Shalom and praise the Lord, everyone. Thank you for joining class. Esther, Daniel, Nedel, Jennifer, Sam, Daniel and Sanjay. Thank you for joining class. We'll begin class. Also, thank you for thanks to all the in-person students for being part of this course. For your enthusiasm, it's good to look at faces and teach rather than just an empty screen. And also welcome to our e-learning students who will be listening to this lecture later on. We'll begin with the word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this morning, O Lord. And thank you for all that you gave us alive and for your love, your mercy, O Lord. How we are going to study, O Lord, teachers, your leaders, you guide us, O Lord. Help us to understand. We wish for knowledge and understanding so that we can understand and we can apply this in our life, O Lord. You help us, O Lord. You help us, O Lord. You help us, O Lord, so that we can teach us and we can grab that word, O Lord. Thank you, O Lord, that you are going to help us, O Lord. And ask this prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Good morning, Lucy. Welcome to class. Thank you, others, for joining class. Welcome, all of you. Last week, we began looking at chapter 8. We began studying chapter 8 fellowship. And we looked at this whole idea of how we are actually kingdom builders. Right. Thank you. We are kingdom builders. And what do we mean when we say kingdom builders? All of us are kingdom builders. What do we mean? Can you pass the mic so that people can answer? In-person students can also answer. What do we mean when we say that we are kingdom builders? Any answers? We studied this last week. What is our understanding of this word kingdom builders? In-person students, online students, what are the answers? Come on, can you have some answers? What do we mean when we say we are kingdom builders? Okay, we are doing everything according to God's will. Okay, mistake the mic and speak so that our online students can hear. What do we mean when we say kingdom builders? We studied this last week. We are a co-worker with God and we are helping to build the kingdom of God. Okay, we are co-workers. We co-work partner with others to build God's kingdom. Okay, yes, we are co-workers with God. What else? What comes to your mind when you think about kingdom building? Kingdom building is not just building our own visions, what God has called us to. But it is also how we can build what God has given and trusted to us, our vision, the calling that is placed in our life and how we can partner with others in extending God's kingdom through the vision that he has given to us. Okay, it's not about promoting my name. It's not about promoting my church. It's not about my rule, my dominion, but it's about God's rule dominion and it is about his kingdom. Okay, so sometimes when God entrusts to us a church or a ministry, we think that, you know, it's like our business. You know, we guard it, we protect it and we are only doing that. That's important. But it's also important that we use what God has entrusted to us to see how we can partner with others, partner with the local church or other local churches and how we can transform the city, how we can extend God's kingdom in the city and in the nation. Okay, Sanjay says it's strengthening the body of Christ. Yes. Also, what is kingdom building? Kingdom building is looking beyond our vision, our church and ministry and how we can use what God has given to us to bless others. Right? How we can use what God has given to us, the vision, the gifts, the resources. How we can use that to strengthen and build others and extend God's rule and reign in the lives of people. Also, kingdom building is co-working with others, partnering with others. Okay. And when we partner with others, what should be our mindset? What should be your mindset, kingdom mindset? Can we have some answers? What should be your kingdom mindset when you partner with others? Online students, any answers? Yes, it should be about, thank you Sanjay. It should be about us and not just I and me. It's not about what I will get, what I will receive, how my ministry can be strengthened, how my ministry can grow, what is the benefits for me. But it is how I can be a blessing to others, how I can be strengthened myself and how I can strengthen others, how I can encourage and build others. Okay. So that should be our mindset when we do ministry or even when God is interested, his own vision or his own calling in our lives, a ministry that he is given to us, we need to always see that in a bigger framework. What is a bigger framework? What is a bigger framework that we need to work in? How do we work in a bigger framework? How do we look at it? Good morning, everyone. Please wakey-wakey. Can we have some answers? So when God gives us a vision, God gives us our own ministry, we need to look at it in a bigger framework. So what is a bigger framework? What is a bigger framework? How we can use what God has given to me to build his kingdom, to extend his kingdom. That's why Jesus said, you know, thy kingdom come that will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Okay. Sorry. Okay. So John blesses his kingdom building looks beyond his own individual vision. Yes.  Okay. So even as we are thinking about kingdom building, we look at what are some of the important things to keep in mind. Okay. Now, if you are building your own ministry, then your view is very, very narrow. It's about I me my self, but we're not looking about how we can just, you know, build our own visions, our own calling, but how we can build, use what God has entrusted to us to build God's kingdom here on earth. Okay. So we look at a few important things. What are some of the things that we need to keep in mind even as we go about kingdom building? Like he said, we need to co-work or co-partner with others. Right. So we need to relate to other men and women of God. Okay. Other women of God in our own city. Why is it important to relate with other women and women of God in our city? Because all of us are doing the same work. What is the same work? We are building the kingdom of God. Yes. What else? We're sharing your vision. We're sharing your vision with others. Okay. Why is it important to relate with other men and women in the ministry so that we can complement each other? We can help each other. We can share our resources. We can share our gifts. Are online students there? No answers today. What's happened? Can we have some answers from the online students as well? Please unmute your mics and speak. It will be nice to hear your voices. And in-person students, please take the mic and speak. Can we have some ideas and some, you know, answers here? Okay. We also need to build friendships and relationships. Okay. How do, why is it important for us to build relationships and friendships with other ministers in our city, with other men and women of God? Can you take the mic please and speak, Moses? Because we can clear misunderstandings and we can heal broken relationships. Yes. We can clear the misunderstandings that are there between leaders. We can heal broken relationships. Okay. When you relate with other men and women in the ministry, usually when pastors and other ministers, other leaders of Christian organizations, when they relate with each other, how do they relate? What is their level of relationship? Or what are they basically talking about? Only their ministry. Yes. Yes. They're only talking about their ministry, right? But is there only something that we need to talk about? How is your ministry? How is everything going? What you should do? What you shouldn't do? What else should we, how else should we relate to each other? They should relate in unity. Sorry, get rude. They should relate with each other in unity, in oneness. Yes. They should relate in unity and in oneness. Okay. Yeah, you were telling something. Sorry to interrupt you. No, no, please say it. I can speak. What you were saying is very important. Yes. It's like when most of the time when two pastors are all observant of Christ, most of the time they discuss about their ministry. But a minister of God in his personal life also, like too much struggle is there, too many things are there. So most of them. And we did not discuss it. If two persons are meeting, if they discuss it, each one can pray for each other, for their ministry, what is happening in their personal life. So like everything will go. Yes, it's important for us to share our lives, share our successes, share our problems, share our difficulties. They might have gone through what we are going through. They can share their experiences, their learning experience. They can give us tips. They can encourage us. Like Lucy says, they can encourage us. We can talk about our goals. You know, sometimes we have a vision and a calling that God has given. We don't know how to go about it. We can go to other men and women of God who are already established themselves in the ministry. We can discuss with them. We can learn from their lives. They will tell us, hey, you can go about doing it like this. Avoid these things. Don't do these things. So when we hear and learn from them, you know, it actually encourages us as like Lucy says, you know, we also compliment each other and we encourage each other. We can learn and you know, it will save so much of our time and energy, it will save so much of us going in the wrong part, in the wrong direction because they've already gone. We can learn from their lives. You can also share your experience. Hey, I went through this. This is exactly what I did. This is how God helped me. So it's good to relate with each other. It's good to build bonds and relationships. Sanjay says, a collective goal or vision as members of the body of Christ to serve in the great commission. Yes, you know, we are all having one purpose that is to extend and build God's kingdom and how we can encourage strength, share our resources, what we can do, what we shouldn't do, all is very, very important. So, you know, we can also pray for each other. Like he said, you know, we can have other men and women of God in the, leaders, ministers in the city, leading organizations, they can pray for us. What happens when there is unity and oneness among leaders of various Christian