Okay, we'll get started. I just want to read from John chapter 20 and this is verses, maybe 24 onwards. Okay, let me just read. John 20-24, now Thomas called the twin, one of the 12 was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, we have seen the Lord, so he said to them, unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said, peace to you. Then he said to Thomas, reach your finger here and look at my hands and reach your hand here and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not yet not seen and yet have believed. And verse 30 and verse 31 it says, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name. So we've maybe read this many times and where Thomas being the very rational, maybe even scientific kind of a person, he wants proof. And the Lord Jesus gives him proof after a while.  Put your finger here and then touch and see that I am alive. And then he says, Thomas, you have seen me and you have believed. Because you have seen me, you have believed. But blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. And so, you know, the question for us is again that, you know, what are some aspects? Maybe we believe that Jesus is Lord, but what are some aspects of, you know, of the Christian walk or maybe what the Lord has promised or something that we see in the Word that we find it difficult to believe, challenging to believe. And we're saying, Lord, I want proof. I want more proof. And the Lord is willing to give proof. It's not like the Lord will not, but the Lord will give proof.  And of course, the context is believing in the person of the Lord, Jesus. Okay. And that's the first step. You know, many times we do not know or we may not be able to understand the outworking of certain things, right? What, how. But we can always believe on the who, which is the person of the Lord, Jesus. When we believe and we have faith in who he is, we can always, you know, from that will overflow into the outworking of what and how and when and all that, right? But our faith needs to be really strong in who he is. We need to be able to trust him, right? And the Lord says that these things are written that you may believe. These things are written that you may believe. The Word of God is filled with, you know, about his character, about the personhood. And these things are written that we may believe, which means that whenever there, there is a shaking of faith, because of maybe some things that we are facing, maybe there's a mountain, maybe there's some trials, maybe challenges. There's some things happening in our lives, right? And that was the case with Thomas. Suddenly Jesus was there. Now he's not there. And suddenly people are saying he's there again. And so his, his belief, everything was shaken, right? And that could happen to our lives, right? Everything becomes at one point, it's like, Oh, this is as nothing can shake me, right? They are at the top of the mountain. Nothing can shake me. This is the best. But then the next morning we wake up with all these fears, questions are saying, Oh, God, you know, are you there? So the Lord is pointing us back to the Word saying, These are written that you may believe. And that you may believe in the person. And out of that, when we when our faith is strong in the person of who he is, then what he does, when he will do, how he will do it, everything will fall in place, right? So let's just pray and say, Lord, take us back to the Word. Father, we, we thank you for this day, Lord, we thank you for God, for these words that we just read, Lord, that in times when our faith is shaken, we have questions, God, Lord, things that really seem to bring in a lot of unbelief and bring in a lot of maybe because of hurt, maybe because of discouragement, or maybe the difficulties God of life. But Lord, we thank you for these reassuring words that, Lord, you said, visit our those who have not seen and yet believed God. And Lord, I pray that that's there's only one thing that brings us to that place, which is your word. And Lord, we pray that even as you Lord point us back to your word, that these things are written that we may believe that you are the Lord, that you are the Christ. And Lord, I pray that we will always come back to that place when we are strong in that, Lord, all other things, what you will do, when you will do it, and how you will do it in our lives, God will fall in place. And so God, we thank you. We pray that we'll be strong, rooted in your word, and led by your spirit. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Okay. So last class was interesting. We did, we took a detour. We took a detour only two points, I think, and then we got stuck. So we shall step on the accelerator and, you know, go through the other things, which are, you know, like basic and foundational. But I hope that what we discussed yesterday, they kind of made sense and settled some things like, you know, we can go back to it again, no problem. Okay, so let me just share the screen. Right. So we are, we looked at, okay, what qualifies us, right? Because the call of God is something what qualifies us as the basic thing we are believers, what qualifies us to actually communicate or preach, that we are the fact that we are believers, the fact that we are spirit filled and spirit taught, basically spirit led. Okay. And of course, called, commissioned, and that will always give us that reassure and hear, you know, I'm on this assignment because I'm called by God, and I'm on this task or, you know, place, this place, I'm doing this because I'm called by God, because there could be a lot of things that could discourage a lot of things that we could face, difficulties, which make us question the call. You know, in fact, the call could be so strong, and we obey, and then we get into that environment where we are called. And then we begin to ask if it's because it's so tough, it's so difficult, the response is not great. And then we begin to doubt, am I really called for that? Right. And the fact is that the we are the fact that we are called, and the, and the, you know, the groups that we are called, or the reassurance that we are called and commissioned, will always enable us to go forward. Right. So this is another qualification. And the fourth one, there are things that are certain things that are common. So I've just kind of highlighted that the another pillogen also talks about the same qualifications. The fourth one, of course, character. Okay, which Paul writes about in all the I mean, what we saw yesterday in first Timothy Titus, right, he says, Okay, this is what is required characters required. Okay, gifting will definitely open the doors, this gifting will take us to places where we never thought was possible. And gifting is also from God. And gifting is from God. So there's no need to, you know, look down or say gifting is not bad, not good. No, Paul asks us to pursue gifts, pursue special gifts in anointing everything. So but what will give us endurance? I think right from the first semester, we've been learning that right, been reiterating that what will give us endurance? What will give us longevity in the ministry? What will give us the credibility? Right? What will actually bring glory to God is our character. And what will cause us to really hold all the gifting is character. Okay, so many times people can be swayed saying, Okay, this gifting is enough. But then if there are cracks in the character, it will break, right, it will come to a point where we, you know, where we will implode or in the sense, whatever God has put, you know, just breaks, because we're not able to sustain that. So character. And, and of course, being a person of prayer, okay, being a person of prayer, you know, prayer not just for the assignment, prayer not just for the, you know, the next message, prayer not just for the next, you know, whatever we are going to minister in this, which is important, of course, but prayer as a lifestyle, we've been studying about prayer, prayer as intimacy with God, prayer as our relationship as a conversation and in our relationship with God.  So people just have the thing, okay, maybe this is about, it's about this, right, before eating, before going to bed, before stepping out, it's all, you know, kind of event based prayer. But somehow we need to break that and say, you know, you can pray, I don't, I don't think, I don't think my parents ever said that, you know, you can just talk to God anytime. They never said that. No, did you pray before eating? Did you pray before, you know, going to bed? You know, that was the thing. But I think we need to, for us, we need to tell ourselves that we can pray at any time, talk to the Lord at any time, practice that. And for the next generation also, not to say that, no, just talk, be authentic, be real anytime, right? Okay, as a student of the word. Okay, now this is a, this is a given. Okay, so all of us read, but do we all study? Okay, that's the difference. All of us read the word. You know, we read it, we like it, we read one verse, and we're like, ah, you know, God, you really spoke to me, close it, we go. But the question is, do we study the word? You know, that's, what is the difference? Reading and studying, going deep, diamonds and pearls, diving deep, taking the pearls, digging deep, taking the diamond. Okay. Yeah, so yeah. It comes to, when it comes to just regularly and just reading through, but when it comes to more than that, you're trying to understand what the verse means. And you're seeing if this verse can connect to another verse. And if it does so, why? So these type of questions that pop up when you're, we're trying to further study on that, we're trying to understand like, why this word was said here? What is, what what did Jesus say by saying this? Yeah. Yeah, trying to get the context of it. Yeah. Maybe you do a word study. Yeah. Yeah. So good. So the thing is, you know, it can happen to us that maybe as students, we are, you know, we are getting into all that we're doing that, maybe we're forced to do that, whatever. So we do that. Okay. But let's say we get into, we start, when we just proceed on maybe some of us are going to be working professionally, maybe we are ministering, whatever, you know, whatever environment we are. So the issue, the question is, no, do we continue to do that? Do we continue to be students of the word? Because it's important. Because revelation comes, it's not that revelation won't come, God will not give, but we have been given this precious word of God, that we might go deeper. And Mom is reminded of Mark four, where after the parable, the Lord says, you know, I let's probably look at that verse. It talks about the measure, right? With the measure with which one uses 24, I think, Mark four, 24, 25. So, yeah, so the talks about effort, it talks about hunger, talks about pursuing, you know, all that, right? So, so let's never stop doing that. Okay, so to be a student of the word, and as a person using the gifts of the Spirit, right, spiritual gifts of the Spirit are for the believer. And, well, Paul is continually is exorting the church, you know, 1 Corinthians 14, and he's saying, was one desire. And the objective of desiring the gifts is so that we may walk in them, right, so that we may be a vessel for God to express himself, that we'll be a vessel, right? Okay, the second one also, if you look into the notes, it's all similar, similar things. But also talks about loving the Lord and loving people. Okay, loving the Lord and loving people. We might say, you know, that's, you know, is it possible to actually share the word or minister without loving God and loving people? Yeah, what do you think? That much effect? Yeah, you're right. In the sense, in the sense, you won't be content, first of all, right, you know, there's no sense of fulfillment, contentment. It is possible to do that mechanically. It is possible to do it as a sense of duty. And, and, yeah, since we're talking about preaching, since we're talking about, you know, maybe looking at it as pulpit ministry, it is possible. It is possible to come down to that place. And there are sadly, you know, in churches, in Christianity, you know, we see around that kind of a thing. You see that people are there, there are ministers of God, and it's, it's, there's no, it's a sense of, you know, maybe I need to do this work.   