cannot smoke medical marijuana in school or in public so to speak but there are other means of taking medical marijuana and one of those is the liquid format of medical marijuana which has been shown to assist people who are prone to seizures and prone to epileptic seizures or seizures of any type so if a student in school is using medical marijuana to prevent seizures the school cannot expel or suspend that student for that a landlord or condo association cannot demand a person be evicted because they're using medical marijuana but again they can enforce the aspect of smoking if smoking is not allowed then smoking of the medical marijuana is no longer allowed either but they can take it in other formats and as you've probably seen in the news the dispensaries right now are selling the smokable versions but eventually they will have what they call edibles and other versions which those who are on medical marijuana will not have to smoke it in order to get their medication from the marijuana they would be allowed to use it in other formats and that's what their department of health is basically saying in the issue of not being allowed to smoke it wherever smoking is banned but one of the issues that has come up that sort of slipped through the legislature not a lot of people had noticed it but I actually took the time to read the bill is the passage of Act 170 which was in this year's legislative session and the legislature finds that the term marijuana actually originated as a slang term and has no medical meaning to it and so what this legislature is saying that the scientific term for marijuana is actually cannabis and so the term marijuana has no scientific basis and they also pointed out that in the early part of the 20th century usually in the 20s it also had a racial stereotype attached to it that pretty much most people I think had forgotten about even though they might have learned about it in a history class or watched one of those crazy early movies about marijuana so effective with Act 170 all statutes all administrative rules brochures etc that mentioned medical marijuana will now be changed to serve the term of medical cannabis and so any of the statutes you've seen since 2000 that refer to it as medical marijuana will eventually be changed to refer to it as medical cannabis personally I think we missed our chance in Hawaii in that we are in Hawaii so we should have changed it from medical marijuana instead of calling it medical cannabis we could have called it medical paka lolo as some of us had remembered in the past but that is going to be the new official term will be medical cannabis and so all statutes all administrative rules any brochures that reference medical marijuana will eventually be changed to state medical cannabis now one of the issues that is probably going to come up over time because this has been a growing issue is whether or not Hawaii will be one of those states that eventually legalize the recreational use of marijuana not just in the fact of medical use and this is something that will probably be looked at very closely with our legislature over the next couple of years mostly because they're watching those states that have legalized recreational use and using Colorado as an example since they instituted legal recreational use has collected over a billion dollars in taxes on that so if you think about it if we make it recreational then we could probably pay for about a quarter mile of the new rail system in the process so just to highlight what we've talked about today in medical marijuana in your little history lesson is that if you are a condo association and it doesn't matter if it's a tenant or an owner and you have passed rules through your bylaws through your house rules that ban smoking that smoking rule also applies to the smoking of medical marijuana it doesn't prevent the use of medical marijuana it only prevents the smoking of it and the condo association does have the right to do that and then the patient will have to use it in other formats such as liquid form or edibles well I hope I've made a little bit of the medical marijuana laws clear we could actually go on for quite a while discussing that but for the condos you know you do have a position that you can stand by in regards to the smoking of it at your condo association I again thank you for allowing me to be here today on the condo insider and be sure to tune in every Thursday for interesting aspects and discussion in regards to condominium living right here on the condo insider aloha and thank you for watching


From Odo State, we move to Adama Arsid and Governor Mardul Maru Fenteri says the PDP has been putting strategies in place to retake power from the APAC in the country in the 2023 General Elections. Fenteri revealed this to newsmen in an interview shortly on his arrival from Abuja at Yola International Airport, where he was received by top government officials. The governor said the party, after having conducted a successful convention that produced Atiku Abu Bakar as its flag bearer, is now putting machinery in motion for the unity of card-carrying members. As far as this convention is concerned, there is no victory, no vanquish. It is the PDP that won and we are together and we are working assiduously to see that the presidency is for tech for PDP. All of us are together. If you see all those who participated in the election have visited each other and they have reconciled the 2023 election will be for our party so that we can form government and do away with all the devices that this present government have created for Nigerians and for Nigeria. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Gwyddon i chi ddweud? Felly, os iddych yn rhywbeth a dweud o gyfleoedd gynhyrchu a'r rhaid i yw'r gweithio am y cyfnodd yma. Felly, rhaid i chi eich gweld o'r bwysig, a'r bwysig o'r bwysig. Felly, y cynhyrchu cyfan yw'r cyffredig a'r cyffredig o'r gweithio ar y cyflwr yma i'r cyffredig yma, a yn ymgyrchio ar gyfer genedig. Adently they considered for the 10 years and See from this time here he've accomplished a lot him published very well and has been recognised for a number of awards. There's something that could be said of many researchers that are key that they're sort of persona of the public persona and that is very closely applied to their subject of study. So Arerobic Rice and Bass come to mind as do Gnollian Dignor with Eulu Rice, and Gnollias Case Blast, Ymar Tin Gwment, with the superbag. For Grant, it is very clear where his research interests lie, and that is in association with Rodents. Nid yw'n gweld yn ddim yn ôl yn y rôl ariol, yn y grannau yw'r ystod yn y bydd y pethau yma. Mae'n ymgyrch i'w ddefnyddio'n ddechrau'r ddylch i'w ddyn nhw'n ddiadau, mae yw'r ddechrau a'u ddylch i'w ddechrau a'u ddau'n ddau'n ddau yn y diwrnod a'u ddega. Yn ychydigion i ddylch i dda'r ddau'r gweithredu, mae'n ddau'n ddau'n ddau'n ddau. But Grant has elevated the role to a very noble profession, and not only has he encouraged many others to follow in his footsteps, and I can see a number of putting rap people in the audience, both boys and girls, that he's encouraged the next generation of rap people. And I think what's remarkable is that he's done this at the same time as he's guided and steered what was a fairly large ship, the Irrigated Rise Research Consortium, which ran across 10 countries, and he convened and coordinated that over 10 years. And at the point when the donor interest was sort of signaling that they'd probably come to the end of their interest there, he was able to encourage others, conven the scientists, and have sort of a redirection of the work into the project Corry. And that led to a signal from the donor that, yes indeed, this was a novel topic, and it certainly sort of fit with their interests, and so it breathed new life into the work, Erie's work with national programs, which of course goes right to the very heart of what we need, and indeed we need much more of it. So I think the Corry app project is a good example, and that's what we're going to hear from today. So with that, I'll give you the comment. Thank you, David. I had purposely prepared a talk about mention of Rats, that already is sort of it, because it's interesting that even though I was employed at Erie to manage a project that Bob Ziegler always introduced me as the rap man, and I find that quite peculiar, because I'm not employed at Erie specifically to work on this. So today I want to take you on a journey and talk about Corry Gap. And as David mentioned, it's a project that's funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SBC, and it's a project that's been going since 2013. And what I