Hey guys, my name is Wilson. Today, we're going to be talking about how do you start a restaurant with $0, okay?   I have grandma's recipe in this really, really good area and community, which I want to be able to open up a restaurant. But the biggest thing is that I don't have the capital and the investment. When I first started off, I didn't have the capital either. However, I was actually able to save up from other businesses, which allowed me to diversify and invest in this business. I know some of you are not in that position, which is the reason why I'm shooting this video with you to share with you the four secrets on how do you actually raise capital in order to run your own restaurant, in order for you to be able to bring that recipe to life and in order for you to be able to create something that you're so excited in building. If you guys do stay till the end, I'm going to share a story with you on how we are actually able to raise $200,000 Canadian for my ice cream shop business.  The number one way to raise capital, the easiest way out there is through friends and family. Now I'm going to explain to you the pros and cons of raising capital through your friends and family to run your restaurant business. The pros of that is that it's the easiest to get the money. You don't need to show them a proof of concept. You don't need to show them a pitch deck. You don't need to show them too, too much things. The only reason why they're investing is in you. As much as they want to say that they want to check out the location, they want to check out the product that you're serving, they want to check out your business plan. All those honestly is irrelevant because at the end of the day, if they're looking for a business opportunity, they wouldn't be investing in you. Just simply put, let's just put it out there guys. It is because they love you, they trust you and they want to support your dreams in building a food and beverage restaurant. That's the reason why it's going to be the easiest way to raise capital and that's the number one pro of raising capital through your friends and family. On the flip side of raising capital through your friends and family is that you're going to be under a lot of pressure.  It's a really, really big risk that you're taking on because if the business is successful, great, everyone is happy.  Now on the other hand, if your business is not successful, then technically speaking, you've just lost a friend, you've just lost a family member and you need to understand and weigh the risks of this because there's so many of my friends that I see that when they take on different projects and raise money through different of their families and their friends, they've lost their friends, they've lost their family, they get into arguments because they didn't set the right expectation. So having said that, if you are to be able to raise money through your friends and family, do make sure to make sure that you set the right expectation. Let them know the duration of how long this investment is going to be. Second of all, let them know that 80% of the time, if not 90% of the time, they need to understand that the money that they're investing in you is at risk of being completely gone and that you are going to try your very best in order for them to help them grow the money, but there's no guarantee and that they should have that expectation of this is an investment, a high risk investment. And when you're able to set that expectation, hopefully, okay, hopefully you can actually keep this relationship intact. That's the number one way to raise money for your restaurant if you have no money. So raising money through your friends and family is one way that I highly, highly would not recommend to any of you guys. However, there's a lot of people that do that. I personally value my relationships much, much, much more than running a business, which is the reason why I would never, ever ask my friends and family for money. And I would highly recommend you not do the same as well because at the end of the day, what good does it bring when you have a successful business, when you don't have your friends or family to share that happiness with? What good does that bring? For me, it doesn't mean anything. I've seen too many sad stories of how entrepreneurs and people have lost their friends and family through business. And it's just a really, really sucky feeling, which I don't really want to go through, which is the reason why I do not recommend it, even though this is the easiest way for you to get money. The second easiest way to raise money for your restaurant if you have zero dollars is through governments, banks, grants, loans, and all this sort. The pros of that is that it's much, much more easier to deal with than your friends, your family, or your grandma because during Christmas time, your bank and your banker is not going to be there asking you about, hey, how's your restaurant coming along and give you that pressure? Now, the cons and the flip side of raising money through banks, governments, and loans is the fact that it may be a lot more paperwork. You need to be able to prove your concept. You need to have different collateral to make sure that the bank has something in their hands in order for them to lend you the money, right? So at the end of the day, you may need a guarantor who's going to sign on your behalf. So then that way, if you do lose all your money, then there is someone to guarantee that you will pay back that money, right? And on top of that, it's a much, much more strict process or a longer process for you to be able to get the money because you're going to have to write a legitimate business plan. You're going to have to write a forecast for your business and you're going to have to actually prove the concept to your banker and convince them or the agencies that this business is viable, that the recipe that you have in mind is going to be exceptional when it comes to the competition, which is a lot of times a lot more difficult than raising money through your friends and family. But this is something that I highly recommend if you are short on cash because you are not going to have to deal with the stress of dealing with your friends and your family. For different cities, different countries, there are different agencies, different banks, they all have different rules, which is the reason why I can't give you one straight answer of who to go to. It really comes back down to your city that you're in and the country that you're in. Give you an example of how we have done it in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is that we actually raise our money through the bank development of Canada and they're very, very lenient with their process of lending money because this bank is actually backed by Canada and they oftentimes they lend up to 90% of what you're asking for. So if you're for us, we're borrowing money, we were able to actually borrow up to $100,000 with zero collateral because this bank of them, they have much more higher risk tolerance for small businesses because this bank is made to provide funding for small businesses. So in your specific area, Google and actually try to find out and do research on specific associations, specific banks, specific programs that actually support small businesses and you're going to be able to find one that is relevant in your specific area. The third way to open up your restaurant with zero dollars is to find a partner, OK?  