There's a lot of things happen. Okay. So it's it's a very sad state, you know, to see such things, but unfortunately, it happens, right. So must love the Lord muscle of souls. No, now loving other people and to be to have a heart really engaged in that. Now it's a difficult thing. Okay, why is it difficult? Because when you're when when you're hurt, when you're discouraged, when people say things, our natural tendency is to protect. Right? I'm going to build a wall. No more people. Just me and God. I love I love God. You know, God doesn't change. Thank God. He doesn't, you know, he convicts, but he doesn't put me down condemn people. The fact is that ministry exists because of people, people need to be reached, people need to be, you know, built and so on. So, so the same, you know, the same hurt that we experience, or the same strategy that we use to block off that hurt actually blocks us off from loving people again. Right? Just think about it. So which means that people say, you know, you need to have tender hearts and thick skin. And it comes to ministry and it comes to tender hearts and thick skin. People might say things. But the thing is to for us to get healed and get going. Right? Get healed and get going. Yes, there will be disappointments. Get healed and get going. Because if not, we will be, you know, in a place we could be ministering, but it could be happening mechanically, it will, we will not have the joy of the Lord. See, in the Bible, there's, there's one person who does things mechanically. He's saying, okay, God, you know, I don't know, ask me to do I'm doing, but he doesn't really have the love for people, you know, any, any person that you can think of. Yeah, because Jonah's there. He's actually, he's not even waiting for, you know, the, he's shared, he's breached the message, you know, repent three days and that's it, the judgment of God. And then he doesn't, he doesn't want to see people's hearts changed. He goes to a vantage point, nice place of view. Okay, now I'm going to watch. Yeah, he wants to see the fireworks. He's saying, okay, I want to see now how God destroys these people. Okay, I've done my job. And I've come back. And then he's very disappointed. God, I know, I knew you will do that. I knew you will change your heart. And I knew that you're, you know, loving God and all that. That's why I didn't want to come.  Right? So, so we see that his heart was actually so disengaged from even the message that he preached. So it's possible. It's possible for us as modern day, you know, ministers have got to reach that place. Maybe because of her. And the thing is this that the ghost in anyway, and like, if you read history, you see that these were people who actually raided these were people who came and attacked his own. Yeah. So he has that grudge against them.  So he doesn't, he doesn't really want them to, you know, repent. Yeah. I've seen some of the preachers who have a very worldly life. But when this come to Sunday, they'll do all the rituals, they'll do, they'll eat the worship, messes and all. But can we think like this, like, he is not the person who is actually doing that. But Holy Spirit will work. But I've seen, I've seen some of the pastors, they're doing so many great things. But when they, when they go off in the states, they'll be living a worldly life only. So what's your So the thing is, God works despite the vessel.  So despite the vessel the grace of God, despite the person, you know, God ministers and blesses and so on. So, so that's, you know, that's given in the sense that happens. But how long? And at what cost?  At what cost? Because So when a person, let's say, I mean, see, again, when we say worldly life, we are, it's our observation. And we are saying okay, but maybe there are certain things that are, you know, like willful sin, or, you know, the kind of lifestyle, the kind of things that they speak, et cetera, we observed. And then we're like, you know, how's God continue to use them. So a lot blesses, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. We see that in Romans. And so God does that. But again, for how long at what cost? We won't know. Right. And we see church history, and we see even recent happenings. And we see that there's, you know, it's, that's that kind of a lifestyle is positioning one for oneself for a fall.   And they say, I've got a call of God, and I should be like this wrong role model. So an entire generation comes up, you know, going after external things.  Why? I want to preach to thousands. I want to preach to this thing. I want to be, you know, I want to go from one, I want to go on this flight and that flight. People saying young young people saying that this is the thing, you know, I want to, I want to drive like this. I want to. So the role, you know, we are setting we are being wrong role models. So it has repercussions, right? So yeah, that's the thing.  But that's, that's why, you know, we can never say, okay, because people lives are transformed. Okay, it's something to do with the minister, you know, we can never authenticate and say, okay, it's because of the effectiveness of this person, we can say that God, we can't say that because God works despite, you know, who we are. And you know them by the fruit. Yeah, by the fruit. So does the transformation of the people's lives considered as fruit? Yeah, so that that that work, sorry, that was the Lord says about about false prophets. And he said, you will know them by their fruit and since the fruit of what they do, the fruit of the eventual outcome of their lives. So it's about that. That doesn't apply here. Not fully. Yeah. So we can't, you know, say, excuse me, so we can't say, okay, this person is being blessed. So therefore, you know, that kind of puts a stamp of approval on everything that the minister does. So I have a small question on this must be clean in life. I don't know if we came to this next thing. Yeah, next. Okay, you, maybe I'll ask after we can, I can ask. Yeah. So when we say must be clean in life. So and also we it comes about the character that we are talking about. So, for example, a preacher or somebody who's struggling with their own things, I'm not saying which are genuinely they're struggling for example, they are struggling with something, a sexual sin maybe. And but they're coming out on the pulpit and they're preaching about the same thing. They are not able to get out of it. Or it might be genuine also. We don't know. So I'm trying to understand if you're saying being clean. My basic understanding is being according to the word of God and being clean in the eyes of God, whatever our consigns or something like that. So but throughout this process, we do go through a lot of things that, you know, might not be very clean. You know, maybe at that point, we are struggling for a long time. And but still, we need to push through it and come in, you know, you know, do, do our job, fulfill our responsibility that God has given the same responsibility that God has given to us. So how do we as ministers are in this process of this, how do we keep us clean? Yeah. And when these obstacles are coming in, how do we, you know, what, what would be the ideal scenario that we could do?  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so when we consider all this, you know, when we look at being a student of the word, and especially about character, et cetera, we know that we are works in progress. Okay, all of us, we are all works in progress in the sense, we are mature to a certain extent, we are living a consecrated life to a certain extent. And there's always more. It's always a progressive thing. Okay. Now, when we say, okay, I need to be clean in life, I need to be consecrated, living a sanctified life. Yeah, there could be certain things that I'm struggling with. Okay.  Is it a struggle? Or is it a surrender? Right? In the sense, I'm not fighting against sin.  I'm just giving in, letting go, surrender, you know, or this addiction, whatever, I'm just letting go. And, you know, I'm just trying to put on another mask when it comes to ministry, just putting on a mask saying, and I'm at preach against the same thing, you know, you need to be clean, right? That's one thing. The second scenario is, I'm genuinely fighting, putting up a fight saying God, you know, I'm working with this, I'm working against it. Now, the thing is this, can such a person go and minister? Okay, if they are struggling, serious, having serious struggle, okay, having serious struggle with addiction, having serious struggle with, you know, whatever issues. Well, the thing is, the great thing to do is to put a pause, get help. Right now, it could be a, it could be a longer process for some. It would be a long process. Put a pause saying, okay, God, you know, I need to, this is interfering, this is hindering. It's not right. My heart is not get help. Because most of the time, we don't want to share because we don't want to, we don't, we feel ashamed. Yeah, feel ashamed, like, what'll that person think? It doesn't have to be with, you know, all in sundry. But it can be with someone whom you look up to, maybe a someone who's a experienced senior person, whom you respect, saying and then share. And so it can be with confidence. It can be, you know, so the person can hold that in confidence and then also work.  So to put a pause and say, you know, maybe a couple of months, I don't want to do this. I don't want to share. I don't want to minister. I'm not going to be traveling ministering. Now, you need to have the boldness and the courage to do that. So that sometimes doesn't happen, unfortunately, saying, okay, I'm the only person. I'm the Azure. I'm the sound guy. I'm the, I'm the preacher. I'm the one who closes the, you know, what do I do? Yeah, it's a, it's a very challenging thing. So, so in such cases, just need to, you know, need to very militantly deal with things, deal with it. Say God, it needs to be dealt with. I'm not going to say and the Lord gives grace. The Lord gives grace, the Lord gives grace, the Lord gives, you know, when you, when you reach out, man, the Lord cleans up. But again, it depends on our availability, our cooperation. It's never forced down on us. So, yeah, so that's the thing. It's a progressive thing. It's, when we, when we talk about things, but there are certain things that's really, you know, it's a, it's a willful thing. It's a, we need to deal with it. Yeah. Having an anger issue. Okay. Like it's regarding to the situations that were around him. And he was constantly trying fighting like, okay, not to burst out, not to burst out, but the situations around were making more and what like he just bursted out and like, he was trying so hard not to burst out not to, you know, throw the chairs off. So I think it's a real life example. I'm getting more and more witness in my heart. It's a real life example. Okay. So, so yeah, so, so you did that. So the thing is, you know, it's, so that's, that's a, that's a classic case of wanting to deal with it. Deal with the anger issue. And so, yeah, yeah, so to find out, okay, how is it? How do I deal with it? So really to get help? Okay. And some wisdom, how do I deal with it? Do I stuff it in? Okay. Like at the marriage goes content that we attended recently. So they're talking about two kinds of