want to do today is give an overview of phase one of Corry Gap, that I want to talk about some of the work that we're doing, and give you a flavour of the multidisciplinary, and in some cases I would even say trans-disciplinary, because we're bringing together people who do not usually work together, and some highlights of the exciting progress, and then a few slides at the end on where next. So what is Corry Gap? Basically we're looking at trying to do two major tasks. One is to reduce rice yield gaps, and this is in the low land intensive system. It's the rice bonds of the countries we're working in. And we want to increase the environmental sustainability of rice production in these intensive systems. Now we're very closely aligned with our partners in six countries, and as I mentioned we're currently in phase one, and I'll come back to talk about where we are in relation to what happens beyond 2016. If you look at the vision of GRISP, and in the prelude to this seminar I did give the vision of Corry Gap, and we see that there's a very strong alignment. We're looking at reducing poverty, which is the first part of the vision of GRISP. We're looking to improve health, reduce the environmental footprint. I'll come back to that issue very briefly during my talk about what it means by that. The high quality research that I should go about saying, and also most importantly the partnerships, and the strong partnerships we have in the region. And the structure of Corry Gap is that we have an advisory committee, and that advisory committee is drawn from the six countries that we're working in. And for example three of them are the DGs of the Rice Research Institute, for example in Sri Lanka, in Indonesia, and also in Thailand, or definitely in Thailand. With each country we have a local champion. So Zuwa Zong in China, Ngunin, Subecti in Indonesia, Katasina in Sri Lanka. Naomi Twei, who initially was working with partner agricultural research, but now is a post-doc with the project for the last 12 months in Myanmar. Lada Biryankura in Thailand, and Fenven Nhu Zu in Vietnam. Now these people are really worth their weight in gold. When we're looking at trying to analyse whether the project is successful or not, often they say, oh, how strong are your partnerships? Well, if you've got someone who is really online and interested in what you're doing and has the buy-in, then they play an essential role in what happens in countries. And within each of these countries we have hubs, and this is shown in this graphic here. So in Indonesia, or in South Sumatra, and also in Jogjakarta and Setchwajada. So we have two sites in Indonesia. In Sri Lanka, in Koinodchi, and in Koinurugia. And so this one here is actually part of their main rice belt. And this one here is an area where the Tamil unrest was over the last decade. So it's an area that was chosen to see how it had stood over into these areas. Then in Myanmar initially we're just linking with other projects that we're involved in, in the AOE Delta, and also in Bago region. But now we have a new site just here in Le Padang, in Bago. In Thailand, the central plains of Thailand, the consawang. In Vietnam, there's a Mekong Delta, Solon An, Kentur, and Anjum. And up here in China it's just the one province, Guangdong province. But it has 110 million people. And this is actually one province, but it's four sites that we're working in Guangdong. We also are aligned with other projects and other donors. This is where the Irrigated Rice Research Consortium provides an umbrella arrangement. And these look at co-investment and linkages. And this is, for example, at national government level. And certainly people who have been involved, iriscientists and choregap, have been involved in lots of discussions recently in Vietnam, in Thailand, in Indonesia, where we're trying to see how we can leverage funds from those governments for research. In Myanmar we have two projects there, one's just finished. But also we have a project funded by the Australian government. And that has similar approaches in terms of adaptive research. In Vietnam we have a World Bank project, which is beginning now, although we probably won't be getting on the ground until February next year, called VNSAT. And we have a small project called Gift to Asia that Buyong Ha Di now co-ordinates. And that's focusing on capacity-building. So these are all linked with what we're doing with choregap. And the one at the bottom is a very important one, and that's the Sustainable Rice Platform, a Chinai Nation Development Program. They're going to have an annual meeting next week in Alabang. And what we're doing in the field provides the on-the-ground activities at the moment with the SRP. This presentation I'm going to give acknowledgements up front, because a lot of the slides I'm presenting, you'll notice a number of them I have at the bottom, some acknowledgement as to who provided them. Haven't done it for all the slides, but most of them. But this is the team that's been involved with choregap. And we also have an impressive team of NRS staff. And as I mentioned, they're NARS partners. And I only mentioned on the covering slide in terms of the structure of choregap, who are the key partners. But we have a number of people in each country also involved in our work. And just recently, we've got Sudir, Krishna and Ando will be involved with certain portions of their time in choregap. And I'd like to highlight here how we do have a younger generation in terms of Alex, Peter, Naomi, Krishna and Ando who are currently postdocs here at Erie. And they provide a very important energy to the project of choregap. With choregap, we're making sure we're aligned with the national priorities, the national programs at the moment in relation to the lowland irrigated cropping system. The other thing I should mention in terms of the people involved that we get feedback. So we've had James Quilty has been also giving us some advice and also we've had input from the rice breeding as well. So in Vietnam, they have a situation now where muc phai nun jiang, which is a carryover of one must do five reductions in our work in Vietnam with the IRRC. It's now seen as being adopted as a national program of best practice. So there's a presidential decree and that's important because it means that the extension agencies can put funding into those activities. And that's now the basis of this new project funded by the World Bank. Farmers are forming cooperatives, they'll get support but they only get support if they can demonstrate that they are following best practice. And the best practice is the one must do five reductions. In Indonesia is a new initiative called GP PTT and that's basically looking at acceleration of their current integrated crop management ITM. In Thailand it's aligned with a national cost reduction initiative in China. They have a program there called three controls technology and it's now got alternate way of drawing link to that. And we're looking at a strong focus on reducing fertiliser use and also reducing pesticide use. In Myanmar we're setting the development of best practices and in Sri Lanka they're one of the key interests there. They really sort of ticks the box when we start talking about environmentally sustainable rice production. So we are keeping a view of what is happening in each of these countries and probably any second time I go in country I will meet with policy makers at a higher level to get a feel for what is developing from a natural resource management in these intensive lowland systems. So we're well positioned to fast track the outcomes of the project and what we've said in terms of our ultimate goal is we're looking to see if we can improve the livelihoods of half a million farmers by 2022. And that's what we're sort of aiming towards. Phase one, the first four years, STC were keen to build what we've done with IRRC and in a couple of the countries they're looking to see if we can have outreach. But in the others they also appreciated that we also need to do some basic research. Whereas in phase two there will be a much stronger focus on the outreach of the results from that research. So on to what, where and when. And what we have here, so just trying to show a schematic so we have the countries here, China, Indonesia and different colours going down and across here some of the activities we've been doing. So the needs assessment were undertaken in all countries in 2013. We have a new site now in Myanmar and that needs assessment has just been completed. And then from that needs assessment it gives a good understanding of what we should be thinking about in terms of rolling out. And