Aside from the cash injection that your partner brings, they can potentially also be a good partner that you can actually bounce ideas off with. They can actually take on different types of operation within your business. So for example, you know, you have to deal with marketing, finance, logistics, front of the house, back of the house, HR, all this crazy stuff and it's a lot of work when it comes down to it, which is the reason why finding a good partner who can actually bring value to the table is so, so, so important when it is about choosing the right partner. And that is something that is a really major advantage on finding the right one. Now on the flip side, we always, always hear crazy stories about how partners are running away with the money, partners are not doing anything, partners are suing each other, all these crazy things are what you would be expecting if you find the wrong partner. And that's the risk about bringing in someone that you're working with. So that's the reason why in this video, we talk about how do you find a partner that you can actually work with and building your business. Now, out of the three different options that I've mentioned, friends and family, banks, loans, all these different places and through partners, I think finding a good partner and finding a suitable partner is something that I personally would choose. Now, this is a really, really tricky situation because it really comes back down to your alignment in terms of culture, in terms of vision, how you guys do things, right? We talk about the division of the work. What is he gonna do and what are you gonna be doing and is he okay with you taking on, let's say marketing while he's taking on the finances, right? So how do you guys divide up the work which both of you guys are happy? Now, if you're able to find that sweet medium, this equilibrium, then that means you're gonna have an exceptional relationship with your business partners, okay? In this video, we talk about exactly how you find that partner that's gonna be able to help you build this dream restaurant of yours. And that's what we were able to do with 720 Suites. My partner, Brian, this is his face, okay, check him out. Super, super amazing guy. He does all the operations while I take care of the vision. He just puts in like 120%. Throughout the last five years of us partnering up, I can't thank him enough for pulling in all his weight. And also, we may have arguments, but we always, always know it's because we're arguing for the sake of the betterment of the company. It was never personal. He always is putting in 120%. And you know what? I can't say any more good things about this guy because without him, we wouldn't have 720 Suites and let's just put it that way, right? So for me, I got really lucky, but it was also very strategic when I brought in Brian. It was also a lot of hard conversations that we had in the beginning to set the right expectations.  That's how a beautiful dream team is being built. The fourth way to open up your restaurant with $0 is to find angels and investors. So many people have actually messaged me and asking me how do I find investors and how do I find angels and invest in them?  It is because why would anyone, okay, with a right mindset, would invest in you? He's just gonna ask that question. Why would anyone who has the money, okay, invest in you? What makes you different? Why is it that I'm risking 100, 200, 300, half a million dollars on you? Why do I have to do that? What makes you special?  People who have money, they got there for a reason. It is because they're able to actually do the research, they're able to actually be in the trenches. They know a lot more about business. So this is actually the most difficult place for you to be able to get investment from because angels and investors, they invest in things that they think and see opportunity in. So when it comes out to when you're asking yourself, hey, I wanna raise money through angels and investors, ask yourself that one question. What makes you different? Simple as that. The pros of raising money through angels and investors is the fact that these guys have tons of money and are willing to be able to invest in you. You don't need to see them for Christmas. You don't need to see them during your off time. So then that way you're still gonna have a good relationship with your friends and your family. Now on the flip side, they're much, much, much more difficult to learn because they would always ask why you? Make sure you have that question answered. Make sure you're able to actually convince these angels and investors. And on top of that, these guys oftentimes they would invest in people with more track record. With their money, they also would invest in bigger projects. We're talking about maybe multiple chains and they would also look at what you have done in the past to make sure that, hey, if this person is telling me that they have built a 10 shop chain and now they have a new concept which they want investment in, hey, you know what? Maybe this guy knows what he's talking about and he just needs another extra 500K in order for them to scale to the next level, right? Then that's how investors and angels think when they're investing in food and beverage concepts like this. By far out of the four different ways to raise money, I think this is the most difficult one because like I said, why you need to answer that question in order and be super convincing on that note in order for them to invest in you because at the end of the day, think about one thing. Just because you have a crazy delicious recipe doesn't make you any different from the millions of chefs out there. If they really want to get into this business they can easily hire a chef to be able to do R&D on this recipe. They don't need you. So make sure you answer that question.  