organizations and pastors in a city? What happens? What happens when there's unity in relationship between pastors in various churches in the city and also among Christian organizations? Sorry, Sonia. Yeah, there's strength. This built up and there's unity, which is very important for Christians to be united, even though there are slight differences in doctrine. Yes, very true. Yes, there is strength. There is unity that was there and all. Sorry, Lucy. Yes, go ahead. We are unshakable. Yes, we are unshakable against the enemy. The kingdom of God grows in a faster way. Yes, and we will also see a greater release of God's power and anointing. Do we have an example of this in the Bible? Example of how people were united in one and what was the result? Do we have an example of this in the Bible? Sister at the Pentecost. Yes, at the Pentecost. Also, together there was a strong power of God release. There was anointing, there were different tongues were released to the people and so many miracles took place. Yes, thank you. Yes. Okay, when an in-person student saying when Peter was in prison and all the people gathered and they were praying together, you know, the angel of God comes and releases them out of prison. The great example is about the early church, right? The early church, they were all one. They were even selling all their property, everything coming, giving it to the church. There was unity and oneness and that is why we see great science miracles and wonders and people think, why isn't there such move of God in our city or in our present day situation? And they think it all happened, was only meant for the early church and not for our time and age, but it's not true. Why is it not happening today? Because there's no unity. There's no unity among the leaders and churches. Just imagine if all the churches come together, the power and the anointing of God will just flow in such a powerful way that, you know, even our city can be transformed. It is reality, you know. We've seen when people in our city have prayed, there has been changed.  There wasn't a city like this. There was so much of alcoholism there. Crime was so high. Christians in that city prayed and there was a change and it was amazing because the crime had stopped. There were no people who were addicted to alcohol and the shops even closed.  So that is what is important for us, you know, to come together and build unity and oneness. Is it possible for us with all our different denominations, doctrines, the way and style of worship? Is it easy for us to come together and worship God? In unity and oneness? What do you all think? Give it to Nelson. Mike, quickly you have to pass the mic. Yes. So my question is, there are so many different denominations. There are so many different, you know, doctrines, styles of worship. Is it easy in spite of all these denominations for us to come together in a city? All the local churches coming together? Yes, and we can. Why Nelson? Why do you say yes? Because we all are born again Christians. We all are with the Holy Spirit. So that case. We are all born again Christians. Okay. Any other answers? Sorry. Yeah. Some churches, they don't believe in the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Science gives in miracles. Okay. But in respect of all that, how can we still come together? Lucy says we are all members of Christ. Yes. Who is our head? Not doctrines, right? It's Jesus. We have one head, right? We have God, Christ, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. Who is the head? Right? We have one Holy Spirit. How many Bibles? I mean, different versions of the Bible, but how many? We have just one Bible, right? And we have, these are all common denominators, right? Just only one cross, only one full sufficient, perfect sacrifice that was made on the cross and that was done by Jesus. We are all saved by the same blood. Whose blood? The blood of Jesus. Okay. And all of these are common factors. We have the same foundation. Our foundation is we come together on the foundation of faith and not on doctrines. Our faith is we believe in one God, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe in one Holy Spirit. We believe in one cross. We are all saved by the same blood of Jesus. We have the same Bible. All these are common, basic factors that are of our faith. And so it is, we can come together irrespective of our various doctrines, our various styles of worship. Okay. So we belong and we are all part of one body. We're all members of Christ. Okay. We have one head. We're all part of the same body. We're just different parts of the same body, but we belong to one body. Yes, it is possible for us to come and meet on these common grounds and see how we can work together. Okay. So when we come together, we need to learn from other ministers. Okay. Men and women of God build fellowships, build strong relationships. You know, the word of God says, you know, like iron sharpens iron one man sharpens the countenance of another man. So, you know, when we come together, fellowship, we can learn from each other, we can grow. Okay. And we've, we've stated all the reasons why it is important for us to relate with other men and women of God. Okay. For us as ministers, sometimes, you know, it's, it's very difficult as leaders and ministers for us to follow someone else. Yes or no. Yes, because everybody's following us. We find it very difficult sometimes to follow others. Okay. And great leaders sometimes can be very poor followers. Okay. Why do you think they become poor followers? Why do you think leaders can become poor followers? They don't want to follow others. Why? There's a reasons. Come on. Okay. Pride. Yes. The eye concept Lucy was saying it's all about I me myself. I know people should follow me. I shouldn't be following others. Okay. What else? We're unwilling to cooperate with each other. Okay. Sometimes it can be arrogance. Okay. The true sign of greatness does not just lie in our ability to lead, but also to follow others. What happens when we also follow others as leaders? Yes, you can learn from them. Kofi says they think they know it all. Yes. Sometimes we think we know it all. We don't need to follow others. We are great. We have so many years of experience. We can be teaching us. Okay. And we notice this especially, you know, when we have crusades and meetings where other pastors and other leaders come to that crusading meeting. And how is the reaction of some of these leaders who don't want to follow others? What are their attitudes? Pride and jealousy. What is that attitude? What is their action, their reaction? They neglect them. If they don't give them the stage of seat of honor, they get angry and leave. Okay. If they don't get the front seat, what happens? They get very, very upset and angry. Okay. And they're not recognized. They're not welcomed.  Or if they, you know, when they're called up on the stage, they won't go. We've seen some of these attitudes and all of this is because, hey, you did not recognize me. Okay. So when you did not recognize me, I'm not going to follow your instructions. Okay. So it's important for us to also as leaders learn to follow others. Sanjay says, we need a bit of humility. We need to respect, appreciate one another. Yes. We need to appreciate and respect one another. I don't think we need a bit of humility. We all have a little bit of humility. I think we need loads of humility for us to overcome this because it is, you know, sometimes very, very difficult. Okay. What happens when leaders are not recognized for who they are? When you don't get introduced them by the full name and you don't say a reverend doctor so-and-so, you know, or right reverend so-and-so, you know, or you don't mention all their degrees or you don't acknowledge they are in the crowd. What happens? They get upset. They get angry. Right. They don't want to do anything. They'll just walk out of the meeting. Even if you call them on stage, they won't come. If you, if they have to speak, they'll use that time to get back and talk about humility and all of those things. Okay. So what should be our, what should be our mindset when we go to places where we are not recognized or when we are just common among other believers? What should be our attitude? Huh? We should be humble. You should be humble. How do you humble yourself at that time? How do you humble yourself at that time? Sorry for the background noise. We must understand that. We are same for God. We are? Same for God. We are all equal before God. We're all same before God. Yes. Can give him the mic. He also wants to answer. Any more answers? Not to be served to serve others, ma'am. Yeah. Not to be proud, but to serve others just like Jesus. He came not to be served, but to serve. Yes. We have to be common. We have to be common. Okay. Just be like other people. Okay. What should be our mindset at that time? Not to think of others as lesser, but to think of others as greater than us. Okay. Not to think of ourselves as lesser, but others greater than us. Okay. Yes. We should know why we are gathered here. Not to, they're not here to worship me to worship, but to worship God. He gets all the reverence, glory and honor. Right. Okay. And also another important thing for us to know is our identity. Who we are in Christ. In Christ, when we all stand before God, we're all standing on the same level. Right. Before God. And also it is important for us to know that we are standing alongside with Jesus. Who are we? What have we done? But God has given us that position that we stand beside Jesus. The same level we stand beside Jesus. So all of these things should not really matter for us. The greater picture we need to see. Always look at the greater picture. Greater picture is God has made us to stand on the same level as Jesus. We are loved the same way as Jesus is loved. Okay. And that is who we are and that should become our identity. Okay. Even when we are ministering with others in fellowship, we need to respect other people's gifts anointing in the ministry. Okay. Some churches, you know, they can be very loud in their way of worship. They can be very dramatic. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Amen. People jumping, people screaming, people clapping. And some of us come from, you know, church services where we are very quiet, not even clapping. I come from a denomination where we can clap while we sing worship songs. But when somebody does something, we clap and look at us, you know, a very quiet form of worship. Nobody says, Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Amen. Nobody will lift their hands up and all that. I come from a denomination where it is a very, you know, sober kind of worship. Okay. Even you come from that. Okay. Some of us come from that. Okay. We need to, yes, things, stereotypes are breaking now.  But, you know, we need to understand and look at the fruit. Okay. Don't judge people on, you know, their styles of worship and think that, oh, they're more powerful because all of them are jumping, screaming. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And the hands are this one and they're shivering and all of those things. And there's a lot of noise. And you go to another congregation where there's very quiet worship. Nobody's saying Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Nobody's lifting up their hands. It doesn't mean that they are not spiritual. Okay. I come from the church where the word of God is strongly preached. Many men and women have been raised up into full-time ministry. I am also one of them from that church. And I've grown spiritually and, you know, in the church where I grew up and I thank God for the church. Okay. But don't, you know, put those denominations in boxes and think they're not spiritual enough. We need to respect others gives anointing in the ministry. Okay. Sanjay says the enemy was insecure with which breed arrogance. Unlike Christ who knew his place in position yet never made a public show of it. Yes. Christ knew who he was, what he had come to do. He did not look for power in position because he already knew who he was. His identity was so sure in who he was. He was so grounded in his love for, in the love of the Father. His intimacy with the Father. And so he knew why he came and he did what he had come to do. Okay. The next thing is don't judge another man's servant. Okay. Let's read Matthew chapter seven versus one to five, John seven, 24. And yeah. And two of you will read that please. Matthew seven, one to five and John seven, 24. Matthew seven, one to five. Judge noted that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? But do not consider the plank in your own eye. Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look. Plank is in your own eye. If you first remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers. Amen. John seven, 24 and Romans 14, 4, 10 and 12. John chapter seven, 24. Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. Who are you to judge another servant? To his own master he stands for false. Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. But why do you judge your brother? Why do you show contempt to your brother? But we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ for it is written. As I leave you, says the law. Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So that each of us shall give account of himself to God. Amen. Thank you. So here we are asked not to judge. Okay. Condemn or criticize other women and men of God who are in the ministry. Okay. When we see them doing something wrong, should we judge them, condemn them and criticize them? No. Why shouldn't we do that? They're not supposed to judge others. Also, why should we not judge them? Who's the judge? God is the judge. They are accountable to God. So what should be our attitude? Or our reaction when we see a man or woman of God or a leader doing something wrong? What should be our attitude? Or what should be our reaction? Sorry. Treat them well. Treat them with respect. Okay. Yeah. See them and respect them as anointed men and women of God. Okay. Who are placed by God in leadership. And what did you say Nelson? Learn from their mistakes. Learn from their mistakes instead of judging and criticizing them because we can also fall in that same area. Okay. And then what else can we do? When we are asked whether they're doing right or wrong, what should we do? Should we avoid answering? Lucy says, speak to them. Yes. When we ask whether they're doing something right or wrong, what should we do? Should we avoid it? We should say, I don't know. Come on. Give me some answers. We should say, yes, what we think what they're doing is wrong. Acknowledge, but then also speak in grace and mercy with the goodness of God. Like Paul says in Romans, the goodness of God leads people to repentance. Even when you, like Kofi says, even when you confront them, confront them in love. Okay. Ephesians says, speaking the truth in love. Okay. So why should we do it in love when the goodness of God is that the person can repent. Okay. Sometimes we think even when ministers have, yeah, we need to respect anointing that is on their lives. Yes. I'll give you an example in the Bible of somebody who respected others anointing. David. Yes. David, you know, respected souls anointing. Okay. And a good lesson to learn from David. Okay. So we see that, you know, sometimes we wonder why God uses a minister, even though they are in sin, why do you think God still uses them? Even though they have their own weaknesses, sin or weaknesses, right? Why does God still use them? Grace. Okay. Lucy says, because of the grace of God, the same very reason that God is still using me. The same very reason that God is still using you. We are not perfect, but God still uses us and it is His grace. Okay. So when we look at the faults of other ministers, should we gossip about it? No. What should we do? We should talk about the good things about them. Okay. Be quiet about their failures. Okay. When we use their lives as an example, don't mention their names. Okay. Suppose you're talking about a minister, you're giving an example. You know, a man or woman of God has done such thing, has fallen into sin. You want to give that as an example. Don't use their names. Don't give the details, but just mention. Okay. But also you can still help them, pray for them. Okay. Help them to come back to restoration. Okay. At the same time we need to, when we do this, we need to preserve our friendship and the well-being of the person and not gossip about that person. Okay. And restore them back to, you know, take the steps, take the initiative to restore them, pray for them. Okay. Sanjay also says pray for them. Yes. You know, and help them to get back on their feet. It's important that, you know, we help each other. What happens when we help other fellow ministers who have fallen in sin, who are going in the wrong? What happens when we help them? Instead of laughing at them, criticizing them, mocking them, you know, gossiping about them, what happens if we take the time and initiative to restore them? What happens? They can come back and minister. What else? They're actually saving the body of Christ, right? We are also saving the body of Christ from bad name, from being defamed, from people pointing mistakes, a word pointing fingers at the church, making us as a laughing stock and also protecting the sheep. You know, they are looking after sheep. So we need to also consider the sheep. Imagine if the shepherd falls away, what happens to sheep? Sheep are really broken. They're very sad and they can be led astray. Okay. So instead of gossiping, making fun, pray about it, get other men and women of God together so that you can restore them. Okay. And an important thing is even as we fellowship with each other in the body of Christ, it is important that we don't do things that will bring about strife and disunity and quarrel. Okay. Look at what proverb chapter six verse 16 says, very, very powerful says these six things the Lord hates. Yes. And seven are an abomination to him. And what is that? One of them is a person who devices wicked plans and also a false witness, somebody who speaks lies and one who shows discord among brothers. So if you're somebody who is bringing showing discord, that means you are gossiping, talking bad about one person to another. You are trying to bring about disunity in the body of Christ, whether it's in a ministry in the church, in your, your part of a team in the church is serving the church. And you're trying to bring about discord.  God hates it. And it's an abomination to him in something that is very detestable. God cannot stand it. And can you imagine how much we are going against God? Okay. You don't so discord among brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, even in the family, even in your workplace, that is something that God hates and is an abomination to him. So what should we do when there is a discord? When you have an issue with another brother, what should you do? Talk about it with others. Gossip about it with others. Tell how bad they are. How unfit they are. What should you do? Come on, what should we do? Can we have some solvents speaking to them? Thank you, Lucy. What else? Resolve the matter with them. Okay. What else? If they're not listening, what should you do? Reconcile with them. Yes, if they're not listening, what should you do? Get other people involved so that others can speak to them. Okay. And another important to keep in mind is when you are gossiping about others, who is also listening to us? Huh? God. Okay. Paul tells, I think Paul tells Titus or Timothy, you know, be very careful because Paul is writing to Timothy. He's saying be very careful how you speak about others because Jesus, the Lord Jesus and the angels are listening to your conversation. Okay. The Lord Jesus and the angels are your witnesses to what you are speaking. So I think it is very, very important for us what we are speaking, what we are talking about others behind that, because God himself is listening to us and the angels are also listening to us. He's a silent listener to every conversation. Okay. So as people in the body of Christ is important for us to fellowship with others, build strong relationship, you know, commune with others, sharing our lives with each other so that we can bring about transformation. Okay. Now, God is not interested in or impressed by the size of your ministry. How many places you preach? How many books you've written? What is your repetition? Your achievements? You know, what is a fan following you have? How many likes you have on YouTube for your messages? You know, how many followers you have? All that is not what is going to impress God. Okay. All of these are important. He's also not impressed by your titles, your degrees, all the, you know, appreciation that you receive from men and women. Nothing is going to impress God. But what is going to really impress him is whether what is going to impress the heart of God? What is going to impress the heart of God? Sorry. What is going to really please the heart of God? It's not all of these things which I mentioned, but what is really going to please the heart of God? Come on. What is going to please the heart of God? For being him. Thank you, Nelson. What else? Humility, faithful, enduring, righteous, faithful. What else? Doing the will of God and above all, unity. You know, in the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, Jesus prayed, Father, let them be one as we are one. He didn't say, Father, let them flow in the power that we have. Father, let them be mighty like we are mighty. Let them be all powerful like we are all powerful. But what does he say?  