also we undertook household surveys and the household surveys have been done at different stages. We weren't going to do one in Vietnam initially because we had a data set from 2011 but it was in Anjong and we were working primarily in Can Thu and Wang An so we decided we would do one this year. This gives you an example, an overview of what's been done in terms of our household surveys. So we have Rahal, Dick and Anan who left just recently and now Aralee has taken over this data set and this gives you a feel. This is our baseline data. But the baseline data we also looked at villages that we'll be working closely with and villages which we've seen as being our untreated or called check villages. So when we do our follow-up surveys in phase 2 of Corry Gap we'll have before and after and with and without to look at what the impacts would be. Now part of what we're doing this all leads through to what we call adaptive research of best practices. So apart from some of the work that Sarah's been doing primarily with the ecological indicators most of our work is done in farm, in the villages, in the countries the six countries that are our partners. And so I'll go through what we mean by adaptive research as our model. What it is, is we do these needs assessments rat and rule appraisals and then from that we're going to do our more detailed quantitative household surveys and I'll say details on these surveys take like two hours to do. And then from this we select our technologies based on the feedback. So in each country some of our lead technologies that we're introducing that are new they will differ from place to place. Then we'll do adaptive research where we are leading the trials. We will set up the trials we'll make sure the technology and the new approaches are implemented correctly and follow set protocols we established field demonstration sites for the farmers to come and look at what is happening a couple of times during the growing season and at the end of the growing season we review the results for the farmers. And we do this usually most of the sites have two crops a year some sites like in John Ficata they have five crops in two years and we do that at the end of each of the cropping seasons. And from that interaction with the farmer groups we then select technologies again where they want to do a bit more because often they say that was fantastic what you've done what else do you have what problems in this particular area with water management or whatever it may be and then we'll so we go through this iterative process then we'll get to a stage where the farmers are confident that these technologies are ones that they want to start adopting they will then lead their own trials and there we take a step back so farmers are implementing it and we're there as advisers or our counterparts in the country are there as advisers and again we review the results at the end of each cropping season and when there's clear that these results are having quite an outcome a positive outcome then that gets through where we're informing policy and also the national extension system so this is our adaptive research approach and in each cropping season we could be doing something quite different from the previous cropping season quite different from doing standardised work research funds and all this is done as I mentioned before in the context of natural resource management best practice so what are the attainable yield gaps and this is some very interesting data and there's actually quite surprising data when it starts coming through this is the data from our household surveys what we have here is this area the green bars refer to the top 10% of the farmers what are the yields of those top 10% this here the blue refers to what is the mean of the particular farmer group and in these cases this is drawn from four villages in any particular location so you see it the gaps are quite large in wherever we work and it ranges from about 20% up to about 40% okay so given that background what's been happening in terms of the progress one particular study has been a study that's involved Alex Stewart and he's worked well initially he was working with Takahiro Seito who left us earlier this year and with our colleagues in Vietnam particularly in Kentur and there we're looking at three different management approaches one is called good agricultural practice which is called Viet, GAP or global GAP we're applying that who have been accredited then we have others which are following another approach called small farmer large field and then farmers who are doing their conventional practice and for each management approach we had a treatment one must do five reductions which was managed by us and then we looked at the usual practice that would be farmer managed so that could be looking at what the GAP approach at the moment is for those farmer groups versus where we're applying what we see is the best practice fire replicates so five by three treatments by the control and treatment so we've got 30 plots each of one hectare and from that this is just a snapshot I'm not giving you a snapshot so the more detailed work we'll obviously hopefully get a presentation from Alex next year we'll have all this data analysed but what we can see here on this axis here we have the profit and these are the three groups GAP, small farmer large field and conventional practice and you see it as quite a change quite an increase in profit if we're looking at adopting the best practice of one must do five reductions if you look at what's happening in China and their focus on yield gaps and there it's looking at whether they adopt what they call three controls technology and they also have what is called partial adopt and this is data from one of our colleagues who we actually provided funds for at the end of IRRC Rufa Hu from Beijing and they looked at farmers from a number of villages in Guangdong province and they have three different categories non-adopters, partial adopters and full adopters and you see here that they are the yield gap so these are the main yields here and these are the yield gaps based upon the household surveys at Rufa Hu had done so it's very positive comparing those which we've seen as full adopters versus those which are non-adopters then you're looking at about a 17.5% closing of the yield gap so from the best practices we're also moving through to post harvest so I'll be touching on some of the work we're doing in terms of learning alliances but there we're looking at a solar bubble dryer a flatbed dryer super bags and also we'll start and look at laser levelling and also straw management in Vietnam and straw management particularly for use of growing mushrooms and bringing this data together and best practices both with NRM and post harvest is an approach called the field calculator and that will be used across all countries but at the moment we've been working primarily in Vietnam to validate the approach and we'll go on to consider that so the field calculator is an approach like a decision support system trying to pull things together and provide recommendations on sustainable management practices so here we're trying to see what is happening in terms of profit and the economic approaches but also trying to look at what's happening in relation to some of the ecological considerations what we're looking at is trying to integrate the results coming out of adaptive research from the agronomists who are leading that work through combining also information from the household surveys and in Vietnam for example there's particularly those farmers involved with GAP good agricultural practice and extensive farm adherence so how are we tracking if we start looking at that well in Vietnam what we're looking at there was trying to do adaptive research but looking at making sure we're collecting the requisite information so we can clear it into the field calculator so this is work that Alex and Tucket Hero Sato did and I've sort of described the study earlier on where we're looking at the GAP and it's very important again that we're demonstrating these practices to farmers and we're getting feedback we'll meet with the farmers at the end of the each crop each season and this is what the field calculator can generate a spider diagram we're looking at here this one is sort of the standard if we're looking at what is happening in the conventional production areas and if we then look at these red areas means there's a reduction so the reduction in labour costs reduction in fertiliser costs so they're moving in and this red band is where we've got the treatment which is the one must do five reductions so that's the best practice