Bring everything of that to the table. Then perhaps you would have a chance. Other than that, I would highly recommend just sticking to the first three different options and raising funds for your food and beverage restaurant. So there you go. The four ways to open up a restaurant with zero dollars. First way through friends and family, okay? Second, through banks, associations, grants, loans, whatsoever. Third is through partners. And fourth and lastly, through angels and investors. These are the four ways for you to be able to raise capital if you don't have any to start running with your restaurant business. And as I was sharing with you and as promised, I'm gonna be sharing with you a story of how we actually got 200K in investments in 20, well in 720 suites, our ice cream shop. This actually happened three years ago when I was actually documenting my journey and building this ice cream shop, now international chain for 720 suites. And throughout this period, we were experiencing some cash flow problems, which is a reason why we're like, hey, you know what, we're suffering, we're challenged and we really need help. One person that actually was following along the story reached out to me and actually asked me, hey, you know what do you need help with? And we started having a conversation. And in turn, he was actually able to see a lot of different opportunities, from us partnering up with one of the biggest Asian supermarket in Canada, which is owned by Loblo's TNT supermarket. Okay, and the second opportunity is for our expansion into China, right? This was two very, very big selling point, which at the end, through numerous conversations, we're able to raise more than $200,000 for our project. At the end of the day, I personally wouldn't bank on this type of investment because you know what, it's very, very difficult to raise funds through investors. But nonetheless, this is the short story of how we're able to raise $200,000 for our food and beverage restaurant and shop. If you guys liked this video, I'm sure you're gonna find a lot more value in the link below. Check it out in the link below. I actually share with you my very beginning to where we are at right now, from the A to the Z, from starting from negotiating free rent to choosing the perfect location, to crafting the right menu, which ensures us to have at least 20% margins, to marketing tactics, to dive into your customer's mindset and offering them something that is irresistible to all the marketing stuff that we have been doing. Everything within that link below. If you guys are interested, make sure you guys check it out because that's where we share all the things that I've been learning through the last 10 years of running business, okay? So make sure you check it out in the link below. Otherwise, subscribe within this journey because I'm gonna be sharing a lot more of these videos of one-on-ones. And if you guys liked this video, make sure you guys show some support, smash the like button, comment in the section below of what you thought about this video. Otherwise, I'll see you guys in the next video.


And now we'll take a look at the past tenses, first focusing on the past simple tense. Here, the past simple tense is used to express completed actions in the past. Whether the past be a few seconds ago, or whether they be years or ages ago, doesn't matter. To make positive sentences, we have our subject. Then the subject can be anything from I, you, we, they, it, he, she. And now we conjugate or change our verb most often by adding E-D. For the negative sentences, rather than changing the verb, the main verb, we add our helping verb, like in the auxiliary verb, in this case being do. So I've changed do to did to indicate the past, and it results in a sentence structure such as I did not work. Now, did not is the full form. Obviously we can contract this into didn't. Here we have did I work? Again, you can see the inversion of the position of the helping verb and subject to help us create our question. Now, when we use did, again we can use did for any of the subjects in our sentence from I, we're he, she, et cetera. In terms of spelling these conjugated verbs, of course there are some issues that we have to look at, especially when considering some patterns. So, again, we have our Y changes to dropping the Y and adding my E-D. And when we have a vowel, I'm sorry, a consonant vowel, we double the consonant in question and finally add E-D. These aren't irregular verbs, they're just irregular spellings for some verb conjugations. Our irregular verbs change their form altogether. So a few examples would be be going to was or were depending on the subject in the sentence, go to went, have to had, give to gave, right to wrote. Of course there are further irregular verbs which I encourage you to look up in your materials or either online.


Thank you for being here today. Thank you Zoe. She is the Democratic nominee for assembly. All right, so can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your background? I'd love to. So I'm from Winters, California. I'm the current mayor, but we moved to Winners in 1957 when I was three years old. And we moved there because my father had the opportunity to be the high school agriculture teacher. And my mother and my other brother and we came up in the heat with no air conditioning and my mother sat in a parking lot while my dad was interviewed and he came out saying, well, the farmers have offered us a place to live for the next couple of months and they want me to teach here in Winters. That's how I got to Winters. And I blessed that we got to go there. It was only 1200 people at the time. The community was just bustling. We had the new dam, the Barry Essa Dam was being built. We had agriculture. We had to train the wind through Winters. We had lots of businesses. And it was a great place to be raised. And so I consider my little neighborhood at the time is like we had about five different mothers that took care of all of us because we couldn't do anything without the next family knowing about it. So that's how I got to Winters. And then I went to public schools there and then when I graduated, I took off and went to Chico State. And I got really involved in politics kind of up in Chico State as well as when I was in high school. I went to Chico State and became the director of ethnic and intercultural affairs. So I did different kinds of festivals for different heritage. And then I got married, completed my education at San Jose State University, lived in Santa Cruz for a while, and then got divorced. And then I moved back to Winters to raise my two daughters. So as a single parent, I went back to the place I love. Yeah. So you raised your family where you were raised. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I knew it was safe. And so, and I knew that everybody knew each other and I knew that my kids couldn't get any trouble. So not that they would have, but I just wanted to make sure they couldn't hear about it. Yeah, I would. So how have you balanced your work life and your family? Well, you know, it's pretty tough. When you're a single mother, you have a lot of responsibility. And I took that on. I loved every minute. I love every minute of it because I have still the two girls, obviously. But I really had to figure out my days. And my days started really early in the morning, making sure I had the kids off to school. But I also, during that period of time, I worked in the technology fields. And when I worked into technology, I had to figure out the hours. Because in corporate world, you have a lot of hours that you've got to spend. And you're working on big projects and you're flying in and out to, you're flying in and out to make sure you accommodate your job, but also with the children. So it was a really difficult time. But I'm very grateful that I had a really good job and was able to raise my girls and continue to work in winters, live in winters. Yeah, so tell me about your experiences as mayor of Winters. Oh. How did that work out? Well, you know, how it worked out was just by happenstance. And when I came back to Winters, I decided to get involved in the community. Because I remember it being very vibrant. And when the economy changed, when the railroad went away, our downtown kind of died. And when I moved back, all the things of all those wonderful memories I had were gone. And I thought, so what could I do to help make change? And the first thing I did is that my mother always taught us is that there's nothing better than a welcome mat to your home. And I thought of the Winters High School tennis courts as a welcome mat to the community. And when we moved, there's grass growing up through the tennis courts. The nets were falling down. And I contacted some of my old classmates. And I said, you know, can you donate $100, $200? And somebody donated their time with a backhoe. And we fixed the tennis courts. And it got me really motivated to say, what can I do next? And I was encouraged to be a planning commissioner. And I did that, and I did it for two years. And my frustration was that there wasn't any women on the city council. And I decided, well, why not run? And I ran and was city council for three years. And then the past five years, I've been lucky enough. And I'm honored that my council members have decided that I would be the mayor. And I've continued to do that now for five years. And I've loved every single man I've ever been. So you were very involved with bringing the PG&E training facility to Winters. Can you tell me about that process? Oh, you know, I am so proud of that, how that all came together. So basically, we were sitting at, I got a phone call from my city manager. He asked if I could come to City Hall, that the PG&E was coming to Winters. And that the executives were coming to meet with us. And it was so fast, I thought, what happened? Did something happen to the gas line or something happened? And so I called another city council member, Wade Cowan. And the three of us, the city manager myself and Wade, we sat and we were addressed by these four gentlemen saying that they were looking to do a new gas operation training center in the area. They weren't going to be specific. They were looking at four different locations. And one of them was Winters. And I was like, I didn't want to be too excited, right? Because I knew that there's a lot of process to go forward. So they told me that they would like to do that outside of town, north of Winters in the county. And I was a little bit discouraged because I really could see a training facility being in the city limits of Winters. It's a benefit to have that come to in town. And so after some many conversations with PG&E, as they're trying to figure out the process of where they would go, eventually they decided to look at in Winters. And we did environmental reviews. There's a lot of process that went on. But it was being really slowly done. And I was really frustrated because I really wanted to see this project come to Winters and competing against the Vacaville and the Fairfield and other communities. It's pretty hard for small town. And so I asked PG&E staff if I could talk to the president of PG&E. And they said, well, no, I couldn't. And I said, what do you mean I can't? I am a mayor of a small town. And I have every right as every other mayor to talk to a president of a corporation. Well, my frustration level continued. And I decided to make a couple phone calls. And I called the general manager of SMUD, which is in Sacramento. And I asked him if he knew the president at the time. And he said yes, he did. And that he was a personal friend of his and that I could have his personal cell phone number. And so I decided, well, that's pretty cool. He goes, but call him tomorrow morning at 7.30 in the morning. And he'll be stuck in traffic. So the next morning I wake up and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, am I going to make this phone call? And I sure enough I did. And I said, hello, Mr. Johns. This is Cecilia Aguier Curry. I'm the mayor of Winters. And I want your business. And the phone got dead quiet. And he said, who is this? And I repeated myself. And he goes, how did you get my number? I go, well, does it matter? Because I have it now. And he laughed. And he says, he goes, where are you?  He goes, well, where are you? So I was kind of creepy, I'm sure for him. But we ended up having a half hour discussion. We made an agreement that we would not let the rest of the team other than my city manager and one of my council members know that we'd have this conversation. We wanted to make sure that we followed the process. PG&E has a process. We wanted to follow it all the way through. So after about two years and working with Mr. Johns in the background and working with staff, and we finally got the project. And it was probably one of my happiest days because it helps. In a small community, you're always looking for economic development. You're looking for job creation. This is the one that did it. So right now, the building's being built. $75 million project. We have a brand new hotel that we're going to break ground in very shortly. And after that one breaks ground, we're going to open another hotel. So there's a lot of economic development that's going on in Winners. So I'm really proud of how that stimulated our economy in Winners. Perfect. So what has been your overall experience as a female politician in a male-dominated field? Oh, that's a great one. Well, you have to have a lot of patience. Because many a time when I have run for elected office, even when I was in high school, as we've all done it and as I went to college, you're expected. You're at a higher level. And people expect a lot more out of you. And they expect you to know more. And they test you a lot more. Every question, they expect you to have an answer. And if you were to say, I don't know that answer right, I'll get back to you, that's not always acceptable. But I find my male colleagues are able to do that in quite frankly, a lot of times, no one even bats an eye. But they'll say to me, well, you don't really know that particular issue. I think it's very fair to say, I don't know. And I'll get back to you. I think people want