people, like two kinds of people who respond to anger. One is like a rhino. Okay, respond to, you know, angry situation one is like a rhino rhino meaning rhino just charge, just charge, no matter what is there, it could be a tank or just hits it and it's got so much strength just keeps running so that's a rhino. The other one is a hedgehog hedgehog is like a pokipine. Pokipine what it does is whenever there is danger, whenever it just goes in, goes within passive. What I, you know, is everything okay? But inside, the temperature is increasing, you know, just boiling, boiling. So, and one day, it'll be something very simple, something very, very ordinary, but then the whole thing bus, right? So, so two kinds of things. So both are wrong. You know, both are not the ideal way to handle things. So the thing is, to find out, okay, how do I handle it? Okay, how do I handle it is to, you know, to get the right tools, okay, to keep short accounts, you know, people say, people, you keep short accounts in the sense that day, that day's thing, you deal with it, you settle it, sort it, take it before the Lord, sort it out, right, and, and release that, release that hurt, and have a conversation if possible, if, if, you know, whoever caused that provocation is there right there, have a conversation, and deal with it. And rather than saying, you know, you always make me do this, say, okay, I always feel, you know, use those I statements, I feel upset when these things happen, I feel up and so those are some ways to deal with it. So not to build up, but to think so. So in that case, how do I handle it? Okay, if it's become a very recurrent thing every day. Okay, so the thing is that maybe an attempt has been made in this case, you know, it's not a willful, it's not like I, you know, I need to do that, you're not going around angry, you know, waiting to pick up a fight, it's not that.  So when we say willful, we're talking about, okay, just given in, over to it. Like some people come to the conclusion, they this not working out. So let me just live it, you know, just it's a, it's a question of giving up of hope altogether, and therefore, completely getting into, you know, whatever that's in a sinful activity, sinful thought pattern, whatever, you know, you get into it, because you've given up hope, given up any hope of recovery kind of thing. So that would be a willful thing. But if there is a, like the scripture talks about well, the spirit fights against the flesh against the spirit, spirit against the flesh. So there is that tension, there is that thing, there is that conviction as long as that is kept tender, our heart is kept tender, our consciousness are not seared, then there is always hope for change. Right? Yeah. So, so if it becomes a problem, even if it becomes an issue, then, then I think, just need to take some time off and say, okay, I need, maybe it's a, maybe it's a role, it's a responsibility, whatever I say, I need to take some time off. I just want to, but yeah, and deal with it and then come back, come back stronger, fresher. Yeah. Right? Okay. Online students, any questions or any thoughts that you might have? Please feel free to share as well. Right? Yeah, one more question here. So I was just thinking on these lines. For example, a person who's very clean on concerns on whatever they're doing and stuff. But when you look at their personal life, you don't see much success. For example, they are like living in so much of poverty. You know, there is not much success in there. The things they do personally, you know, maybe in ministry, they are like, you know, flourishing and people are seeing the power of God and all of that. But in their personal lives, they are not able to see, you know, they live in poverty, but they have to preach, you know, opposite to that, but they don't see the thing that they are seeing for others in their lives. Oh, I see. So in that scenario is what I mean, what do we like, how do we take that? Is it like, I'm again coming to the fruit part of it, not in that context, not in the context of a false prophet. But we also need to see, right, how do we look at that person? Okay, in their personal life, only they are not able to see, you know, breakthroughs and stuff what is happening. But, you know, they are flourishing in ministry, you said. So how is that? In what way like you're saying they are flourishing in the sense they're ministering and, you know, as you said, you know, God works despite of anything doesn't, you know, God works through him to that particular person. Okay, God works through that person. But when you see there is like, Oh, there is no fruit in their own personal life. I mean, there's no success in their own personal life. So the thing is, so when we say personal life, okay, let's say, this, I'm only talking about financial context of not financial in any personal life breakthroughs that maybe financial will say, because just to be very specific, okay, maybe financial, maybe, yeah. So the question to ask is, is the person pursuing it really? You know, is a person pursuing it? Is a person working towards it? Okay, because so the Lord, the Lord gives gives us strategies. The Lord gives us ideas. In order, he leads, he's the Lord of breakthrough, he leads us. So, you know, I could be like red hot on fire for God in certain areas. And maybe I could think that these are not things worth pursuing maybe, or maybe think I'm not qualified enough. There could be a number of reasons, you know, or it could be a choice that I make, saying that this is how I want to live. Right? There's no drive for like a better life in the early sense, you know, maybe, you know, I'm satisfied with this, like, like some people we see, you know, like, I think I'm satisfied with three shirts and two, two jeans. I say one jean one week. You know, let's say you're satisfied with that. So those kind of things. But if the person is trying and not succeeding, then that's a, that's an issue.  But I'm not able to. Is that the situation? That is the situation. He chose to live like this. I don't know if it makes sense or not. I take this example for the pastor, Ashish. So when we when I personally see the church congregation will come in Bench girls and Audi girls and pastor will come in normal. So he chose that life. It's it's all his, I mean, his, his wish. He chose that life. Maybe it's, I mean, it's this personal fruitfulness is not only about the finances and things. Maybe they're very happy, joyful in their life, being like that. It's a personal decision saying that, okay, this is how I'm going to live.  So but I think what? Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah. So the thing is, okay, this is what they're trying to do. And they're not succeeding. I really don't know. Maybe, maybe they are trying wrong. You know, it could be maybe from a place of, yeah. I think you should answer. You studied enough. Yeah. So the thing is, yeah, so it could be, it could be it's difficult to really point out, okay, this is it, but it could be several things. Maybe the person is not pursuing. But like you're saying, you know, the person is trying genuinely trying. So, so in which case, you know, maybe if it's a career or, you know, some things like that, okay, so have they, you know, some practical things, I'm just thinking of my head, some things like have they upgraded their skill level, you know, as in order to position themselves for a next level, maybe for promotion, etc. Are they being excellent in their work? Or, you know, there are so many factors, right? What are what is their attitude? For example, I'll tell you, you know, when I was, I was not in full time ministry, but I was just, you know, just considering and I was working. But my attitude towards work was very bad. Very bad. You know, I'll give my everything for ministering on in church on Sunday, right? It was very tough. It was very tough because I was to travel during the week. Monday night, I would travel come back Thursday or Friday, and then they would be worship team practice, whatever.  So whole Sunday would be we'll spend in church. And then Monday night, I'll have to travel again. Right? So it was that kind of thing. But my attitude towards work, I would say, very, very confidently, it was bad. I was just living for the weekend. Who gave me that job? God, I have to be faithful there. I have to be excellent there. But I was not. Despite that, you are somehow wise grace enabled me to, you know, achieve my targets and everything month after month, etc. But I could have done so much more. If I had this understanding that this was a mission field, right, I had to and I have to show by example, I have to be excellent in my way to do a good day's work. I'll go late to office, not one day have I gone early. Seriously. So every office started by nine, I'll be there 915 just run in 930. So my on, you know, my boss gave me a farewell party when I left. So everybody sitting around. So he said this, he said, you know, they used to call me JK, he said, for JK, I tried threatening him, I tried all methods, but I could never make him come to office on time. But he said something, he said, this place where he is going, since he's passionate about what he's wants to do, you know, maybe he'll go there at eight o'clock and not nine.  So it starts at eight, no? South So, yeah, so, so it could be many things. So unless we find out, okay, what is it? There will be a reason. There will be a reason. Maybe there's some things that need to change. Maybe there's a season that they're going through. And they're, maybe it's a season where they're continuing to you know, continue to do continue to so and they will see the fruit of it. It could be many things. Yeah, okay. Yeah, God's timing and season, but God, see, what is the season? It's a season of sowing. It's a season of God is building strength. What is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what, what does it depend on really?  Use the mic. Yeah, maybe I have to wait for God's timing or anything like that. Yeah, so so when we look at it in the natural, like, workwise, you know, you're talking about workwise, no, workwise, there could be reasons like this. You know, in the natural, you know, am I putting in effort? Is my effort good? Is my effort excellent? Am I really engaged in what I'm doing? So we'll check all that before blaming it on God. You know, this is God's doing. It's marvelous in our eyes. No, you don't come to that conclusion so soon. You know, there could be other reasons. You check that. Because God really wants to wants us to do well.  That's that'll be your heart. So how much more heavenly father? Okay. Okay, I think we're done. Maybe we should just skip this thing and get get into preaching. Okay, so that's good. So, so the thing is, what qualifies us, you know, all these factors, and, and, like, to say a person of, you know, just just to sum up, you know, in these five essential requirements to be a person after God's own heart, to be a person of the word, character, prayer, and ability as well, right? So to take that up seriously, so that God can really use us. And this he really wants to do that, wants us to be spokespersons, ambassadors of his kingdom. That's God's desire. So, yeah, so that we would align ourselves that we would build ourselves in all these areas, right, for his glory. Okay, so next chapter is about the ministry of the word. Okay, so what are we preaching the content of what we are communicating? Okay, so that's, that's really important. And why it's important. We'll come to that, right? Okay, so we'll stop here, right? Okay. Online students, any, any questions? I know you've been required. Any questions or anything that you might want to, okay? I see one thumbs up. Okay. Okay, so we'll stop here. And then we'll pick it up next week. God bless. Bye bye.