Okay. So that is very, very important. So please keep this in mind. Unity is very, very important in the body of Christ. And they're all earthen vessels. Okay. And his grace and his anointing will flow through our lives when we are in one mind in unity and when our mindset is God, I want to build your kingdom. I want to obey you. I want to do your will. I want to let down my pride and willing to forgive that brother or sister, and work with them. I'm willing to partner with them to see your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Okay. So keep this in mind always. Unity is very, very important when you try to maintain unity in your team, the power of God will flow and God can do great and mighty things with you.  Okay. Any questions on this chapter? No. Okay. In-person students, any questions? Online students, any questions? Okay. There are no questions. We'll move on to chapter nine. Money. Okay. Is money an important part of Christian ministry? Yes. Oh, that's a loud answer. Okay. Why is money important in Christian ministry? Okay. Why is money important in Christian ministry? We thought money you can't do anything. Okay. We can help other churches to build. We can help other churches. Will you really help other churches? Yes, ma'am. That's a big question. When you get all the money, what happens? Pride. Pride? What happens when you have pride? When you have your own church, you have your own building, your own building, everything is set in your church and you're getting more money. What happens? Lucy says greed.  Come on. Honestly, tell me. What will you think? I will think, let's build another floor so that we can have children's church there, another floor to have youth ministry there. Parking lot based that, right? I can use this money to put a good LED screen to enhance my church. There's a lot of noise coming from outside. Let's make it fully AC. So we can think of all this. We can hardly think of, hey, let me give this money to other people. Okay. So what should be our focus? Sometimes it can get to greed. Mr. Getrud says to build the kingdom of God. Yes. We need to use our money to even build the kingdom of God. I like what APC does. We don't have our own church. We don't have our own property, our own land. But we invest into other churches. We give them to enhance a church. They build a church to buy property. I think it's so wonderful because Pastor's mindset is to build the kingdom of God, not just to build APC. Okay. Now, so our focus should be on the Lord and his call and take our attention of money. Okay. Now Paul tells Timothy the love of money is the root of all evil. Okay. The love for money is the root of all evil. Okay. How do you know that you have love for money? How do you know that you have love for money? And you're always thinking about money. Yes. Well, how else you think that? How else you know you have love for money? As a minister of God. Hey, if I go there and preaching that church, they'll give me good offering.  So I'll tell them I'm busy. I can't come. But I can't miss this big church. You know, big offering will come. Let me go and preach. Okay. We'll stop here. Deepu says, you know, Sanjay says you trust in money more than trusting in God. Get to says when you are holding money. Yes. Keeping the money for yourself. Deepu says ready to do anything for money. Yes. That's so true. We're ready to do anything for money that can be very, very dangerous. That's one way we know that we have love for money or we're holding back money is another way. And when we trust in money, then trusting in God. Okay. We'll take a break now. We'll come back and we'll talk about money. Thank you.


Hello, friends.  We see those numbers. And today we are recording on YouTube. So be aware. Please stay muted. And we'll get started here in just a moment, right when the clock hits 11. Good morning, everyone. So nice to see you all. Welcome, all right. Let's jump in and get started. Thank you all for joining us. And just a reminder to all stay muted. We are on format, which means we can see you and we can hear you and we love that. But our cameras do not love to hear you all the time. So please stay muted. All right. Let's jump in. And my slide keeps going forward. We are here for the recording and progress. Okay. Everyone, please stay muted. Robert muted. Alan, you got those mutes for me? I'm clicking them. All right. Hi, friends. Welcome.  So let's go forward and with some library announcements and then we'll turn it over for today's event. This is part of our big summer stride. And summer stride is not just for kids. It's for all ages.  We want to welcome you here to the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people. I acknowledge the many Romutish Ohlone Tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands in which we live here in our Bay Area. Our library is committed to uplifting the names of these nations with whom we live together and encourage you to learn more about first person culture and land rights. I will be sharing in the chat box a link to today's event with, it's a big document that will have all of the library information, a reading list about Ohlone and first person culture, as well as links to Shanta and anything that comes up. I'll try and keep up as she goes along and we'll have all of those resources in one spot for you. Some quick library news today at two o'clock. We are celebrating the amazing life and legacy of Janice Mira Katani, our second San Francisco poet laureate and co-founder of Glide Memorial who passed two weeks ago now. The lineup of poet laureates is amazing that will be there so we encourage you to all come out two o'clock today. It's going to be a powerful one. We have some book initiatives at the library. One is Total SF and this is with SF Chronicles, Peter Hartlub and Heather Knight and August 24th. We'll be coming and joining Daniel Handler and Gary Kamaya and pick up the book, The End of the Golden Gate at your local library. A lot of them are going out this week, I've heard so you should be able to get it. We also have an on the same page. This is where we encourage all of San Francisco to read the same book at the same time. It's a bi-monthly read. This July and August we've been reading Jacqueline Woodson read at the Bone and I will also put in the chat Jacqueline Woodson was just in our virtual library on Thursday and she has amazing energy so I encourage you to watch that on YouTube and read the book and come to the book club. Chronicles, Mick LaSalle, film critic. He has not had a book out in 10 years. He'll be joining us August 18th and his book is Dream State, California in the Movies. Tuesday, August 17th. We have Meredith Esalat and she is a teacher talking about parenting and students and teaching. Should be good. And some art. And if you're into SF history, we have SF Neon. Jim Van Busker will talk about Neon in the cinema. And then part of our jail and reentry services department. I don't know if many of you know that we have this department so we serve in our jails and we help folks with reentry. But we have the amazing Rodessa Jones talking about her art and personal transformation and the work she does in women's prisons. All right. That's it. I'm going to pass it on to our amazing Shanta who I know you all know her. She's the co-founder of Outer Avenues Foods and I'm going to stop sharing and turn it right over to Celia and Shanta. Hey everyone. My name is Celia Lobono-Gonzalez and I'm helping facilitate the presentation. A little context is I'm a current worker owner at Outer Avenues Grocery Cooperative and you will learn more about it. And I'm also involved in grassroots food system organizing in San Francisco. Today I have the pleasure of introducing a beloved and foundational member of the San Francisco Food Cooperative Movement, Shanta Nimbark-Sakral. So Shanta grew up in a small village of India and came to upstate New York in the mid-60s for education. She was raised as a vegetarian and was disappointed with American food in college and moved to San Francisco in 1973 where she found fresh food and people interested in sharing culinary tradition and engaged in food and justice issues. This food activism led to a new wave of food cooperative movement in San Francisco Bay Area opening a cooperatively run food source. Shanta was active in this movement since the 70s and later became a worker owner of Other Avenues, a food co-op in the Outer Sunset District where she worked for over 35 years. Shanta is the author of Other Avenues Are Possible, The Legacy of the People's Food System, a book that chronicles the rise and fall of food co-ops. Shanta has written and published three books, Flavors of India, The Ethnic Vegetarian Kitchen, Recipes with Guidelines for Nutrition and Cooking Together, and a vegetarian co-op cookbook. Shanta writes recipes and articles about nutrition and food politics. She gets talks about these topics and offers cooking demonstration in various public places such as the service public library, Shanta teaches vegetarian cooking classes, and does video presentations of some of her recipes which will be viewed