to see politicians or elected officials be transparent and be upfront. So during my process is that when I was on planning commission, it was all men on my board. City Council, it's all been men. But it's a great opportunity for women to take a leadership role. And when I became mayor, it gave me more opportunities to expand what I wanted to learn about. You find that in a city government, you need to be at a table. And many a time, the gentleman always had another job. We all have another job because you don't get paid very much as being a mayor or a council member. But you need to be at the table. And you need to figure out ways to bring money into your community. And you need to make sure that people have visibility of what's going on. So what I was able to do is that once I had that leadership role, because as a council member, you don't want to step on anyone's feet. Because I knew that was the wrong thing to do. But what I did know was the right thing to do is that once I had the leadership, that I could go and pursue looking for funding for different projects in winters. So I became, it was a member of the Yellow County Housing Authority. I'm now the chairman of that particular commission. I decided that winters and the whole region drought and water issues were up front. And that since winters was an agriculture community, I wanted to make sure my ag neighbors, as well as my community, had good quality drinking water. And how are we going to be visionary at it? And so I got on the Yellow County Water Resources Association. Then I also decided, well, you know, there's money out there for infrastructure for bike lanes. There's money out there for making sure you have safe routes to schools. That there's opportunities for infrastructure projects. And that would be done through SACOG, Sacramento Council of Governments. So I got on that board. So I knew that everywhere I went that there's little pots of money. But if you're not at the table, it's very easy to forget about a small community. And many of the boards are gentlemen. And they're all great. Don't get me wrong.  But for instance, at SACOG, they really focus on transportation issues, which is their goal. But a lot of the money went to the bigger area, Sacramento. But there's always a little bit of a bucket of money that's sitting out there. And so an $8,000 or $10,000 or $50,000 for small communities, a lot of money.  And so that's how some of the projects happened. And that's how I think being an elected official is that as a woman, it took me some time to get my confidence. There's no doubt about it. But once you find the right people, and many a time there are other women that help mentor you along the way. And that's how I got my confidence to really be, I think, a good leader for our community. And as well as for this district, I'll be a good leader for this. Do you have any advice for other women looking to go into politics or business, actually? You have to take some risks. And a lot of us don't want to take the risk. And I've taken plenty of my life, trust me. But they all come out. There's always an opportunity to learn. And you learn from some of the risks you've done. Particularly if you're going to run, I would really like to see more women to get involved. So whether it's even in your church community, or if it's helping with 4-H, or Future Farmers America, or helping at the schools, or helping somewhere in your community, there's always a need. And I think that's a really good place to start. Because as women, particularly as we start our families, it's difficult to balance all of that. It's really hard. And many people are families at first, and work, or other activities take on a later time in our life. And that's what happened to me. I always thought I'd really like to be somewhere in a position of helping. I'm a helper. I like to volunteer. I like to be involved in the community. But there's a time where women just can't get to that next level, because we have so many other obligations. Now, with my life the way it is now, my children are raised, and they're gone. I jumped at the opportunity to move on. And if it wasn't for women asking me to run, I probably wouldn't have done it. Yeah, they motivated me a lot. So it was a group called, oh, I'm going to go blank, but it is right now. But anyway, no, it's anyway. But anyway, I was very honored. It's close the gap, excuse me. It's close the gap. And they promote mentoring women and helping them navigate through getting elected, whether it's a committee or an official position somewhere. But it's tough. And I'm tested every single day. Everybody tests me every single day. Yeah. So do you have any specific examples of a double standard? I am. You know, I think that I don't ever think of it as a double standard. Maybe I should. But I try to work with people and collaborate. And that's the only way I feel really comfortable. I mean, we do know that there's some roles that are definitely people consider a man's role. And they test us all the time. So I don't have a specific, you know, there's many of them out there, I'm sure. But right now I just really can't think of it because I really like to collaborate with people. And I like, you know, men work just as well. I think I bring something different to the table. We have a whole different conversation with me. I guarantee it. Yeah, it's good to have some representation too. Right. Why do you think it's important for women to get involved in politics? Oh, we bring so many different things to the table. We see things in a different light. And we bring fresh ideas. We're more visionary. We know how it can affect your family life, your community. We look at things in a whole different way. It's not an ego thing for me at all. What I'm doing right now is because I love what I'm doing. I love helping my community. I love helping this region. And I think that's what we bring to the table. We have to, I just have, I think women will sit down. I'll give you a great example. Many people know that I'm really for internet for all. And I will do anything to figure out that every child, every adult has an opportunity to have good quality internet at a reasonable price. And I was sitting with four other women. One is the CEO at Lafko. One is the head of the Yolo County Library. One was the Yolo County Social Services and myself. And we sat down and said, you know, why is it that we don't have internet for all in our county? It just makes no sense. We really only have four cities to deal with. We have a pretty great, I mean, a really collaborative county that people work together. And we just kind of put our heads together and decided to approach the board of supervisors and talk to them about a study that we would like to prove to the county as well as to the major telecoms, as well as to PUC, is that when you buy a cell phone and it says that you have coverage all over the map