When the narcissist realises you're finished, when they realise you're finished with them, you no longer want to deal with them, you're no longer interested, at some point you get fed up, you realise that the relationship is pointless and useless, and you're reluctant to experience any more of it, but narcissists are very needy. They need emotional support, they need constant attention and reassurance, they need to feel superior, they need to be right, they need to latch on to people who are powerful and successful. They need you to validate the illusions of their false self, they need you to submit to them, they need you to enable their dysfunctional behaviour, but sometimes they will love bomb you, sometimes they will give you something that you desire, but that's only to lure you in so that they can get what they want from you, sometimes they will get very angry, they will complain about everything and there will be constant arguments, they will try to convince you that you have to think the same way that they do, they will try to convince you to do things their way and if you don't they will be very angry or upset which leaves you walking on eggshells, it leaves you to become extremely cautious about your words and actions where you are very careful not to offend or upset them because they get angry and offended very easily or sometimes they might give you the silent treatment but at some point you're finished, you no longer want to deal with them because you realise there's nothing special or exciting about them it doesn't interest you so you become indifferent because you realise there's no positive aspect of the situation you're not receiving anything of value from it, it doesn't benefit you in any way, it's not improving your life, it's not making you a better person they're just using you, they're accepting something from you, without returning something of equal value in exchange and that is why they never appreciated you that is why they took it for granted because they didn't have to earn it and once they've exhausted you of your useful properties, they will treat you as an worthy of serious consideration they will discard you, they're not going to be there to offer support or assistance to you but there's nothing you can tell them, it will just make them strengthen their commitment to their particular strategy and course of action they will increase their efforts and hold to their position and opinion, they will tell you why you're wrong and why you need to think the same way as they do they will tell you that you just need to give them what they need as though that's the right thing for you to do but when you finally get tired of playing games with a narcissist, they will go into panic mode and they will do anything they can to stop you from getting away because they see it as though you think you're better than them so they will try to beat you to the punch they will try to get you before you get them they will try to gain an advantage over you and you may try to talk to them but it won't get through because they lack empathy they're very arrogant and entitled and despite everything they've done to you they will become the victim and they will have to win they will have to make the final decision because they have to be superior to you but this is when you really see who they are because when there is a disagreement they will become very needy and demanding and they will blame you for your faults or mistakes as though you are the problem but if you're really the problem why do they need your support? the narcissists saw you as an object they saw you as something that was useful to them something that they could use to their advantage which is why when you don't give them what they want they will discard you and find something else but when you lose interest in them they will expect you to pay they will expect you to suffer a misfortune because you're not meeting their needs but not wanting to deal with the narcissist is not beyond the limits of acceptability or fairness it's guided by good sense but when you do that they will blame you they will make false accusations they will try to force you into a position or purpose that you don't desire to be in and then they will try to make you feel guilty for trying to avoid their imposed obligations but when they do that they're just showing you that you will write all along thank you for watching I hope this video resonate with you please like, comment, share and subscribe if you would like to donate my PayPal link is in the video description coaching inquiries you can email me at coaching.narcsurviver.uk thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


All right, so another important rule for calculating basic probabilities that we'll make use of is the rule describing complementary events. So what I mean by this term complementary events, two events are complementary. If between them, they cover all the different possibilities. So as an example, if I flip a coin, either it comes up heads or it comes up tails, but those are the only two options. There's heads and there's tails and there's no other possibility. As a more chemistry related example, an electron can have spin up or it can have spin down, but those are the only two possibilities, heads and tails for a coin, or spin up, spin down for an electron are complementary events, because if we know one of them happens, the other one is the only other option. So the probability rule, if we have two complementary events, and again writing this as an equation, is just putting something that's fairly clear into an equation that might make it seem more difficult at first. But if I want to know the probability of one event A, it's just one minus the probability of the other event if A and B are complementary. So to make sure we understand how that works, we can think of this example of the butane molecule. So if I have a butane molecule that at room temperature in the gas phase is either anti-Gosch plus or Gosch minus, with probabilities of 68% in the anti-phase and anti-confirmation and 16% in either of the two Gosch confirmations. If I want to know what the probability is that the molecule is in a Gosch, either one of the two Gosch confirmations, either Gosch plus or Gosch minus, when we talked about mutually exclusive events, we thought of that as an or problem when we summed these two results. There's another way to do that, which is to say that either the molecule is in a Gosch confirmation or it's in an anti-confirmation and between those two, Gosch or anti, they cover all the different possibilities. So those are complementary events and we can say that the probability that it's Gosch is one minus the probability that it's anti or one minus 68.68 gives us 32 or 32%. Whichever way we think about it, either as mutually exclusive events or as complementary events, we get the same answer, of course, and this illustrates that often there's more than one way to think about a probability problem. Often what happens is you can think of one way that's a little bit easier to do the problem than another to show you an example of that. Let's consider a hydrogen atom. So again, I'll give you the probabilities, the experimentally determined probabilities for finding the hydrogen atom in different states, like we did for butane, but there's more than one state that the electron in a hydrogen atom can be. If I ask you what orbital you'd find the electron in a hydrogen atom in, you'd tell me it's in the 1s orbital. But if I raise the temperature of the hydrogen atom significantly, let's say we are talking about the hydrogen that's in the sun rather than in the laboratory here on earth, then maybe there's a possibility that electron could be in the 2s or the 2p or some higher level excited state. At a particular elevated temperature, the exact temperature is not terribly relevant for this example, let's suppose we've heated the hydrogen atom to a point where there's only a 78% chance the electron is found in the 1s orbital. And in fact, there's a 2% chance of finding it in the 2s orbital and a 6% chance of finding it in the 2p orbital. And I can keep going. The more higher excited states, 3s, 3s, 3p, 3d have their own individual probabilities. And I don't have to stop there. There's 4s and 4f and 5s and there's actually an infinite number of states if I continue this list. So those probabilities, eventually, you're going to have to add up to 100%, but I'm going to have to continue further down this list to get them to add all the way up to 100%. Let's suppose what I want to know is what's the total probability that that molecule, that atom of hydrogen is in some excited electronic state, that the electron is not in the ground state, the 1s state, but it's in one of the various excited states. So if I think about that as a mutual exclusive problem, then what I've asked to do is what's the sum of the probabilities in the 2s or 2p or 3s, 3p, 3d, and so on. So I'd have to add up all these numbers. But of course, the easier way to answer that question is to say, well, that's either it's in a ground state, the one single ground state, or it's in one of the excited states. So the probability that it's in any one of the excited state is 1 minus the probability that it's in the ground state. And that we can do much more easily. So there's 1 minus a 78% chance or a 22% chance that the molecule is in one of these excited states. So all these excited states are going to sum up to 22% because I know the whole list has to add up to 100%. So here's a case where it's clearly easier to think about this problem in terms of complementary events than by summing a list, which I may not even have the full list of things I need to sum up over here. So this illustrates that often thinking about the probability problem from a complementary events point of view gives you a shortcut versus calculating the answer the most direct way.