on YouTube. And in the Summer Stride program for the main library, Shanta was asked to describe various paths that she bore while building food communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. But since Shanta doesn't wear hats, she loves scarves. You will be seeing her changing a lot of colorful scarves. I hope you enjoy. So Shanta, what motivated you to get into food community work and food cooperatives? Can you give us some background? Thank you Celia. Thanks for being here. I also want to thank the San Francisco Public Library to give us the opportunity to speak about this important era. And among other things, I missed San Francisco's library during the pandemic, just like I missed the bookstores. I don't know how I could have raised my children without the help and the presence of the library. So thank you library. So as is the custom for book reading, I'm just going to read a short passage from my book Other Avenues Are Possible to answer the first question that Celia asked me. So I was born in a small agrarian village in west part of India called Gujarat. And I was raised by a vegetarian Hindu family. In my village, we ate what we grew. It was all seasonal, organic, and local by default. We didn't have any other choice. Sometimes the food wasn't enough, but we shared whatever we had. We were also fortunate that my father was a temple keeper. And local farmers gifted him with new crops, as they were supposed to give them good luck. And my father was allowed to bring this prasad or God's leftover home. But this food also came with a lot of responsibilities. My mother had to cook extra food in no notice at all. And there was a person or person scratching at the temple because of a village had no hotel. She was a phenomenal cook. She tried to teach me how to cook when I was little, but I shied away. I didn't want to learn how to cook. I was some of a tomboy, as you can see in this photo, that I have my brother, my sister, and I am wearing boys' clothes. So I told my mom, I don't want to learn how to cook because I will never get married, so I don't have to learn how to cook. But little did I know that a decade later, I will come to live in a land of plenty where there wouldn't be enough food for vegetarians. So when I came to college, I moved to a dorm to live with a family, and my host family had a vegetable garden. And that is where I met with some other gardener ladies, and we built a small community to cook the vegetables together and better. So what motivated me or us was our need and desire to cook better and share the food. This was my first attempt in participating in how to build community around food sharing. So Dr. Wedding, why did you come to the United States and how did you sustain your vegetarian diet and influence other people to go meatless? I came to the U.S. in mid-60s with my brother. My brother was my mentor. He came to visit us often, and one time when he came, he said, would you like to come to the U.S. with me? I was only 17. I was so excited, and I said, of course, yes. So I moved to New York when I was 17, but I had trouble difficulty adjusting. First of all, I didn't speak enough English, so it was hard to communicate with people. And then there was not enough good vegetarian food. So I moved out of the dorm and lived with the family, and this was a blessing. I not only got to learn how to cook, but also a little bit about vegetarian gardening. And then I met a wonderful vegetarian Indian family that lived near my family, and they also taught me how to cook more vegetarian food. After college, I traveled to Europe and Middle East and India all over, and there I learned different vegetarian food for different land, even like South India was so foreign to me because they cook food differently than us, the North Indians. So where I got into food movement, into vegetarian cooking was actually after coming here. Here, meaning in San Francisco, when I settled here after my travel through half of the world, I thought California would be wonderful because food is always fresh. But what I discovered here also is that people were so passionate about this so-called vegetarian movement. Back home, we didn't know we were vegetarian because we all didn't eat meat, so we didn't call each other anything. But here, people had a reason. People had a reason to be vegetarian, an ethical reason, health reason, and environmental reason. I loved it. I thought this movement was worth joining and worth studying. So I joined this movement with a passion. We also had a great leadership at the time with authors such as Rachel Carson, who wrote Silent Spring, and we had Francis Moore Lape, who wrote That First Small Planet. That was our Bible to learn everything about why to be vegetarian and how world hunger was a myth and not a reality because all we had to do is grow the food properly and share the food properly. Then we had a practical guide of how to cook vegetables and grains from Laurel Robertson, Laurel's kitchen. These books are still my Bibles. Then also the same time when I was the first vote here, I met a local author who was also vegetarian. She encouraged me to compile my recipe and expand upon them to write a book. First, I was a little bit intimidated, but then I started to write and there was no limit to how many recipes you can create. As a result, my first cookbook, Flavors of India, you see, was born. After I published that book, I started to teach cooking classes. I started to speak about vegetarianism and to answer your question, even how I influence people to go meatless. In my cooking classes as well as in my book, I don't really try to convert people to vegetarianism. I simply give people tools and I think that the best way to alter people's behavior is by providing them tools to work with, not by lecturing. Oh, that would be much later in the 70s. I shopped at Mom and Pop's store when I first came to San Francisco and then of course went to the Almeni Farmers Market because that was the place to get fresh vegetables. But then I met an amazing group of people. They belonged to a club called Food Conspiracy. Just the name, conspiracy, was so exciting. So I joined them and many, many food conspiracy buying clubs were all over San Francisco Bay Area and I was in the hate which was the hub for many food conspiracy neighborhood. In fact, we had a saying that when you go to join a club and if you can't walk, then you should start another chapter of food conspiracy. So the idea was very simple. A group of people got together to buy food in bulk to make it more affordable. And then once a week we put the food and then we divided in somebody's garage or churches or whatnot. But getting together when we came to order the food was a big event. Not only we cooked and shared the food, but we shared a lot of ideas. People spontaneously talk about a rally or they will talk about starting a women's group or a child care center. So it was like homeschooling for adults. And it was really great that we saved on money but was also about saving on packaging because we believe in bulk food. There was too much excessive packaging. Sharing food and learning about food from each other was another aspect of the food conspiracy that I really enjoyed because there were a lot of things that people knew since we all came from different parts of the country and from part of the world. So like how to make yogurt, how to make baby food that doesn't have sugar. How to make tofu. I know we take all of this for gratis cilia for you now. There's so many variety of all of these healthy choices but at the time even yogurt without fillers or without starch or sugar was not easy to find. So it was great to learn from each other how to stock your pantry, how to save food and so on. Another very important aspect of food conspiracy was how we treat each other and how we govern ourselves because we wanted everybody to participate in this food sharing experience but we also want to hear everybody's voice. So it was a total democracy. So Celia Celia we can't hear your questions very well. Okay I'll speak up. So how did the food conspiracy or start to open storefronts in the Bay Area and what was your involvement in this movement? Okay the food conspiracy started to open up stores and they were really many different places and they were food stores like these guys. This is question four. Question three. When did you? Okay so when did I start getting involved? Yeah okay so that was during the time when I had started to do a lot of work and I started to do a lot of organizing and we started to open stores and that was something that happened later part of the 70s and we also had a lot of people organizing various stores and we had a lot of stores that were trying to open but we had trouble raising money. So we had very creative solutions about food sharing, food making, food selling, having parties and making food. Okay question four. In the people's food system? Oh yes so in the people's food system I think what was really important in the people's food system is we totally rely on ourselves because we had a lot of experience from the food conspiracy how to do that. So we had like two stores open from Nicola and Dime. One was in Novy Valley, other was in The Hate and from there we funded other stores and how we did it is that people the store that had opened came and helped the new stores not only in training but sometimes in funding with money, sometimes even showing how to cash register and so on. So we were still in a basic mode of the food conspiracy where we put as many people to work as possible including people who shopped there so it wasn't really that unusual sometimes a cashier at the hate food store that I worked and volunteered we would say hey a delivery truck is here so can few people from the line get out of the delivery and just help unload the food and sure enough people stop waiting for the cashier to cash them out and they help the delivery truck to unload. So those were the times where there was a little distinction between the shopper and the worker and of course we all worked on a volunteer basis and that kept the prices of the food down as well as it helped the community because the food conspiracy were kind of a self-help organization we just helped ourselves not so much