and then you go out there to whatever specific area you go to and then it says no service, you know that that map's probably not very accurate, right? So we decided to see if we could get a study done of the county who was gracious enough, a lot at $60,000, the study was done, and we proved to the PUC that those maps from the big telecoms were inaccurate. That's what it took. It's for four of us to sit together and just say, you know, why not? Why do we keep waiting for something to happen? Let's all work together. So the collaboration piece with women is great because we sit around and we think about different ways to approach something. And we've been very successful in that work. I know that the broadband is working hard in Davis. The information we gather, they're working out here in Davis, they're working as a solution for Yolo County. And so I'm really excited to see which each one of the communities and how we figure out a broadband solution, yeah. So how do you think that having a woman as president, potentially having a woman as president of the United States will change the future of politics? Oh, I think it's going to be great. I think it's going to prove that many women will feel a lot stronger and feel more confident of going out and sticking their neck out. I mean, I gotta say is that, you know, I think about when Secretary of State, I'm just blank on her name, Hillary, yeah. Yeah, like Clinton, I just keeps thinking to myself, who would have sat there for 12 hours and gone through all the questioning she had on Benghazi? Who would have done that? Would the men been asked the same questions? Would they just drilled and drilled and drilled? And I am so proud of the fact that no matter what, whatever side you think, she sat there and did that. And she has been a trooper since she was quite young and people are forgetting of all the wonderful things she's done as a young student, as a lawyer. She has brought a lot to, for all of us to be very proud of. And I think people are really, really hard on her. And even in my campaign, they were really, really hard on me. And I just had to keep thinking I had to keep focused. And I look at Hillary and I say, good for you, girl. She's kept focused. You try to keep away all the other chatter that's going around. You have to keep focused on what your goal is. And I think she's gonna do a great job. And I hope that we, people give her a chance. And obviously in four years, she'll be running again. And if people think she's done a good job, then she'll be there again. And I really have to hand it to her is that I'm very proud to say that Hillary Clinton may be my president in the United States. I remember quite frankly, as in God rest her soul, my mother really wanted to see a woman president. And when Geraldine Ferraro around as vice president and I took her to go meet her, it was very touching. So I think there's a lot of women out there right now that are saying, I thought I'd never see this day and I think it's fabulous. Yeah, that's right. Do you think that seeing more women as politicians will motivate other women, like the motivate younger generations of women and girls to go after a career like that? Yeah, I think so. I think we're seeing it right now. Currently, there are seven women that are running for, there's more, but it appears that seven women will now be in the legislature and they're Latino women. And I'm really excited to work with them. And they are from various age brackets. Some have children, never been married, some, and it's gonna be a really diverse group. We have conversations that I've met with some of the potential winners and candidates. And we are just laughing about, isn't it fun about this part, isn't it? And it's just like we're, it's a camaraderie. I had the pleasure of me visiting with Senator Wolk the other day. And I said, so what did you like about it and what was important to you? And she mentioned the fact that it was really important for her is to meet some of the other women, have dinner, and just have that, you know, good old girls' conversations. And so I'm looking forward to that because I think we have so much more in common than not. And that'll be a really fun time. I mean, I'm looking forward to it. There's a lot of work ahead of this. I'm not, you know, I know there's a lot of work, but I think we also have to have that downtime to have that networking time, yeah.  Do you find that there's the same stereotypes and the same bias against you? Yes, it was, so years ago I worked for two huge corporate technology firms. And I won't even mention their names, but it was really probably the most difficult jobs I've ever had. I knew my business backwards and forwards, I could tell you about payroll and human resources and all those things. And I was selling software products at the time and the men always got the better deal. And as a matter of fact, I'll never forget it. On a Mother's Day weekend, we had probably the largest sale that we were going to make to the state of California, three women and I. And on Mother's Day weekend, I no longer had that sales account and four men undermined us and tried to sell the product to the state of California. And it was a multimillion dollar deal and luckily it didn't all come together for them but it was really, really disheartening because when you sell a product to a government, it takes two or three years to do that. It's not like overnight. And our quotas were as high as the men and which was fine with us but it was just the way things were handled and it was very disheartening. Corporate America is very frustrating to me. My daughter works in a major sporting company and she's the only woman and she sells athletic wear and she has to work much harder than the men have to work. They expect more from her. They almost poo poo her when she does a presentation and then they'll say, oh my God, that was the best presentation I've ever seen. Now I get it. But it's frustrating is that I think that in the corporate world, it's difficult. You have to have a lot of self-confidence to get through some of the tough times. Do you have any advice on how to build up that confidence? I think you take any opportunity that you can when you're in corporate world. I mean, if you have the opportunity to do any extra training because you want to make sure that your resume grows along the way because years ago, those of us that are my age, we had like one job. We stayed with that one job and we went from day one, 21 years old until you retired. And it's a little bit difficult for me to watch someone go every two years to a new job. And so it's different than what it was. But I think along the way, do you just have to completely build your resume, network, network, network, network, meet people, get their names, try to put it in your database, try to remember who they are. Because there's a day that you might need that and I have met some of the people, I met 30 years ago, that have been already helpful, that might be at the Capitol, that maybe are lobbyists or whatever, they're back in my world.  