There we are. We are being recorded. So welcome today everyone to avoid the junk, how to get quality used computers with our TechSoup Talks webinar. If you are online and tweeting this, feel free to use the Twitter hashtag, pound TechSoup. After this webinar you will also be able to ask any additional questions in our hardware forum. So thank you all for joining us. I will go ahead and introduce our presenters so we can get ourselves rolling. Again, I am Becky Wiegand with TechSoup. I am a staff writer here, and I also help produce our webinars. And I would like to introduce First Jim Lynch who is the head of our Green Tech Initiative here. And he has been a long time advocate for refurbishing and reuse of electronic equipment and computers. He is a real expert on this topic. We will also be joined by Matthew Halden who is the head of our Refurbished Computer Initiative which is TechSoup's product offering of hardware for nonprofits and libraries. He will give you more details about that program in a little bit. We are also joined by Lisa Gonzalez of Redemptech. She is representing our partner Redemptech who helps us make sure that our computers that are distributed are high quality and refurbished through the factory refurbishment process that she will discuss in a little while. Answering our chat questions we have Andreas Galvez who is also with our Refurbished Computer Initiative. And he is the guy that knows the minute details of everything about RCI. And he is the one that you would talk to if you end up calling us to ask questions about our program or place a request for computers. So he will be on the chat to help answer any questions regarding the program. And then we also have Kevin Lowe who is a Senior Tech Analyst here at TechSoup. And he will be here to collect your questions and make sure that if you have any tech problems you are being assisted. So thank you everyone for joining us. A quick overview of what our agenda is going to cover. I have already done the introductions. So we are going to talk a little bit about TechSoup and our mission around refurbishment, why it is important, why there is an environmental case for it, and give you some tips for choosing your refurbisher whether you go through an organization like ours or Redemptech or anybody else for that matter. We will talk a little bit about what our program offers and talk about what Redemptech does and the value they bring to the sector. And then we will leave you with some resources and open it up for question and answer. So to just start it off, I have a background with nonprofit organizations before my work here at TechSoup. And I was always kind of the accidental techie who was in charge of figuring out how to get computers when one busted.  No worries, it will be great. And realized after a while that that actually cost us a lot more in the long run to go about it in a really disheveled manner. Because we almost always ended up with a computer that still had some data on it or had software left on it that we didn't own it and we didn't have the license keys. So later if we needed to upgrade, we had all sorts of problems. So we soon realized that we had to really look at how we were replacing our hardware. And as a small nonprofit, I think we had 4 people in our office at the time. We were really tight budgeted. So cost mattered, but quality mattered just as much because we ended up paying for it in the end if we went with bad refurbishing or just took donated computers from anyone. So we'll have some resources to discuss at the end of this that will help you avoid that. But the tips that we are going to discuss here today will hopefully help your organization get the equipment you need and avoid the junk. So to start us off I'm going to go ahead and ask Jim Lynch to go ahead and give us a little bit of an introduction of both his work in history as well as what TechSoup's mission is around refurbishing. So go ahead Jim, let's get us started on our refurbishment mission. Thanks Becky. This is Jim Lynch. I've been here a long, long time here at TechSoup before it was even called TechSoup. And we've been in this area of work for about 10 years. And our work in this field has been advocacy for the reuse portion of the electronics recycling sector, which is kind of a not well understood part of computer recycling. And so we've basically been trying to strengthen whatever way we can these people who do computer reuse, repair, refurbishment. We've been promoting refurbishment standards for instance, really holding conferences and things that advocate for everybody having warranties, everybody having fail rates under 10%, everybody having customer support that is personal, and things like that. We also try to increase public and institutional awareness mostly from institutions like universities and large businesses on how to usefully donate equipment. It's important to know that the huge install base of the computer equipment is two thirds in institutions or in businesses. And they get rid of their equipment at a fairly young age between 3 and 4 years of age. So most of that, or much of that is very useful and we want to get it into refurbishment and out to the people who really need it at the lowest possible cost. There's an incredible environmental case for adding life to electronics, which is another thing we're advocating for. And we want to divert just every under 5 year old computer into that stream. And we want to divert all the ones that are over that that are kind of nearing their end of life to proper computer recycling. And then essentially we want every nonprofit in school and even low income individuals wherever they may be to have computers they need or want. So that's our advocacy work. Back to you Becky. Thanks Jim. We have some great resources here that Jim has collected on the value of the environmental case and why this really matters. So I'm not going to read these all off but you can see on the screen some statistics. Hi, sorry about that. We had a little bit of an audio problem. I apologize. My line muted itself for some reason. But I was just talking about Jim has collected some great statistics here on the environmental case for refurbished talking about how just one of these bullets, a 5 pound laptop, when it's discarded you're throwing away 20,000 pounds of raw materials that it took to make it, which is a pretty staggering number. So Jim did you want to go over any of these other statistics or should we move along to our tips for refurbishing at this point? Let me just say a couple things about this. I mean whenever possible people love to buy milk and that's great and that's understandable. But the environmental case stems from the fact that huge, huge numbers of computers are discarded at about half their lifespan all over the world. And we think that's crazy because it takes a huge amount of energy and water is polluted in the making of them and they contain about a thousand different things, different components and materials in them. So they're a wildly expensive environment to make. So extending life of the over 1 billion computers in the world is actually an environmental mission. And it has to do not so much with toxic reduction as it has to do with the zero waste part of the environmental movement. And that's kind of where we naturally fit in this whole thing. So that should probably tell people what they need to know. But one thing I want to do, I want to mention beyond that is that the US EPA is basically absolutely confirming this whole thing. It's 25 times more beneficial environmentally to reuse computers and recycle them at 3 to 5 years of age as this slide says. So that's it for the environmental case I think. That's great. Thanks so much Jim for those statistics. It is kind of staggering for somebody who uses a computer every day to kind of realize how much energy is expended just in the creation of them. So hopefully because we're all on this webinar together, we're all here for the same reason and understand the value of looking to refurbish computers instead of buying new. So right now I'm going to turn it over to Matthew Halden from our RCI program to give the first 4 of our 8 tips on how to choose a good refurbisher and what to look for when you are looking at used computers. So take it away Matthew. Thank you Becky. So just a little quick introduction about myself. I've been with TechSoup about 7 years now and have started working much more closely and in line with Jim and all of his work around advocacy and just education about the benefits of reusing a machine. So this is a really cool thing for me to participate in and I'm really excited to get a chance to speak with all of you about this and my experience. So the first tip that you see here is just that we know that computers are especially for nonprofits a very considered purchase decision because of their expense and the limited budgets that people have for technology in the nonprofit and library space. So we highly encourage people to and think it's a good idea to try when you're looking for refurbished computers and computer equipment to go with the more recognized manufacturers. And it really helps for things like doing apples to apples comparisons both across specifications when you're assessing your technology needs and when you're evaluating things like pricing because these folks, you're going to see these machines across a large cross section of resellers including computer refurbishers. Also the larger manufacturers like the Dells, HPs, IBMs publish a lot more information about their products that you can usually research and find information on the web about things like troubleshooting guides or other documents that can just help to support the products themselves. So our second tip is around warranties and return policies. What we found is that obviously with used computers you're going to run into problems sometimes and when you're considering or looking to buy some you definitely want to look into and make sure that there is some amount of warranty coverage for those computers. It seems like industry standard is typically somewhere between 30 and 90 days and obviously the more coverage you get the better. One of the things that we've learned through our experience in offering refurbished computer equipment through TechSoup Global is that a lot of nonprofits when they purchase their computers because they're often not a lot of real savvy tech people that are just always on site. People have a tendency to kind of just sit on the product when it gets to their offices and they might not get around to opening the box and checking everything out for weeks or even months in many cases. And it's really important that people check out what they got right away because that clock is ticking on the warranty as soon as the product ships. So the last thing that you want is to have that computer sitting in a box for the duration of the warranty period and then open it up only to find that it's missing a key component or just is non-functional. And then you have to go out and spend more money to pay somebody to fix it for you or worse yet it's just completely unusable. Our third tip is around software. So many computers these days are bundled with software packages and it's really important that when you're looking at purchasing a computer or computer equipment that comes with that software that it really is legal and the licensing is authentic. Typically