for being promoted in country in Vietnam and the Mekong Delta and we've also had reductions in costs such as irrigation and reduction in pesticide use so overall you can see because of these reductions in input use the profit has been quite impressive also what's impressive is the fact that these fertiliser, irrigation, pesticide use those reductions are seen as being positive for the environment how positive that is is that's where we're going to sort of pass across to Sarah and we'll go down to look at some of the factors that she's looking at in terms of those indicators the yield was slightly higher it's not sort of similar in each of the places we're looking at so that's a very positive result we've had a very positive result in terms of income for the farmers and it looks as though the indicators are that we're also having a positive response in terms of environmental sustainability if you look at Thailand there the result is even more stunning in terms of profit although each thing there we've had a bit of reduction in yield and so we need to understand what's happening there turns out one of the sites did have a particular problem with one of the pathogens as I understand and so we'll follow that through so just one particular season and we'll be following this through for at least 23 seasons so underpinning all this different disciplinary work we have these cross-cutting approaches and the first is looking at the environmental indicators and I'll go into that in a little bit more detail and there's also a bit of research on biodiversity the second cross-cutting one is looking at monitoring, evaluation and learning on gender-related issues and I'm not going to go into gender specifically here because we do integrate it within what we do in each of the communities we also want to understand the key players and the factors in the value chain and this is using an early aligns approach that Martin Goumett has been promoting and also Matty Dymont and Peter Ritza are in their work on the socio-economics looking at the value chains and we are also, as I mentioned earlier aligning with national policy initiatives and we regularly engage with decision makers so these are cross-cutting and we now look at the environmental indicators in returning for the GRISP vision there's two very clear statements where reducing the environmental footprint enhancing the ecosystem resilience of rice production that gives us a warmth in a glow when we read that but what are we doing at Erie in relation to whether we we are actually achieving this particularly in these intensive lowland systems which are the rice bowls and the rice bowls of today but also the rice bowls of future generations so we make sure that we got sustainable actions happening in terms of the management of these systems so in our proposal we mentioned the phrase ecological footprint and we are saying that we are going to target this food


Okay, so this is the same type of thing, so notice this is the same drawing that we had for the last one, right? I haven't erased anything, but it says sketch the interactive network of water with an ammonia molecule in the water, okay? So let's just take ammonia and make it a different color so we can stand out. So ammonia you've got to know for this problem, of course, is NH3. So N, this is delta negative, these are delta positive. So what's going to happen here is your hydrogen bonds can go like that, okay? Let's interact this with another water molecule. This is delta minus, so we're going to want to do it like that, okay? Yeah. So if we wanted to, let's erase this one and make another one to it. We just stick it in the ammonia.


Half of the class of 2013, I would like to welcome everyone to this year's graduation ceremony. The activities of tonight celebrate accomplishments of these students seated before us. The past four years have been wonderful, but it is now time to move on to the next stage of life and follow where God leads each of us. Our class verse is Proverbs chapter 16 verses 3 and 9. It says, Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. These verses mean a lot to us seniors as we are getting ready to move on to the next step of our lives. Verse 3 talks about committing to the Lord. This means that the level of commitment has to be the full 100%, not just a small amount. By fully relying on God and putting Him in control of our lives, we can praise Him in all that we do, whether it is school, work, sports, or relationships. Another part of the verse talks about God establishing plans. For some of us, we have no clue what is going to happen in the next three months. This thought is terrifying, but by fully relying on God, our lives will be used to glorify Him and complete His purpose for us. Verse 9 says, In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Some of us may think we have our lives all planned out, from college to marriage and work. These plans can change instantaneously, and it may not be to our liking. One of us could land a dream job, but God can change that if it is not a part of His bigger plan. We can plan out our lives and our minds, but they will not always turn out as we hope. And that is life. Life is full of happiness and joy, but also full of disappointments. That is why we are blessed to have a God who loves and cares for us at all times. Now, I would like to thank all who have helped us come this far. I would first like to thank the parents for dealing with us for 18 years, for loving us and for spending the extra money to send us to this great school. Next I would like to thank all of our different churches. While our Christians schooling during the week and church on the weekend, we have learned to view the world with a Christian perspective and have learned how to treat others and respond to different situations in life. I would now like to thank all of the staff at this school. Over the four years we have been here, you have spent all extra hours teaching and explaining to us things we didn't understand. Above all, you incorporated Christianity into every subject, from science to math and even to gym. Thank you for the Biblical worldview that we can now use as we go off on our own. It is tough trying to fit in the world, and that is why God does not want us to become a part of it. He gave each and every one of us our own special gifts. Some are good at art, some at math, and others at caring for others. By following God's plan for our lives and using our gifts to glorify Him, we can have a positive Christian impact in the world around us. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this day that you have given us, that we can gather here in celebration of the seniors and the work they did to accomplish high school graduation. We pray that as we go our separate ways, you will give us the guidance we need so that in everything we do, we give you all of the glory. Thank you for our parents, our churches, our school, and the gifts you gave each of us. We give you all of the glory tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Seniors, on behalf of the junior class, I would like to congratulate you on your achievement this far. Tonight, we can celebrate your life's success to this point. Your class has shown excellence in many areas, and I'm sure you'll continue to do that in the future. Although we celebrate the past tonight, I want you to consider your future. Most of you have been influenced by Christian schools almost your entire life. You have had parents, teachers, coaches that you have depended on all the way, whether you wanted them to or not. From this point forward, many of you will be on your own with your own decisions to make. Christian schools have instilled a foundation that you will always build yourself upon.  