the other people so not of us again to think that to serve other people as well as to serve ourselves more efficiently it would be good to open the stores and this kind of movement was going around other part of the country the San Francisco Bay Area was a good example because we had a lot of food conspiracy that opened over a dozen stores very fast but there were stores like this all over the US and they were all forming little storefront the difference between these kind of storefronts or the cooperative was that and we call ourselves New Wave the difference between the New Wave and the other consumer cooperatives of the previous time is that we thought that we should select the food that would be environmentally friendly we should sell it in bulk and we should keep the cost of the food down to help the uncertain community as well as help ourselves to do this and this was possible until the mid 70s because the rents were cheap here for people as well as for the store so we were able to work part time like I volunteered twice a week doing sparking doing training doing cleaning we all did everything we took turns right and that way we were able to keep the cost down but this was more than just this where we had other involvement with the community as well because the stores were actually more efficient and we had more free time to open other kind of co-ops such as at the hate for the store we open or we help to open a cooperative run a bookstore we also help collectively run a commercial free radio station and we helped a free clinic on Hey Street which is still going on by the way similarly the store like Rainbow and Noe Valley store help other venues and causes of their community that had to do with Latino people and gay people and so on but again the idea of the food conspiracy was translated into the food store that we should keep the governance of the store in our hand and not have a boss so that was the big difference between the old style food co-op and the new wave so these food store things combusted in like very short time like five years we had over a dozen storefronts and about a dozen venues that supplied us with food and some of them were services that didn't have to do with food like childcare center and we had a newsletter collective that wrote political article about food and recipes and so on now unfortunately the food system where we call it people's food system flamed out even faster than it took to build five years which was pretty fast time without not enough funds or planning we had made all this happen and it just flamed out very fast that you have created and or participated in while working with the people's food system oh definitely it's time to change my scarf oh i would need a lot of scarves and i don't know there are enough scarves here so yeah what i did and i'm going to use the word week because it was all in collaboration with other people so what i want to emphasize here that this wasn't just about getting cheap food although the idea was in the food conspiracy to save money so we can get healthy food affordable prices and the same was true with the food store that we can sell healthy food at affordable prices it wasn't just about cheap food it was about other actions to a lot of them were political rallies some of them were community work like you can see in this photo that we are holding a rally this was a way back when when we first figured out that we should have more farms not labs to do genetical engineering similarly we were demanding certain food labeling that we are still demanding and all of those things we joined rallies and events to support these things in in about mid 80s i took a little break to write my second book as well as to go finish grad school but even during that time i along with other people continued to support all the food co-ops and i shopped there of course bravosa told my graduate students friends about the food co-ops about the food co-op moment and what it meant and some of them started to shop the nearest food co-ops and let's see now i'm going to go a little bit in the jump into the chronology so you might want to switch the photo that in 2005 this is when i had already joined other avenues and first i was a volunteer and then i became a one of the worker owner and i noticed that a lot of the people still wanted to volunteer because they didn't want the full-time responsibility of working in a food co-op they were either tired or going to school or they hear other jobs so i thought that it'd be a good idea for now to organize the volunteer program just like you would organize a paid staff so like be organized to first uh interview them and place them in the area of their interest and my interest was in the food wrapping and we had a food wrap license so i taught people how to make sandwiches how to make salsa and i did that for years and years and i must trained a few dozen people how to make salsa so that was one of my pleasure to do that and unfortunately that program stopped in 2007 like a lot of the other co-ops had to stop the volunteer program but we connected the community so well by then that 2005 other avenue won the best co-op award by the San Francisco Bay Guardians leadership which was very large at the time so that had to put us on the map so then going forward we also made it happen in collaborator with the community other things such as in 2008 2008 the building at other avenues was up for sale and our landlord was really very nice man said that he would give us a deal but as you know everything was expensive in san francisco by 2008 particularly commercial building and we didn't have a million dollars in the bank then so this was a monumental project that we decided to do is buy the building with the help of the community and this was really fantastic because we only had three months to come up with a business plan find people big and small loans so it was kind of like a quilt to make this patchwork and we were all very busy not just contacting people but spreading out so that we can pay them back in increment so we had a lot of community support members shoppers even former volunteers and other cooperatives that help us buy the building we made it happen in the deadline that we had to do and we paid everybody back some of them even didn't want it back so we paid our dues back to people before they were due so that was really a success story for a collaborative monumental task then in 2015 next photo shows that we made solar roof on our building now that we own our building this was the time we met a wonderful group of revolve that helped us figure out how to make this happen and it was the environmental community not just the neighbor and there were some neighbors and local people shoppers who helped us but there was a huge environmental community from all over the u.s. and from other countries that helped us make this happen so after doing the solar roof we also did some other changes so we were then certified green business then moving forward next photo shows that we celebrated the publication of my book other avenues are possible and this was again something that we did with the community's help because I interviewed over two dozen people to write the book who helped me not just with their opinion but with photographs and with some material to look into in the history of this moment so again we were the ones who made this happen in collaboration of other cooperative members so because after the volunteer program we still wanted to continue the contact with the community I also decided that one way we can do it is create community events so I would have like at least two events every month sometimes even three and we would invite people from the community as well as the workers who gave workshops we gave workshops on cooking classes and how to raise chicken even in the backyard and how to compost and all those things community events kept us together as the next slide will show you that we also partner with San Francisco Vegetarian Society to celebrate the World Vegetarian Festival this happened every year and we had a big presence and we had a colorful booth decorated with scarves and saris and I did looking demo there are hundreds of people enjoyed participating oh well isolation has been really tough on everybody because we have to keep meeting but soon after the retirement we partied a lot okay so that was not isolation time as yet thank goddess we partied with a big dinner and dancing and another party at the co-op that was more intimate they'd be invited some former volunteers and then we were even invited by the city hall to party with the local politician because that year they decided that we were other avenue was one of the best local business so some sort of a legacy award that we won that year so it was a time for partying but after that you know what happened is during the pandemic though I was going to a lot of public places such as library such as bookstore such as other co-ops and food stores and even college campuses to do lectures to talk to people about my books and talk to people about the sustainable food systems and so on this all caused because the pandemic I'd say about 10 of my events with the library as well as bookstores were cancelled and so were other things so it was very um testing time for us but I decided to continue to write write my recipe and contribute there with local websites such as the San Francisco Beacons website I contribute recipes once a month such as the website of other avenue such as the website of another co-op that is not open yet but they have a wonderful website that's the co-op in Benicia and I also contribute with another group called QSA that you may be familiar with and they do a lot of urban education and sustainable agriculture okay and going forward the one thing that I want to mention that I did do that's my last demo that you see the summer stride in 2019 but in addition to that I um for one year I made work at lunch for my favorite group of people and this other avenues worker and I wanted to appreciate how wonderful they were during the pandemic so this was my way of showing my appreciation for their hard work and also keeping my connection with other avenues here um can you talk about a book your book and where we can find them oh that's