this is more common in used PC settings if you're looking on some of the larger retail spaces for online retail spaces like Craigslist and eBay. You're going to find a lot of pirated software that comes with these computers and that can cause a lot of problems down the road whether it's when you go to upgrade your equipment or transfer the software over to another machine or something like that. You just want to make sure that it's legal and that you're doing it the right way. You definitely don't want to get a phone call from the Microsoft anti-piracy folks. So our fourth tip is around service and support for the equipment. Again when you're going through your purchase decision process I think one of the things that's really nice to have a thing is just to know that there will be somebody available to you on the other end once you receive that equipment whether it's via phone or email or even a web chat function some way to be able to reach back out should you get the wrong piece of equipment or it's not complete or have to just return the whole thing to get a replacement. That personalized level of service is really a nice thing to have and helps people feel a little more secure and confident that they're spending the money wisely and going to ultimately get what they pay for. Those are great tips. And before we move on to the next four of our eight tips if you could raise your hand if you've purchased or gotten refurbished or used computers before, that gives us a good idea of how many people have already been in the situation of having refurbished machines. Later on maybe we can hear a little bit via the chat of some of your experiences. And I'm hoping that they were good ones but I know I personally had some less than good ones and so it helps to know a lot of the tips that are being offered here. So it looks like we've got probably about 10 people who have ventured into the refurbished or used computer realm before, and a lot of others who have stayed away from refurbished for whatever reason. So hopefully this will give you an opportunity to want to venture into the refurbished computer territory. So I'm going to go ahead and pass it along to Jim Lynch to go ahead and give us our next four tips for searching for a good refurbisher. There we go. I'm muted. So number five is when buying online make sure that you buy from a reputable place. That's a pretty common sense. One thing that I look for just personally is something called the very sign secured seal. That's what we use at TechSoup and that's what Amazon uses and a bunch of other reputable websites. And the other thing that we recommend is basically avoid going to a website through spam links. So it's best if you initiate the going to a website and looking around. This would be the same for places like Refurb Depot or other kinds of online dealers and used equipment. So the next one is pricing of refurbished PCs. And so on our program, the RCI program, Refurbished Computer Initiative, we have office or commercial grade equipment that comes out of essentially corporations. And so once again do the apples to apples comparison. You can get lower priced equipment that's for home use or consumer use. But our experience is that in nonprofit offices and especially in labs computers take a pounding and it's better to get a more robust type of computer. And of course when you get equipment it should come up all the right chords and peripherals and mice and keyboards. Everything working in our program we basically have found that it's useful to add new mice and keyboards to our equipment that we send out. The next one is to make sure that refurbished equipment is taken back conveniently at the end of life at low or no cost. First of all probably everybody knows that it's not good to throw away the stuff that it contains toxic metals like lead, mercury, and cadmium. There's not universal free recycling in the United States or anywhere else in the world except for the 27 states of the European Union. There are about 20 U.S. states that have no cost recycling. And there's a nice list and I'm at the electronic take back campaign. In those states you would get free recycling. In every other state you probably won't. And probably you should expect to pay something in a range of $20 to get computers properly recycled. One thing when getting rid of equipment that you should really think about is the fact that your data needs to be wiped clean completely and utterly. To format a hard drive actually does not do that. It's important to know that there's special software and there's a standard for the kind of software it has to be. It's from the U.S. Department of Defense. And so it's called the 5220.22 standard. So if you talk to a refurbisher or a recycler make sure that they use that type of software and make sure that they know that you need your software or your hard drive wiped. You can certainly wipe it yourself.  And then finally check to ensure that your refurbisher has clearly stated policy about fail rates and so on. And one thing we stress is that 10% for both new and used equipment is the kind of industry standard on that. And in terms of end of life things it's important that you ask questions to them. So if you go to a recycler you should probably question about them what their policies are on exporting because a lot of stuff is going into developing countries in a very bad way. If they claim that they are US EPA certified, don't believe it. The EPA doesn't certify any recyclers. That's a bad sign. And the US federal government actually has a checklist of all the questions you should ask at the federal electronics challenge. So that's it for the last four tips. Great. Thanks Jim. And we have a link to that government challenge that shows the refurbishing information of different companies toward the end of this presentation among our resources. And again don't feel like you need to jot down any notes here because you'll receive all of these slides and links to the resources discussed after the fact. So now I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to Matthew for a few minutes just to talk a little bit about our own refurbishing, our own program here at TechSoup Global for refurbished computers. And again we have Andreas Galvez on the line as well who is here to answer any questions. So if you have ordered computers through TechSoup before and have questions or if you are interested in doing so, he's the person to ask and can help address any questions in our chat during this portion and also in the Q&A toward the end. So Matthew, tell us a little bit about RCI. Well hello again. So everybody heard a little bit earlier Jim talk about and describe our TechSoup Global's work in the area around advocacy and education about reuse. And most of you probably know that we've been offering, donated, and heavily discounted software for a long time. Well one of the things that we heard a lot about from all of the nonprofits and library communities that we work with is that there was also a huge and significant need in the nonprofit arena for quality, cheap computer equipment. So we decided to create a program ourselves to make good affordable refurbished computer equipment available to the customers that we serve. So the mission of the RCI program is generally speaking to just reduce the overall volume of good usable computers and computer equipment that is currently going into the waste stream and ending up in landfills and to turn that equipment into refurbished computers that are fully functional and at a good price point and make those products available to the libraries, nonprofits, and low income individuals that our organization serves. The program effectively works by, we work with RedemTech who we'll introduce you to and let's speak in just a little bit here, who's one of the largest computer refurbishers and asset management companies they're called in the United States. So they help us acquire the products that you see available in our catalog. They perform a series of services on those computers that includes testing, fixing damaged parts, cleaning the machines so that they're in better cosmetic shape and pre-installing the software that goes on top of these machines. They also then ship the equipment to the nonprofits that request them through our website. In terms of eligibility, the program is actually very inclusive. Many of TechSoup Global's programs have very specific rules about who's eligible to participate and receive our donated products. The RCA program in large part due to the fact that it's actually a TechSoup program is much more open and available to just about our entire customer base. And in terms of restrictions, which are basically the rules that govern and dictate things like how often you can request product donations and in what quantities, things like that, it's again very, very open. There are no budgetary restrictions. So organizations of just about all type and all sizes can request our refurbished computer equipment. And there really aren't any quantity limitations for the program. Organizations can request as many computers as they have a need for over time. However, due to supply issues, and I want to just be able to provide consistent turnaround times and set expectations appropriately around how quickly the organizations will get the products we do ask for organizations who have special quantity limits in excess of 10 machines per order or request that they work those through with our administrative folks so that we can coordinate on the back end with our refurbishing partner to ensure timely delivery and that there's sufficient product available. In terms of our product offerings, it's a pretty good cross-section of manufacturers and spec ranges from a variety of or rather across desktop and notebook products. All of them again are guaranteed to be in good working condition and cosmetically free of any major damage or defects with refurbished equipment when you're bound to have some minor blemishes, surface scratches, and things like that that's fully functional and tested. We're constantly working to expand our catalog of offerings and hope someday soon to be offering a consistent supply of things like LCD monitors and potentially lots of other types of refurbished equipment. These are all business grade computers, which is another important thing to note which just means they're more powerful and robust machines that are intended and built for a little more of the kind of wear and tear of the office setting. Some other things that are kind of unique and special about our RRCI program, all of the computers that you find do come with pre-installed software. That includes both a Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office standard suite which has the Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word applications. So just about everything we feel that meets a nonprofit's needs relative to how they'll be using the computer. The machines also come with a 90-day warranty. So like I mentioned in the tips earlier today, it is still really important that folks open up their boxes and check everything out to make sure it's fully functional and everything's there. When you get your equipment, we want to make sure that if there are problems that we're able to get you your fully functional computers and all of the component parts in a timely manner before the warranty expires. Another really unique thing about