No matter where you go to school or what you choose to do after high school, you will be confronted with many challenges. Ephesians 3, 16 through 18 says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit and your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide, how long, how deep is the love of Christ. We've been taught how to learn and lead with Christ as our focus. I hope that you continue what you have done and accomplished here at SECHS and whatever you do in the future. Find Christian friends and continue leading for the glory of God. Be a light to those who do not know the Lord. And again, congratulations, and the juniors and I wish you the best in your future. Dear class of 2013, friends, family, faculty, staff, and board members, well, here it is, graduation day, a day that we've all been looking forward to for a long time. Some of us have even been counting down the days left of school since we were sophomores. Jared, I think you were the one who did that. However, a day such as this also allows us the opportunity to look back. I remember that first day of school with Mrs. Tenhoer. I reflect on the friends who started that very first day with me and are here still tonight. Vanessa, Grant, Andy, BJ, Alex, also known as Lexie, Lexie Lee, Alexandria, and even Queen, according to your mom. I never quite understood it, but Alex, you always enjoyed changing your name on us. I also remember friends who moved or chose other schools. I think of how Usper Christian was always known as our biggest rival. One of our main goals was to beat OCS at any sporting event. I don't know exactly when this all changed, but those same rivals eventually became our very close friends when we all joined forces as one class. Instead of wanting to beat OCS, we all agreed and changed our focus to beat the Flying Dutchman and women of Usper. I think back to all the wonderful teachers and administrators that I have had the privilege of knowing. I attribute my love of math to Mrs. Leo, who explained how math surrounds us everywhere and every day. I know that my love of science came from Mr. Van Drunen. Who can ever forget when Mr. Van Drunen jumped on the table to grab our attention? Mr. Van Drunen also taught his students how to live for the Lord in everything we do. Mr. Van Drunen, you are still my role model today. Thinking way back to grade school, I remember Mrs. Endringa and her love for reading. I also remember Mrs. Endringa's funny sense of humor and her go with the flow attitude. Any one of us would be mortified to show up for school to work with two different shoes on, but not Mrs. Endringa. I also had the privilege of having Mr. Novus as my fourth grade teacher and later our principal. Mr. Novus, thank you for all you've done to help us along the way. You never hesitated, you never gave up hope on any of us, and you realize that every journey begins with a single step. We all want to wish you and your family God's blessings in your next journey. High school was no different. The teachers and staff here at SCCHS have all been exceptional. Mr. Geshe, I'll miss all of your family tree stories. I've come to realize that quite possibly every member of this class is related to each other somehow. Mr. Bulkama, you further enhance my love of math and I'll never forget cramming into your car for the Lakeland College math meet. Mr. Decker, we will all miss your deep voice that we all tried so hard to imitate. Mr. Endringer, well, what can I say? You always wore matching shoes. I'd also like to thank Mrs. Vendamelin for her work with the AFS program and all of those families who accepted foreign exchange students into their homes and lives. Throughout high school, we've all been blessed with many wonderful students from foreign lands who share their culture with us. These are lasting friendships and experiences that we will never forget. And through Facebook, it never seems like we're that far away. This is the last time that we as a class will be together. This next step in our lives can be a scary one as we leave the support structure of SCCHS. While reading my Bible recently, Joshua 1.9 caught my attention. Joshua writes, be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. One thing that I know about the SCCHS class of 2013 is that we never backed down from a challenge. We may not always win our games against Usberg, but we never give up. I don't know if it's our strong Dutch German heritage or what it is, but we are a determined bunch. Certainly life will throw us curveballs. We have our strong biblical teaching, our strong foundation based upon his teaching that will help us weather any storm. I'm not sure how we will get to where we need to be, how we will achieve our dreams, but I do know that we will know how to do it and we won't give up, and that's the important thing. We all have unique paths that the Lord is leading us to. Some will go into the workforce, the military, technical school, or college, but we will forever share one common theme, the one thing that binds us together forever, wherever we go, and that's our Christian faith. I'd like to take this moment to thank my parents. I know that it wasn't easy sending me to Christian schools. I know that you've sacrificed a lot for me and for that, I'm extremely grateful. My parents, like all of your parents, realize the importance of Christian education.  Money can be lost, stolen, or taxed, but no one can ever take away our Christian education. We've all grown through these formidable years. Some have dealt with job or family loss or family member illness. Whatever challenges we faced or are going to face, we have the knowledge that God will never leave us or forsake us. He's right beside us, gently guiding our path. May you have every success on your unique path. May you work hard, may you hold your head high. May our paths still cross from time to time, and may you go with all your heart. It's an excellent testimony to this school and to the dedication of the parents and supporters of this school after students just introduced our ceremony that way with those beautiful speeches. Every year at Christian High, our school culture is infused with other cultures through the program of AFS, and this year was no different. We had the pleasure, in fact, the privilege to have two AFS students this year, Nathaniel Cooper from Liberia and Lucas Neves from Brazil. These are two class act individuals, and they have been fun to be around. I invite them up now to share some of their stories with us.  They are very happy for me and the beautiful guys, and they say thanks very much. School board, principals, members of the teaching staff, schools administration, parents, AFS representative, graduating class, students, friends, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. Firstly, I'm very grateful to God for giving me life today because we have thousands of people out there, or thousands of people who couldn't have life today. And to the organizers of this program, for giving me the time and opportunity to be part of it. Thank you very much. Just to share my experience with you, when I was in Liberia, I have dreamed about coming to the U.S. and it was one morning, doing an exam at the end of 2011. We got an announcement about coming to the U.S. to study for a one-year program. So that day I went home and I told my mother about it. She being a very great woman, she encouraged me to say apply. And I just had a feeling that my long-awaited dream to visit the U.S. has arrived. It was a challenge. So I decided to apply because I want to experience all the part of the world. I want to experience America people talk about. I want to experience the life of American. I want to experience the government, the history. What is the history behind America? So when I decided to apply, I was selected from my school along with hundreds of students from our city. And we were selected to do the test called Secondary Level English Proficiency Test. This test consisted of all what you have to list in the tip and you answer questions and comprehension and essay writing. So after the test, I was the only student so separate from my school. I joined students from other high schools. We take our challenge to another level. At this time, we had a series of interviews. We had representation from our government, representation from the American Embassy, and representation from the AFS Yes Program. So we went through all these interviews, writing essay, talking to people to prove we are direct representation of our country. At the end again, being guided by the Holy Spirit of the Lord, I was selected. Not because I'm good, I'm the coolest kid, I know everything, but because of God, I was selected. Along with five other students from different high schools and we decided to take on this journey for 10 months. Coming to America, I feel like I should go beyond my comfort zone. I should go out of the area, I come from school, I hang out with friends. This is not bad for me. I can ask my parents for data and sin and I'm having a good time, but I feel I should go somewhere where it is new to me and I'll experience more. But after my decision, after my decision, I also had a belief that even though America is a developed country, but it is not safe that I was a stepping stone for me. It didn't stop me. Since America is not safe, stay right here. It makes me to say, go and experience how it's like. And I thought it was not safe because watching an American movie back in Liberia, you'll see the guys in club shooting guns. Yeah, so I just felt the environment was not safe. But coming to