my favorite scarf well after all this is a library where people love libraries people love books okay so I want to show you my first book that you already saw doesn't look like this anymore so my first book flavors of India looks like this now so that's the one you see there the old one that I showed you previously had nice orange pages but it's the same book it's going really strong after being almost 50 years old in fact it has been used as a college curriculum for classes such as culture and cuisine and it's gone through several publishers and with lots of different editions that book was kind of my own came out of my personal need kind of like comfort food I was missing food from back home and I wanted to feel healthy but also comfortable and people enjoyed it that's when Indian food was getting popular so the timing was right even though I had trouble publishing the book because it was vegetarian can you imagine being in San Francisco and having difficulty finding a publisher for vegetarian cookbook but yeah that was still difficult so that is my first book and you can get all of these books from the San Francisco Public Library but also in the next slide it shows you where you can purchase them so my second book the ethnic vegetarian kitchen now the ethnic vegetarian kitchen came in the 80s it's got recipes with guidelines for nutrition specifically vegetarian nutrition because in the 80s we were obsessed with nutrition particularly vegetarians because we were told to get the protein you have to combine this and that which later became not so important because we found out that if you eat well and properly then chances are that you're getting in a protein in a nourishment so it's not all that important but having that charge and information is still helpful in addition to nutritional guideline it has a lot of recipes that I learned during my travel and it's all home cooking because I learned from people I met during my travel and from immigrants that I met here my third my third book is not a good book is the book that we have been talking about is book about the San Francisco Bear Areas who cooperated okay so after that my school is cooking together and that was supposed to have been part of the other book because I wanted to do half history half recipes but my publisher said man you are trying to crunch two books together so I took the recipes back home one year later I self-published it again you can find this book at other avenues Rainbow and at the library okay hopefully we'll have some time yeah for Q and A yeah what would be your vision and what would you like to see happen in the Bay Area food movement in the next 10 years or so all right this is a good question because I've been thinking about this a lot and in fact two chapters in my book other avenues are possible addresses that very topic like future vision how to sustain co-ops and so on so I want to say first what's going on real briefly because we are running out of time what's going on right now is a lot and we can build on that so right now for instance we have Mandala food co-op in Oakland enjoyed their 10th anniversary in 2019 they were not part of the food system they started in 2009 and they're going strong and in fact they are also going to open another store or helping to open another store and they're going to expand so that is a good story for a newbie and in a community that you skip for desert and we have another food co-op near Richmond area that's going to pop up in a year or so and that is called it's in Benicia it will be in Benicia and that is called there is called community something a cultivate community food co-op okay so the cultivate community food co-op has a lot of membership and they hope to open in a year then we of course have success story of rainbow to learn from their 250 worker owners and they still managed to run in a very non hierarchical and with our boss and that's a success story and then we of course have other avenue a smaller but as important store by the mighty ocean where we are trying to keep our mission strong as always and so we know that these stores could do it and survive and the book tells you how they managed to survive there's no reason we couldn't have 10 more stores in next 10 years but in order for us to have this happen it's really important for parallel movement to happen so that is part of my vision that while we can learn a lot from these stores that managed to sustain and the stores that are trying to open we should also focus to do other things such as affordable housing how can we have cooperative housing that can be also affordable we have some cooperative housing that actually started by the labor movement and there's a few of them in san francisco we need more perhaps smaller moment where we can make it possible for people to not just co-live to make it affordable but co-own to make it housing should be a citizen's right not something that we consider fancy and for the rich just like good and healthy organic food should be citizen's right similarly I think another attention that we should focus on is on farmers and farm workers because without them we will not have good food we will not have good organic food so specifically small organic farmers need to be supported they need to be supported by the government because the big agribusiness is being supported by the government so we the citizen should demand from our local and federal government to support organic farmers and also have some of the organic farmers to become farmer cooperative that way not only they can market their food together but they can share the labor they can share their resources and they'll be more sustainable similarly the farm workers will become farm owners and make the whole system more sustainable so I think the housing and farming both becoming more cooperative will automatically give doors to more food and who knows in 10 years Celia will write a book other avenues are here thank you yeah let's take some questions you can put those in the chat box if you want that would be great and are you two friends if you have questions too I love how you brought it like just such a holistic approach yeah yeah sorry couple of the questions got a little bit mixed up but I think we we were able to present everything we wanted to present some of the questions could be asked Celia as well yes and there's so much love already in the the chat lots of people who've taken classes from you a librarian out there who said they had a great class with you at their ocean of view branch and miss you but questions friends any questions Shanta you have not slowed down which I think retirement well I don't know if that's really true retirement but it's an awesome retirement I really love how you you know bringing the housing involved and like just how we could have like a such a healthy future with housing and food and how and all is such interconnected yeah I want to add that this is happening actually it's not like it is not happening right now but it's happening in a very small scale there are some farm cooperatives that are happening all over the US as well as some in Southern California there are new food clubs that are trying to open again more in Southern California and similarly there are farmers farm workers we're becoming farmers I love it I love it all right friends do you have any questions for Shanta I know you do we'll give it to give it a few few moments and we can allow some unmuting I've noticed just you know on Instagram I follow a lot of farms and a lot of there's a great black farm movement happening in Oakland and I think that is pretty amazing too yes let's see cultivate community food co-op is out here talking about that they've had you as an instructor Dennis did you want to say something oh I just wanted to thank Shanta for the excellent talk I enjoyed listening to her again and I noticed you didn't mention your many youtube videos if people want to yeah so I have been doing a lot of youtube videos since the isolation this is my daughter's idea she's a videographer and we go to my backyard and she's wonderful we cook there and she films there she filmed from distance wearing a mask and this was great because not only it shows that you can connect with the community from distance like we're what we're doing right now but in addition you can show the public that you don't really need a fancy kitchen or a lot of gadgets to make gourmet food you can cook it shows you how to even outdoor with a few tools so we do have a question in your what are your plans for your future oh what are my plans for the future keep doing what I'm doing I'm creating a lot of recipes and putting and sharing you know I like the online thing because it just doesn't require any paper and people can read and use and they can print it out if they wanted to so I'm really enjoying doing the same thing um also retirement means that you don't really have to do anything unless and when you want to do it so I'm enjoying that too my husband and I start with a cup of tea and a cup of coffee and the contest is whoever finishes last wins that's fun um so here's a question about food uh the the speaker associates tofu with east asian cuisine but is it also used equally as much in south asian cuisine huh you know that's really interesting because when I go back to India often and I would say just like 10 years ago we didn't find tofu in India and now in a small town you can find tofu very easily so I think that in India it's getting more and more available than of course it is used in you know Burmese cooking a lot is used in Sri lankan cooking now before it wasn't so it's beginning to take its place because people know that people are dairy intolerant for some people just want to reduce dairy from their diet thank you what are you having for dinner tonight oh it's a good question I don't know who's cooking my husband or I we'll figure it out we always have something in the refrigerator I love farmers market there's something I forgot to say is that one of the great women that is going on right now also to build upon for farmers and for consumers is farmers market there's so many of them we only had how many farmers market right now there's like a few dozen between here and Berkeley and Oakland and you can just smell the