the RCI program and our service offering is that just in the last year we've introduced a new service which we're calling the Take Back Program. This is a free service that is included with all of our equipment that you see in the catalog today. Basically this allows our nonprofit and library customers to work with our refurbishing partner, Redemptech, to have their machines or equipment be returned back to them where the machines will be wiped of all data and the products will be disposed of in the most environmentally responsible way. You'll hear more about this later on but Redemptech does have a zero waste export policy. So we feel that this is a really unique thing and something that makes our product offering very special and very green, which we like very much. A couple of other things just to quickly note here about the RCI program. There is customer support available for just general questions about the products in the program. And I think Becky introduced you to Andrece a little bit earlier who is a dedicated administrator who can provide kind of a second tier level of support should you have any problems or questions around quality or have any special needs relative to products that you need, special configurations or larger quantity orders, things like that. Additionally we have a pretty robust RMA process that does include some technical support that would be provided to you for troubleshooting and things like that. And we also have a very large community and content resources on the TechSoup website where you can post questions at our forums and things like that to get additional information about what the right computer is for you and how to most effectively utilize the products that you are requesting. Great. Thank you, Matthew. Just to let folks know who are interested in seeing more about the different products available, it is this really long link. I'm just skipping back one slide. It's a really long link on this slide where you can see the full range of products available through TechSoup's refurbishment program. And you can look at the prices and all the specs and details. We had a couple of people who were asking questions about the configurations of the software that are installed, and Andre has responded to one of them just saying that the machines come standard with, and this is the typical configuration with Windows XP Pro operating system and Office 2003 standard. So there's business grade software that's installed on these machines when you get them. And I think Matthew noted that it's all bundled as one price or one cost that includes shipping as well. So keep that in mind when you're looking at refurbishers and you're comparing costs. Make sure that you're looking at, do they charge an additional fee for shipping? Do they charge additional fees for the different peripheral things like your mouse and your keyboard? Or do they charge additional fees for the software that comes installed or does it come installed with any software? So just make sure that you're looking at that. Now somebody just asked a question. Curtis is asking why there are no Apple products. And that's a tough question that we deal with a lot, but we just don't see that there's a lot of products that are a lot of computers that are Mac-based that come through the refurbishing system. There's just not a lot that's donated and a lot of companies are using PCs and it's corporations largely that donate into this cycle. And I think Jim can also respond to this one a little bit better as well. So I'll pass it to him to address. Yeah, that's a great question. Apple has very, very few certified refurbishers and their licensing requirements for putting the OSs on them is very difficult for refurbishers. So they do refurbishment themselves and there are just a few places like Small Dog Electronics in New England that do carry refurbished Macs. They generally have a pretty high resale price. But I think the problem with this is mostly the relicensing of operating systems with Apple computers that kind of limit the amount of resale that goes on with them. That's our experience with it. Great, thanks for clarifying on that. And we'll go to more questions in a little bit as well. So just to go back to Matthew really quickly, I'd love to have him just highlight some of the impact that the RCI program has had across the sector and environmentally because we do serve a lot of nonprofits and libraries. And the impact is pretty huge with just a small amount of time that we've put into this. Thanks Becky. Everybody can read the information that's on this slide, but I think this is part of for me what's really exciting about the work that we're doing here. This program is just entering its fourth year and we've already helped more than 6,000 nonprofit organizations and libraries by distributing refurbished computer equipment to them. In total it's a little more than 14,000 pieces of equipment which we've been able to reuse and keep out of the landfills. We're using a tool that was developed by the EPA in conjunction with some universities. I can't remember exactly which universities, but we're able to kind of calculate some of the environmental benefit from the reuse of all of this equipment. So you can see some really neat kind of data points and equivalencies that we've shown here based on how the distribution and reuse of these computers equates to things like greenhouse gas, savings, energy savings, and all solid waste savings. Great. Thank you. That's really helpful. And now we've talked about Redemptech and mentioned them a couple of times. And so I'd like to introduce Lisa from Redemptech just to talk a little bit about what they do. And there's just one example of a refurbisher that we work with, we partner with for all of our products. But there are many others out there. And again this webinar's intention was to help you have the tips for choosing the one that best fits your needs. And we hope of course that some of your needs can be filled with the products that come through TechSoup through Redemptech. And if they don't, then we hope that the resources that you're learning here today will help you find one that does. And so I'd like to invite Lisa to give us a little overview of what is Redemptech, what do they do, and what does their factory refurbishment mean, so that you can use that information to compare when you're looking around for others as well. So Lisa, can you join us? Sure. Thank you, and good morning and good afternoon to everyone that's joined us. Today I wanted to describe a little bit about what Redemptech does, and then we'll talk about what a factory refurbished piece of equipment means to you and to others. Redemptech is a leader in the E-Steward standard, and what that means is that if we do get equipment from large organizations, enterprises, etc., we will not export that e-waste overseas to underdeveloped our third world countries. We are ensuring that all of that product, if it cannot be reused, will be re-recycled here in the United States and used as source for additional manufacturing here in the United States. We do not incinerate, we do not use prison labor, and we obviously do not landfill. But our first and foremost cause here at Redemptech is to promote the reuse of computer equipment. So whether that is or non-profits such as you to be able to use this equipment, or whether it's children just needing a laptop or a desktop for high school work, or even being reused in the workforce, but for someone who may not need the latest and greatest processor speeds, that's what our cause is for. Redemptech is a subsidiary of Microelectronics. We're a large, privately held technology company here in the United States with retail stores called MicroCenter. We have sustained organic growth since our tenure. We started our company in 1998, and we do have stable leadership with our company with over nine years plus with a lot of operational experience, and that has helped us become very operationally mature in handling all of the sea waste and making sure that it goes to the right markets for reuse. We are IDC grade endorsed, which means that an independent auditor came and measured our processes and our quality controls to ensure that we are doing what we represent we are doing to all of our customers, and we have been certified to be a responsible asset disposition company for anyone who wants to use this for services. We are fully integrated international service, so we have presence here in the United States as well as Canada, Europe, and Mexico. The one thing that we have realized here, especially with a lot of budgets getting tighter in the economic time, is that an average PC, especially a business model unit that, as Matthew stated, is being built for constant use on a day-in, day-out basis in the professional world. These PCs are indeed very robust, and they can last a very long time. So if an organization used to pull out machines within a three-year period of time after they purchased it new, they are starting to extend the life a little bit within their organizations to usually four to five years at this point now. Although a lot of organizations aren't hit economically as hard as others, and they do have a very aggressive life cycle, but what we have learned in our studies is that the useful life of a Tier 1, which means the main original equipment manufacturers such as Dell, IBM, HP, Compact, those type of hardware units can stay in good working order for an excess of eight years. So what that means is that a lot of the enterprise clients that we work with will be pulling these units out in potentially a three to five-year range, and there's still a lot of use left in those machines. They might not have a lot of market value on the second-hand market, or it has been minimalized depending on how long that machine has been used, but it certainly can be useful for the operator and for the organization that needs to use that machine. So that's why we are making sure that when the units come in, and even if they are missing hardware or components I should say as far as memory or hard drives, we will upgrade and repair and make those units complete again for reuse back into the market. And we won't recycle unless it's absolutely obvious that the machine cannot be repaired back to a complete working unit, which would be economically feasible for anyone to do so. So the other important thing to understand is that not only the financial impact helps everyone in being able to purchase refurbished equipment as opposed to buying new equipment, but it also helps everyone in the larger picture of ensuring that we're not throwing more things to the e-waste side of the sense, and we're not wasting that equipment that could properly be used. So we don't want to dispose of equipment prior to the full extent of their lifetime. Some of the things that RedemTech ensures when we are refurbishing our equipment is making sure that we have the infrastructure and the labor and the management and the controls in place to provide a quality end product at the end. So as I stated we do have very efficient and mature operations. We run over 2 million assets annually through all of our plants and that's a mixture of all types of technology. So we have to have technicians who are very well versed in the different types of gear that will be coming through the door along with PCs and the monitors and so forth. We have consistent quality