America and spending 10 months changed everything. It changed a lot of things about me and I learned a lot about America. I learned about the day-to-day activities of Americans. I learned about the history. I learned about the government and the most important thing, the respect and appreciation for diversity that I thought was very important. You don't see that everywhere in the world today. Even for my country, people don't see you along the road, facing problems and want to stop for you. So I thought it was important. And I also learned a lot more that I can take to Liberia today when I get in Liberia, I can impact the lives of others. We have an AFS saying, I say this, a mind that I've been stressed. Never return to it's original shape. You might say, what that means? Yeah, but in a true sense, that is from my experience. I was like this and getting to know more people, doing a lot of stuff, my minds became like this. And to come back like this, it is not just possible in a day. So going back home is like starting another new experience. But at this time, you have advantage. You have advantage to impact the lives of others. And one thing about this experience, it changed my understanding of things. It changed my understanding of religion. It changed the way I perceive people and the knowledge I acquire in a short period of time. It's remarkable. And coming to Christian High, I had a chance to play on a soccer and basketball team and also being part of the drama team. We had a great time together. We had some rock and roll. Yeah. But it was a new environment for me because back home, I come from school and I have more time. I go to the YMCA, I hang out with friends. We have our own little radio station. I can talk on it and people hear me around, friends know me. I don't have to play sport before people know me. Yeah. So coming to the school and getting involved in the sports, it makes me to know people more every day. And it makes me to have good times of then. I also had great times with families and friends. It was amazing. Back home, I heard people talking about snow. Yeah, I read about snow in book. Yeah. But coming to America to experience snow, to play in a snow. Oh my gosh. It's like the most valuable thing. Just to experience snow. Because it's like different things from your planet. Yeah. So I thought that was cool. I also had a lot of great memories with friends. And I'd just like to take this time to share some of them with you. When I want to explain everything, we must sleep here tonight. So we might just leave me then. The first one was our senior retreat. It's like playing in a senior retreat at the beginning of the school. Nothing good than that. Because it got me to know everyone. And it makes me to have some of the good experience for the first time. Like water skiing, ziplining, rock climbing, horseback riding, back home. I didn't do these things. But coming to experience then, it was great for me. And I just want to share this one with you. Maybe some of you have heard about it. It was once I had a time with AFF friends. With AFF friends. We went skiing. Yeah. Maybe some of you have heard about it. So some of you guys from Norway, from Germany, and pretty much they have snow. Yeah. They have snow, they have experienced these things. And I didn't know we are friends, but for that side, we are not the same. Yeah. So one of these guys, we learned how to ski for a little bit. I have confidence in myself that I can do it. So I thought, you guys, get in on the bucket to go to another level. Why skiing? I joined them, we went. The first introduction to get out of the bucket, I feel. Yeah. So I got off. I thought it was just a mistake so I can make it. Yeah. So when I look at the hill, I got to come down a hill before going home. Yeah. But how can I get down if I don't know how to ski? I stood up like this, trying to balance myself. Yeah. I balance myself and I stood for long. These guys went down the first time. They couldn't see me in the group so they knew something went wrong. They came back and decided to ask me what's wrong. I paused a little bit and I said, I'm trying, yeah. I'm trying. So they encouraged me to do it. And if I couldn't do it, I couldn't come down. Yeah, I could stay up. There's no other means you can come down. You have to ski to come down. I took a rest because I got to get home. And when I came down, like it if I mean, I fell at the end. Yeah. So I said, that was cool. It's not too bad. Yeah. No pain. I got up again. And this time I went on the bucket again. Yeah. I came down. I tried to get a break because it was my first time. I couldn't get a break. But this time I didn't fall. I kept going like I supposed to stop here. I went to the NPR. Yeah. And I stopped there. So from then on, I tried to help myself and I did it twice or more than three times. I got used to it. And I thought it was a memory that I can't forget about. It was cool. I want to use this time to say thank you to everyone. You guys are great. I can't just, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. How you guys have the time because of God to talk to me, to accept me in your school. I want to use this opportunity to just recognize few people, to get this family. I want to say things for opening your home to me. You treated me as one of your own. It was great with you. And to you, Caleb, and Toby, I just want to say thanks. You guys are great. We had a lot of good times together. Thank you. I also want to look at the Hendricks. Thank you very much. Again, for opening your home to me. And you are always there for me. Thank you. To all of our good teachers. Seriously, it was good that I came to America because the teachers' and students' relationship is 100% different from a country. And you guys do a great job with students. Thank you. Just to recognize few teachers. To you, Mr. Gash, your short stories like Richard Corey. All these stories when I read them, I was in this direction, and it turned me like this. I don't know why it happened, but those stories, if you read them, it sent a different signal to your mind. It makes you to think different. Thank you very much. To you, Mr. Vidivie, I saw you. Thank you very much. Getting part of your class' second semester, it was a giant step for me. I think you remember my first presentation, and you told me about it. When I entered his class' first day, I learned a lot from his talking. And I knew I could use him to move to another level. And with all his fun, his teaching is Christ Center. Thank you, Mr. Venable. And I could call all the teachers and list all the great things about you guys. But you guys are great. Yeah. Our AFS volunteers, in the school and out of the school, I can't believe you guys do all the things free. If you have them, how much do you make a month? They tell you nothing. Yeah. And I'm kind of bored to ask some of them, how much do you make with AFS? They tell you nothing. Yeah. And to do all the great things, you are there every time to make sure everything went right with me. To you, Cindy, I don't know if she's here. I just want you to recognize her. She's a great lady, and she's there for students. To you, Mr. Andrew Gad. To you, Mr. Kendricks. All of you work with students in the school, talk to them, and make sure everything is well. To our parents, well, I go play soccer, I go play basketball, and all the people just clap it for me. Yeah, all the parents just keep clapping for me. Thank you very much. Some of them, I don't know if I can recognize them, but it takes pictures for me and it's send them to me. You guys did a very good job. And to you, the photographer of the year, Mrs. Eva. She did a great job for me. And when I'm doing a book, a photo book, she got to get a recognition in the book because she did a lot of great pictures for me. Thank you. To our coaches, I can see Coach Mac there. Yeah, he's smiling. I can see Coach Dagger and all the other people. You guys brought a Christian discipline in sports. Even though we had some rough time, as I said earlier, but you guys turned over a Christian's perspective. Telling us, things will be fine. Thank you, Coach Philipsy. And to our drama director, Mrs. Rasketa. Where is she? Oh. OK. Hi. She is a fabulous lady. I don't know if that's a good word to use, but she's fabulous. She was a director and a friend to me. Every time we meet after practice, she tells me one of two great words. I just rest in my heart and I feel it was OK. Things was fine. Thank you, Mrs. Rasketa. And lastly, to our awesome student body. Thank you, guys, that I mentioned. To those of you who are concerned, speaking to me down the hall, calling my name, or just looking at me, you