fresh produce there you can talk to the farmer I am right now working on a piece uh with a farmer that he explained to me how cumbersome it is to get a certification for organic farming even though their farm had been organic before so things like that you hear and you learn from farmers like how do they go food and so on yes thank you for shouting out our farmers market we are beyond blessed in the Bay Area to have the food that we have for sure and a big shout out to heart of the city farmers market our neighbors at the main library who are Wednesdays and Sundays go shop there um one last question I think um well why why do you think that food co-ops are not as you know popular or as you know commonplace I think that what happened in the 80s and you know somebody had asked me that question last time is like how did the system flame out and it didn't really flame out as fast as some people thought even though like a lot of the venues closed down in a couple of years some store tried to hang in there for a number of years and one was the Novi Valley there was an inner sunset but the reason why they flamed out in you know a few years and the reason why it's difficult to have more food cooperatives one is the real estate it's really difficult but the second is you can find a lot of this organic food in other places in Mucosco Walmart now it's organic people don't know the difference between a what it means for them to distribute food in huge numbers like that be how they treat their workers and they people you know like to get food that's convenient and cheaper so I understand that because we all have concern and constraints about how much money to spend in organic food but two big reason is that what we started got co-opted by big organization including Amazon and Whole Foods and Trader Joe and secondly the real estate is just impossible for food to have places and for food workers to live you know we have a lot of turnover because people can't afford to live here you know that yes we know that for sure and you know speaking of those big big companies we won't name make sure you buy your books from Green Apple or from a local from rainbow from your library don't go to revenues yeah get all those books from there we have we are still very lucky in our bay area we have 19 bookstores so please shop at them and and watch out for the community in Penicia if you live near there if you live near Richmond of Alejo they're going to be awesome food co-op coming up cultivate community food co-op I'm going to yeah and they have a website where I post and put my recipes and share my recipes with them but they also have other articles about food and agriculture and so on yes Paula has shared a chat link with us from one of your recipes so that's yeah I'm going to shout out another co-op that's starting up in East Bay um the deep in East Oakland what's it called the deep the deep the deep yeah there's still you know in the works and finding a place and things but they're doing what they can I think they're working on like operating out of a shipping container and trying to meet their community needs so there are you know projects in the bay area you know moving forward and yeah yeah I also forgot to mention there was so much to talk today is about the Aries Mandi and their contribution to the food co-operatives in San Francisco Bay area there's six of them they're very successful and now they feel like there's no need to open up more bakeries and tipsyria so they opened up a construction co-op that's doing really well in a landscaping co-op so who knows Debbie wow yeah I love that yeah I also love um you know rainbow groceries idea of no bosses what a revolutionary idea it's true yeah it kind of makes unions obsolete right you have to negotiate you just have to work it out yeah yeah that could be very interesting and again just how it's so all interconnected to like just how we live you know food and housing and living and one thing that pandemic has has created is just a view of community taking care of community and how that could look all right friends Shanta Cecilia thank you for being here Cecilia Cecilia Cecilia I appreciate you both for being here today yes thanks for attending and also the library will send you the trivia test that I made up for you and there is an email address in there that you can send it back to me and if you win that trivia test then I will send you my third or the fourth book for free to you okay but no cheating you can't google anything this is all on our system no calling other avenues no calling Celia no calling rainbow okay excellent so I will be sending a follow-up email then for everybody and it's a fun test only 10 or 11 questions all right we're gonna have to get you back Shanta we have started to look into our future of booking okay booking in people in person again so hopefully soon we thank you all for being here we thank the two of you for joining us today Alan we thank you big time for being in our background and library community we miss you and we love you have a wonderful day come back at two o'clock


Hey guys, it's Julia and welcome back to my channel, and for today's video I'm going to be doing my February TBR as well as my contemporary thought TBR. Basically I'm going to be talking about the books that I hope to read in the month of February and for the read-a-thon that is happening later this month. But first getting into some books that I just want to read aside from the read-a-thon. I should only have two here that I'm going to be talking about for just other reads in February, but first like here I have Retribution Rails by Erin Bowman. This is the sequel to Vengeance Road and this is a YA Western series and it's just super fun. I really enjoyed book one and I'm just super excited to get to book two. I've been hoping to get to it and I've just been stalling a little bit, but I'm excited to give this one hopefully a chance in February. Next up here I have Rumble by Ellen Hopkins which this one is going to be a buddy read with Peter from Peter likes books. I love him so much and I'm just so excited to be doing a buddy read with him. I don't know much about what this one is about. So I know her books deal with a ton of hard topics and a ton of important issues so I'm really excited to see how we both like this one. I also will be doing a classic of the month and a king of the month. I don't know what those are going to be yet. I like to kind of keep them spontaneous and fun, but yes. So for my contemporary to fun TBR, basically Contemporary Thon is a readathon that is hosted by Chelsea from Chelsea Delling Reads who I love so much. Same with Julie from Pages and Pents such as Sweetheart and Natasha from My Reading is Odd which I like binge watched all of her videos recently like a month ago or something. I binge watched them all so they're great ladies definitely check them out. I love them all and I'll have their channels linked down below but they're going to be hosting the Contemporary Thon which this has seven challenges and it goes from the 12th to the 18th I believe it is. I'll have the dates on the screen though. So basically the challenges are read the most recent contemporary book that you purchased, read a contemporary book with pink on the cover, read a hyped contemporary, read a day of first contemporary, read a dark contemporary and read a contemporary graphic novel as well as read a contemporary that has been recommended to you. So for this I actually only have three books plus a new release that I'm going to be talking about today and yeah because I might double up or I don't know how busy that week is going to be for me. It's the first week back at school and I don't know. So I'm keeping a light fun fresh yes. Basically before we get into the contemporary thon picks I forgot to talk about another book that I'm hoping to read this month which I will read this month and that is Sinbook. I'm super excited to read this one. I might read it for contemporary thon I don't know but I'm super excited about it because I read everything by him and I love his work so I'm very excited for this new release. So I'm going to be doubling up but I have a few picks here. So first I'm actually going to be hoping I'm hoping to read the apocalypse of Eleanor Mendoza for contemporary thon. I might do that for a diverse and a recommended pick because Dylan talks about it all the time and then I've heard it's diverse so I'm looking forward to that one because I loved Where the Ants. So yes and then for a contemporary graphic novel I have A Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green and I believe this deals with a girl who's really introverted and it's just written like it's just in black and white and I think it's going to be really interesting. It says Lighter Than My Shadow it's a hand drawn story of struggle and recovery a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness and exposure of those who are weak, those who are so weak they prey on the weak and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to injure towards happiness. I'm excited to see what this one's about. And then for another pick here I have Meat Cute which is by a hand full of others including I'm Most Excited for Stories by Nicola Yoon and Julie Murphy. That's who I'm most excited for but this is just supposed to be a bunch of Meat Cute stories which is just like how couples meet and the cute experiences. So I heard this one is a really fun and a light read so I'm hoping to read this one as well. And this one I don't know anything about but it's called Romeo in What's Her Name. This is by Shanae Petrov and I read her other book which is My New Crush Gave to Me it's over here. And yeah my new crush yeah. But I really liked that and I thought it was really cute so I'm hoping to read this one as well. And again I don't know. So the Romeo Juliet play, romance, I don't know seems fun it's short. So there you guys have it those are the books that I'm hoping to read in the month of February and for contemporary thumb. Let me know what you are hoping to read down below and if you're taking part in the readathon and I'll see you all very very soon with a new video.


I want you to out. Can you be my e-girl baddie? It's me. You can't catch us.   All right one bullet won't kill