control checks in place to ensure that we are meeting everyone's standards along with ensuring that the product is being dispossesioned in the correct manner. We do warrant our services and our hardware. So if we provide our product through the RCI program it does come with a 90-day warranty and we're ensuring that it also is in good cosmetic condition as well as the functionality of the machine. And we do provide a 12-hour customer service and technical support group that is always readily available to help the RCI folks and the nonprofits. We do provide the easy and free take-back program so that means that when the nonprofit is done with the machine we will provide an easy website link for them to go to or else call us toll-free to go ahead and pick up that equipment for them and we'll ensure as Matthew stated that it's recycled properly here in the United States. And we also are able to provide a low cost on the cosmetic repairs and the parts that are being performed for the units as we're running them through the machines. So refurbished hardware checkpoint is confirmation that the unit needs the specification, the configuration, the cosmetic condition requirements that is required within the program for the RCI program and for the nonprofit. We are making sure that we are doing a diagnostics testing of that machine, making sure that all internal components are working as well as external reports. We are doing the inspection of the memory size and the hard drive size and wireless connectivity and upgrading those areas if necessary. We are ensuring that the data is overwritten to meet the Department of Defense requirements as Jim Lynch mentioned earlier. We do the imaging for the Microsoft OS and Office Suite and that imaging is per the model and the drivers that are required for that machine specifically. We do, for desktops we open up the case and we do an internal inspection of the unit and clean out the inside of the gear as well. And as I mentioned cosmetic restoration, buffing and painting and exterior cleaning is key to making sure that everyone is very happy with the end product. And we do include new keyboards and mice for the desktops and appropriate power cords always with all of the equipment along with the easy setup guide and support information. And new and box packaging ensures that the product is being shipped out and will arrive in a safe and secure manner. So if anyone has any interest in learning more about Redemptech and how we again can produce and supply the hardware that we are for the RCI program please visit us at our website. You'll find that there are some newsletters and white papers and a lot of independent research and regulatory database information that's free for you to peruse and sign up for to just constantly be informed of what's going on out there. That's terrific. Thanks so much Lisa for that overview. And I think the list that she just covered of all of the checkpoints that Redemptech goes through to ensure that your refurbished computer meets that factory refurbishment standard is a great list to take anywhere you go if you're looking for a refurbished machine. So if you're talking to a local tech guy who says I'm willing to refurbish some donated computers I got, it would be a great idea to run down a list like that and see what the standards are that are being used before you invest. I've listed a few additional resources here that we won't spend time on today but there's everything from an article on tips for buying refurbished computers and the sections on our site where you can find more information about recycling and reuse and obviously the refurbished computer initiative that we just talked about and what Jim mentioned earlier, the U.S. government's Federal Electronics Challenge where you can see different products. We're going to go ahead and open it up for some questions. We've already had quite a few coming in so we'll jump right in. VJ has asked what is the minimum charge for refurbished computer through the RCI program? So I don't know if Matthew might be able to take that. I think they're about $180 for a desktop and $260 or so for a laptop. I'm not sure if that's totally correct but you can find all of that product information on our website with the links that you'll receive in the follow-up email. Matthew's shaking his head, no, don't ask me. So let's see what else we have that's already come in here. We had a question from Ushnish about any thoughts on using proprietary Microsoft software versus open-source software for refurbished computers. Matthew's already said that the RCI computers come with a standard install of Microsoft operating systems and software, but other open-source things are most welcome and Jim will go ahead and talk a little bit about that. Yeah, one of my hats here at TechSoup is to be the GreenTech co-director. And we're getting a lot of refurbishers. And by the way, we run something called the, or we administer something called the Microsoft authorized refurbisher program, community version of it. And there are over 700 computer refurbishers out there in the United States and a whole bunch more in other countries.  They use them and it works very well. And they also use an application which is freeware called OpenOffice, which works very well. And then just coming online are Google Docs, which are essentially a version of Microsoft Office. It's not Microsoft, but it's a version of an Office applications like word processing and spreadsheets and things that you use on the Internet.  And it's a very useful open source. It's semi-open source, but freeware that you can use and they work very well. So yes, the question is resounding yes on that. Great, thanks Jim. We have just a few minutes left, so we're going to go ahead and get to some other questions. We have kind of a general question. How long typically will these computers last, giving the ongoing operating system upgrades and dropping of support by Microsoft of old operating systems? What's the real life span we can expect? Yeah, that's such a great question. The thing we didn't mention, or I think we may have not mentioned well enough, is the hardware life of desktop computers is between 7 and 8 years of age, and the hardware life of laptops is a bit less, between 6 and 7 years of age. And so depending on the life or the age of the used computer or refurbished computer you'll get, you should be able to get between 3 and 4 years of age for desktops and between 2 and 3 years of age for laptops. Now the other aspect of this is that software degrades over time. So it's a weird thing that software kind of gets messed up. And my recommendation to people is that every couple of years it's useful to reinstall the software on your computer, especially in operating systems. And it's a hassle, and it's hard to do, but it actually will make the computer run much, much better and much cleaner and much faster. There's no extra cost in doing that. It's just labor that that's very useful for every computer, new computers, or used computers. Great, thank you for that. That's really useful. And I think along the same lines, I know this was answered to this individual person over chat, but I do think it's relevant to everybody, but Marie had asked, what is the correct computer for my nonprofit? We use Office, FileMaker Pro, and the Internet. So not a whole lot of high-end usage, but what is the correct type of computer to look for as a refurbished machine if you're only using basic functions like that versus maybe if you have a networked office that's all connected to a server. Are there different levels of computers that are offered through the refurbishing program? Anybody want to field that one? Hi, this is Bill Robertson with RedemTech. Really, when you look at why we've made such inroads and used computers is because of the software that's associated with these machines. If you look at technology with computers, you basically double the computer every, I think it's 18 months as far as the capacity and the build-up. And what's happened over this period of time is that the software has not kept up with the engines of the computer. So a dual core machine today, yes, they run your current software a little bit quicker and faster. However, we're still back in the realm of the office, the 2003. And so what happens is that the machines that we have offered through this program are quite capable of running your current business. And if you divide this into both desktops and laptops, you can run an XP Pro on something that has 256K memory on it. We don't recommend that, but you can still run that. So when you look at computers that are they good enough for them in business? Of course they are. I would look definitely at the Pentium 4s or greater. Nothing less than that at this point. And on the laptop issues, I would probably start with what they basically call a gigahertz and look for a 1.6 or greater. Those are great recommendations. And I love the specificity because it does, that perplexes a lot of people when they're trying to make the decisions and they're not actually a trained IT person, which was me in my life before I came to TechSoup. I'm still not an IT person. I'm really grateful we have people here to do that for me. We have just one other question that we'll get to and then we're going to wrap it up. And if you have additional questions that didn't get answered, you can take those over to our community forums where we will answer them there. The last question, do we sell any computers that are compatible with Windows 7 or Vista? Vista itself, you need 2GB of memory on the system in order to really run it effectively. On Windows 7, you only need 1GB of RAM. So when you go to look at the computers, yes, these computers have the capacity to do that because most of them will go up to probably 4GB of memory. However, what we sell on the site is really based on, I believe probably 1GB of memory at this point. Great, that's really useful. And I think that sounded like a pretty hearty endorsement for upgrading to Windows 7 and bypassing this file together if you've never landed there in your own office. Thank you so much for everyone joining us today. We are just about out of time, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up. Again, I invite you to join us to continue the discussion in our community forums. You will receive this link shortly after this wraps up in a follow-up email so you can find us there. I'd like to thank our speakers. Thank you, Lisa, for your participation, and Matthew and Jim from TechSoup and Andres and Kevin for helping manage the chat. And Bill from RedumTech for joining us here at the last minute. We really appreciate that input. I'd also like to thank our sponsor, ReadyTalk. They have made this webinar possible by donating the use of their system to help TechSoup expand awareness of technology throughout the nonprofit sector. ReadyTalk helps nonprofits and libraries in the U.S. and Canada reach geographically dispersed areas and increase collaboration through their audio conferencing and web conferencing services. So thank you much everyone for joining us. We really hope that this has been useful for you. Please take a moment to throw out the post-event survey. Five good, one bad. We hope that you give us a lot of fives if it was useful. And do join us back in our forums to continue the discussion. Thank you so much, and have a great afternoon everyone. Thank you.