made an impact in my life. Give me a rise here and there. Thank you. Before I take my seat, I know I'm a little bit boring, but I would like to remind you that a Chinese program is a life in a year, and not a year in a life. It's like a big life experience within a year time, instead of just one year in your life. And to our parents again, we want you to consider opening your homes to that poor exchange student. You make their life complete. You make them experience different things. You don't believe it because you are in America, but coming from out there and experiencing this is different. So please open your homes to our exchange students. And you also have the opportunity to learn about the culture, to learn about the country, and to our students. I can say I've been to a lot of countries in West Africa and America and Germany. America is too small to limit you. This world is too small to limit you to America. You got to grab the opportunity. Someone said, go on an exchange program. He said, I don't want to go on an exchange program. I'm satisfied with my home. But take the challenge. Get out there. Grab the opportunities. Get that great moments and experience all of part of our global village. It is awesome. Have a nice day. I love you all, but Christ loves you the best. Hey, guys. I don't think you can speak in English right now. I'm going to try. This might seem a little silly, but it is true. My exchange program was, in a sense, like I was being born again. I got to learn how to talk. Yep, I still learning. I got to know my new family. Those were always here for me. I got to make new friends that would laugh at my accent and ask nonsense questions about what we have in Brazil and not. I got to find new hobbies and find out that the bears are not cool at all. Packers. And I even got to learn how to walk again. Do you know how hard it is to walk in Sheboygan when the streets are covered with ice? It's really hard. But I found out that there is no problem if you fall and break your thumb and pop your ankle and fracture your eye because there will always be someone there to lift you up and put you back on track. So I just want to thank you, all those who gave me a little hand, a word of encouragement, even without knowing it. I want to thank the Christian High School for helping me to find a way. And all teachers and school clerk that helped me along the year, especially Mr. Decker and Mr. Gash, that put up with me in more than one class and showed me another side of the US. I want to thank you, the AFS group that guided me and helped me to make the most out of this exchange program, especially Sandy and Sharon. And their families that provided me great moments here. Thank you very much. And I also want to thank my soccer coach, Dr. Philips, and my Jiu-Jitsu master, Jeff, who gave a pinche of Brazil to my year. And finally, my family. I don't even know how to start. They are responsible for the greatest changes that happened during this year. Without them, I would not be able to get through all those depressive winter mornings. I would not realize how big an American heart could be. I would not break so many stereotypes and think that the world is much bigger than just Brazil. I would never have thought that we could get along so well as we did to really feel at home so far away from my tiny little town. I want to thank them for this wonderful year. My mom, Karen, for her love, help, and great life together. My dad, Carl, for a huge patience, life changing lessons, and more patience. My brothers, Grant, and Garrett, for accepting me so well as part of the family, and for some memories that we never forget. For all the relatives that treated me as part of the family for years. And I also thank to all those I should say here, but I can't mention because of lack of time. So thank you all, guys. Hello, seniors. It is my amazing privilege to stand before you. And many of you I have stood before one way or another for years and years. Some of you from the time you were in twos and threes at our church drew before that. And to see you have grown to this point, to be adults, to be ready to face this world, to be ready to be launched, whether we're ready to launch you or not, is an incredible privilege. So I truly thank God for the opportunity. You will hear many of your classmates and others who have people address them over the course of the next days and weeks at this graduation season who say things like, it's time to be independent. It's time to grow up. It's time to set your heart on dreams. As you have dreams in your heart, you can accomplish anything that you put your heart and mind to. YOLO, be young and have fun. All of those messages to high school graduates have a place and a time. All of them struggle because they mingle in error with truth.  It's just not true. I don't think any one of you is going to be a professional baseball player. I don't think any one of you is, and we can make a list of things that maybe none of you will be able to do. Francis, I love you. If you set your heart to play the NBA, it's just not going to happen, my friend. You can't do anything you want to do. And I do not want you to leave this place and tell yourself, whatever I want to do with my life can happen if I just believe in it enough and if I just try hard enough. It's not true. But as we have heard the Bible open to us and we've heard your life first, we can hear what is true and we can hear what is possible as you seniors, you graduates, give your life over to Christ. The verse that was read for us, by the way, we could just probably listen to what Andy said. And I could just cut these short and we could just move on. But I'm going to go ahead and take a few more minutes, if you don't mind. The senior class verse, commit to the Lord whatever you do. Your plans will succeed. In the heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. The first part of that in Proverbs chapter 16 says that commit to the Lord whatever you do. Graduates, commit to the Lord. It carries with it a lot of weight. This concept is to relinquish control of your life, to render to the Lord, to relinquish everything, to entrust yourself to him. If you're not careful, you could read these words and you could make yourself believe that if you just pray a prayer, that is, say out loud in your bedroom tonight, Lord, you have full control of my life, right? And then you walk away and live how you want to live.  That's not what this passage says. Lord doesn't owe me anything, and he doesn't owe you anything either. But here is what it does say, to relinquish control of your life is success. To give up your way, your desire, your dream. And when your dream becomes God's dream for your life, that's success. That's what we want for you. Listen, across this nation, people will graduate and people will pursue academics, pursue your academics as far as the Lord leads you. Go do it, all right? We want to see amazing, amazing results through your academic achievements. But guys, there are some things that you cannot commit to the Lord. Did you know that? Some things you cannot commit to the Lord. If you have rebellion in your heart and you hear the voice of the Lord telling you to follow after him and you refuse, you can't commit that to the Lord. That's not interesting, your life to the Lord. That's saying, I relinquish control of my life, but I'm going to do what I want to do. And families, as we sit here surrounding these amazing graduates, we are here to announce to them that relinquishing control of our life was the best thing that we've ever done. Here's another thing, though. You can't commit to the Lord. Disobedience. Samson found that out. He talked about following the Lord. He said the words about following the Lord. But you know what he did?  He didn't commit his way to the Lord.   This verse says how you're going to get there. Commit to the Lord whatever you do. That is relinquish control of your life and give your heart to him. Let him order your steps day by day. Now I have heard said that it's boring to be a Christian. It's boring to follow the Lord all the way like that. These places of advice is be young and have fun. These are your college years to do with what you want. Graduates, I have heard it say, look, this is my time. This is my time to experience all of those things. To experience YOLO. YOLO just means for all of us who don't know, you only live once. I think you probably all over tracking with that. But this concept of go grab the gusto because life only comes once, do what pleases you. Say you want to follow the Lord because you came from a Christian school. But do what you want to do. It is not boring to follow the Lord. It is not boring to relinquish control of your life fully to him. He does not have boring plans for your life. God's dreams for you are bigger than any dreams or any desires that you have for yourself. God's dreams for you are more fulfilling than chasing any of the dreams that you have for yourself. God's dreams for you are more exciting than any of the hopes, the adrenaline that this world has to offer. God's dreams, if you will, for your life are more soul satisfying than any dreams that you can have about the way you think your life should turn out. His dreams include amazing steps of faith. His dreams are better than medical careers, although maybe a medical career is in your future. His dreams are better than cars and paid off mortgages, though maybe that's in your future, we hope so. His dreams are better than that. God's plan for your life has to do with changing this world as you relinquish control. Guys, in the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve the perfect environment to live in, and we messed it up, and we have inherited that rebellion. We walk away from God every chance we get. God's dream for your life is to restore the relationship so that you can walk for a vapor, just a vapor with him.  What is your success? What is your definition of success in your life?  Alex Ables, he's first alphabetically, and I got her a response. So success is salvation. Everything else is just God's graciousness manifested. Nathaniel Cooper, success is when I accomplish what the Lord has called me to do. I'll just pick out one more. Emma Markham. My personal great life goal is to use my God-given talents to glorify him and touch other people with my gifts. I love connecting with others, and I hope to use my future career as a pathway into others' lives in a positive and memorable way. I could go on and on. You have definitions of success, and that's great. Proverbs definition of success is restoring a relationship with God and then walking in that relationship for life. Listen, guys, if statistics bear it out, you're gonna change careers four or five times. You're gonna change majors two or three times. That's what statistics say. I celebrate where you're at. I celebrate what you're gonna do going on to the next step, and I hope that many of you are on the path that is the path that you wind up realizing. That is that you're studying right now what you're gonna study for life. That'd be great if that's the case. But if those dreams change and if those things change, God has a better and a bigger and a more beautiful plan as you entrust your future to him. Here's the greatest plan. Think about it, Garden of Eden. What is God's plan for Adam and Eve? He says, listen, I bring the man, I bring the woman to the man. I want you to oversee this created world I made, and I want you to be fruitful and multiply. That's a great dream. It is a great dream. I stand here before high school graduates, boys and girls, and telling you if your great dream should be that when you get to the end of your life, you're surrounded by a group of people that you have pledged your life to, that you have raised children and you've been faithful to one person for life because that is God's intention. I don't know all of God's will for you, class of 2013, but this I do know, God's will is for your sanctification. That is that if we could write in one sentence, what is success in your life, it is you becoming more like Jesus every day of your life from this day until the day you go to be with him. That would be success. And some of you will be painters, and some of you will be singers, and some of you will be biomedical engineers. I've got to look that up. Some of you will have those careers you set out there, and that's great, but God cares a lot less about your career than he does about your character. Christian High, we want to send academics out. We want to send smart people out. We want to send passionate people out.  As you commit your life to the Lord, we're going to close in just a moment. The Lord determines your steps and he's touched on this. We've got a dream and we're setting out with the Lord and we want to obey him and please him, and the Lord sends amazing hiccups in our way that we never planned for. Life struggles that are hard and that we didn't see coming, and we told ourselves, if I commit myself to the Lord, he will make me successful, and my definition of success, and we've got it written out about money and health and happiness and comfort. Daniel set out to follow the Lord and he set out to follow the Lord within the context of his family and his friends, and the Lord brought trouble.  You're about to go away from your families, many of you, whether to the workforce or to the military or to college. And by force, Daniel was removed from his home guys in Daniel chapter one, and he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself as he went away. Here's some things that are true about Daniel. His big group of friends became very small, very fast.   It's all for you, you are the best and the brightest, and guys, you are the best and the brightest. Daniel purposed in his heart, he was not gonna defile himself, and his friend group got small, and his Friday nights got very, very lonely. In fact, he was all by himself, and he purposed in his heart, and he was gonna follow God. God brought a friend, three friends, who would stand with him. And God's dreams for Daniel was not that he would have fun and connect with the Nebuchadnezzar guys and the Chaldeans and the folks around. No, it was not about that. God's dream for Daniel's life was that he would go into this foreign land and stand up for his name, and the name of God was announced around the globe because Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. That's success. His career plans changed. His family relationships that he thought would always be intact, and he thought he would always have these happy little dreams, and he thought it would always be cool, changed. His thoughts about what success is changed, but the big picture never changed. He purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself, and God used his life from that day to this day to inspire you and to inspire me. Guys, as we are about to watch you walk across the stage and enjoy this graduation, and watching you and celebrating with you, I know it's been a long time. I apologize for that. We are with you. We are proud of you. We do not want you to be torn from our arms and brought to a foreign place and forced to serve foreign gods, and if that happened somehow, some way, we would want you to devote yourself to the Lord. Follow him one step at a time, even if your Friday nights get lonely, and even if your friend group gets tiny, and even if there's only one or two other people that will serve the Lord with you, we bless you. You have blessed us in amazing ways if we watch you grow up.   We love you. Go with God. Board President Black, would you join me up here to handle some diplomas? Alexandria Lee Abel. Jennifer Mary Anderson. Patrick Royal Bolden. Benjamin Jacob Broxma. Nathaniel Zena Cooper. Samantha Ann. Ethan Brock Demaster. Jared John Vanderwill Denning. Steven Domus. Caitlin Rachelle Flipsy. Andrew Jackson McDonald. Emma Kate Markham. Olivia Yannette Mark. Joshua Levi Moebrick. Lobo Alcantara-Navet. Cassandra Joy Ringel. Deanna Lynn Rokouskis. Cherith Brooke Tau. Richard J. Wolvert. Frances Marie Windsor. Father, some are going to counterforce the service to our country. Others will be headed back to the respective countries to do the same. Whatever they're calling, Father, help them to realize that it is ever through prayer and your guidance along the way. Father, bless them and keep them in your care. Parents that choose to send their children to Christian High. Father, sinners and as parents, we realize that our children need to have a view of the world that is biblical in all things. That our children need to see your glory. And not just what we learn in church, but in science, math, literature, all studies, and yes, Father, even art. Father, we thank you for the staff. They truly are unbelievable. Thank you for their faith, their leadership, and their patience. Continue to bless them, Father, and work in their, and in their lives. And last, Father, we ask you to be with, again, with Schwoed and County Christian High School, continue to bless the school and bless everything about it. Father, we ask you to be with those that are moving away from us, be with the novice family, and the Walshers as they serve a new chapter in their life. Father, continue to bless them as well. And it's in your son's precious name, right? Amen.