Don't burn a bridge because you never know who you're gonna see again. So yeah, that's one thing that I would recommend, yeah. Okay, do you have any recommendations on what women can do to sort of minimize the pay gap or like anything that they can do to make sure that that's not something that is affecting their paycheck? Well, you know, we're really fortunate. In the past couple of years is the legislature and the governments really realize, I mean, how important is that this equal pay for equal work? And that's really forced everybody to follow that along those lines. And it's been way too long coming. And it's great that it's happening now. And so we need to look forward and not back. I can't change, we can't change what happened in the past, but we can look for other opportunities.  Any way you can promote yourself, you should always do that and it gains confidence. If you get a chance to be in a leadership group. So there's numerous ones that are out there within your community, within churches, but the more confidence and the more times you get to be in a leadership role, do it. If you have a chance to be a speaker, raise your hands that I want to be a speaker because it helps. And people can tell you when you have confidence, right? So I also belong to a group called American Leadership Forum and I was really fortunate to be with that group. So I now have a class of, there's about 25 of us that were in that class. I was in class 13 and we had a great time. We were a whole year together a couple of times a month and you learn to speak in front of other people and giggle about things because as a leader, I think a lot of people don't realize it's lonely.  And a lot of people don't want to, they're not as open with you any longer. You're not included as often because they think that you're different but you're not. And I think the hardest part about being in leadership role is being lonely and kind of left out. You get left out of certain things and that's probably the hardest part that I will be honest that it's been for me, yeah.  So there's that exclusion. I think that's true because, so when I became mayor of Winters, people started calling me mayor and I really had a hard time with it. I said, please don't, I'm Cecilia. That's just the way it is. What you see is what you get. And I understand the importance and the titles that people wanna put on you. But I also want people to realize what you see is what you get. And I really am, it's not about a title. It's not about anything other than I want to do the best for people. And I get frustrated when someone, I'm not included sometimes, just like, man, I used to be included on that and what happened? But it has nothing to do, I think they're standing off thinking that I'm not the same person, but I am. So it's a little bit, it's odd, it's very odd. So I really make a point is that when I meet leaders that I really make a point of being inclusive with them and saying, you know, would you like to meet? Can you have a cup of coffee? And they'll go, oh man, no one's ever asked me before. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so. Do you have any particular causes that you're passionate about that have come upon you from your past experience, like your family life or growing up in winters and all of that? So I have a real big cause, I'm a couple of them. First is my, I help start with another council member, a group called the Hispanic Advisory Committee so that we could help making sure that many of our farm workers in winters, we have quite a few, could become citizens. So we worked on that, so our committee is the goal is always to try to raise money for scholarships, it tries to make sure they're aware of other community functions such as understanding it's okay to be that the police officers are gonna be nice to the fire department, or we try to walk them through immigration issues and we've been very successful on that. So that was my number one, my mother was Mexican. When we came to winters, she helped many farm workers with health access, but there was plenty of people in winters at the time when we moved, they told my mother she'd never be anything because she was Mexican. And so I always remember her saying, they'll find out that I'm a really good person so it was very hard on us when that happened. But the other one is that my father recently passed away, actually it'll be almost two years ago, but prior to that he was really lonely when my mother had passed and he wanted to find a place to meet other seniors. Now granted we had our church and we had other activities but there wasn't really a center for senior citizens. And knowing that senior citizens right around the alley for me, I'm almost there. I wanted to really help him get a senior citizen center. So he, before he died, we were trying to work on things and then we found out he's quite ill and he passed away and we decided to start a senior citizens foundation. And the foundation is to help us build a center for the seniors and we've been very successful. That's gonna be groundbreaking here in the spring. So it'll be a place for all the seniors to come. It'll also have some housing affiliated with it. But the thing that's the best is that I think communities are forgetting about our seniors. And we thought we didn't have very many people in winters. And as this group has kind of started this whole foundation and been very involved we're up to about 150 seniors are now in the group. We just got a bus for them. They're starting to take trips. They're starting to plan with the senior citizens centers going to look like. So it's gonna be a great community vibe and I can't wait for that to happen. So continually trying to raise money for the foundation so that we can keep it going. But I've been blessed with meeting so many people that are helping us put that project together. Yeah. Have you found that once they have the opportunity to speak up about their needs that they are really happy to do so and they have a lot to say? They're great. So every single city council member meeting it is so great to see the seniors in the audience. We didn't have that forever. And they all have matching shirts and they are so excited to be involved in the community. And they now have a website, they send out email but they come to the city council meeting and they every single time they come up and they do public comment and they tell us about what they're doing. And I just wanna cry every time thinking my father's saying this is exactly what I wanted to see happen. So I just beam and the other day a couple of weeks goes my birthday and they were all there and they brought me my own senior citizens shirt. And I'm just touched by having it. Of course I haven't worn it anywhere yet because I've been campaigning but there's nothing better to see where your projects come to fruition. And that one by far is just, I just can't wait for the building to be built and to see the activity and the excitement to happen so. When did you say that was being built? Well, I think the breaking ground next March they're hoping to do that sooner but we have another project affiliated with it which is just as good as a healthcare center. So right at this one piece of property we have on winners there's going to be Yolo Federal Credit Union our seniors center our senior housing and then we're gonna have some healthcare access. So it's everything's walkable. I think it'll be a great little small community for our seniors. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to that.  Do you have any ideas of how to do the same for young people? Because I know there's a lack of involvement for the younger generations in politics. So a couple of things. So with young people we've started a winter city council, student city council. And it's a tough group to get together because winners is so small. Many of the students are in numerous activities. So they're either in FFA or they're in football or baseball or whatever they're in. And it's great because being from a small community you almost have to find something to be involved in. So they have technology classes and competitions. But I'll say is that trying to find a recreational thing for them has been always a real challenge. I think we've probably seen it here in Davis when they're trying to do the teen center and then you just don't see the teens come to where they don't wanna be there. Let's face it. So what we've been doing is that we've found is that the infamous tennis courts, my welcome Matt, are not being used so often as tennis courts. They're being used for soccer. So like futsal, they call it futsal. And so we are going to build a futsal court because there'll be 20, 30 young men they're playing under the tennis court's lights. And so we're gonna move, we're gonna build a futsal court down to our city park or refurbishing our city park so it's well lit. We put in some new basketball courts. And when it's sports related in winter, it does really well. And I'm only hoping that these are kind of things that we can do throughout the district as we go forward. Yeah, and I'm sure if young people see what's being done for them through the city government that'll motivate them more to like get out there and vote or at least be at meetings. Oh, I can only hope, yes. Yes, I think that's always a good thing when people understand how important it is to go out and be involved in the community. So if you could give me a suggestion, how should I do that? Oh gosh. I know, because wouldn't it be that easy that you could get people to go out and vote? I mean, we should be honored to vote. This is why we live in America. It's a democracy. We're diverse. We don't all have to, and I love to figure out why aren't we getting more of our younger people out to vote? You know, I think a lot of it is self-motivated and if people are interested in voting, then they'll go out and do it. Like this current election has a lot of people who've never voted before voting because it's something new and exciting. So I think if young people, myself included, can understand how exciting politics can be if, because it can really change your life, and especially on a city level or a state level, that might change your life more than a presidential election will, I think, like bringing up issues that matter and then giving them the opportunity to talk about what matters to them, too. So then maybe some representation, and then if there's only some way to make voting really cool or like a social media campaign, something like that might work well, it's hard to get anyone to do anything. Well, I think our secretariat state right now is probably really trying to figure this out because it's really difficult because a lot of people didn't think about this, I don't think. Our pamphlets for voting are really big this year. Now some communities have a lot of extra measures on their ballot and is the ballot, once you put it in the envelope, is it too heavy? So do you have to put one stamp on it or do you have to put two stamps on it? If you don't have enough postage on it, what happens to that mailer? What happens to that ballot? So some counties are putting on there like, hey, warning everybody, you need two stamps on this. So we do need to figure, we need to update, right? We are in California where there's innovation is the best. But people are very obviously nervous about security and hacking and those things. And then quite frankly, let's remember that many communities don't have internet and how can they vote online? Maybe find central voting spots, but we need to really kind of think how we're gonna redo that. Yeah, and I think something about getting this huge pamphlet in the mail makes people look at voting and participating as a chore. And if there is a way to minimize that or to explain that it only takes about five minutes to register, it doesn't take that long or you can vote on the measures you care about. You don't have to read through the entire thing. I think just explaining the basics and then talking about how it's actually not that difficult if you put 20 minutes worth of effort in. So I think that would be another thing. I think too, as local government, you get to see it, right? So I think if anything, vote locally so that you can have a voice where you live. There's a measure, H, I believe that's here in town, vote.  I tell my kids all the time, if you can't complain, if you don't vote. Exactly. So they tell their friends the same thing. So yeah, so I luckily my girls vote, but if you don't, don't complain. Yep, I think that is an interesting problem. There's a lot of people have a lot to say about issues and then they don't actually write a letter to their representative or they don't vote or anything.  That's how you just kind of get some momentum and get a little more confidence too because you gotta go find out things. One of the things that we're doing right now is that as we go through this assembly district, it's six counties and I'm working really hard to win and I hope I can be successful, but during the trails that we've been making, is that one of the things we've done is to try to find out about what's happening in rural healthcare access, trying to find out about transportation issues in the whole district, trying to find about affordable housing. And I think that every time I go and meet with these different groups, it gives me more leverage when I'm sitting to try to make a decision, is how am I gonna make those decisions? When I feel it, I touch it, I understand it, I feel really confident on a decision I may or may not make. I will be diverse and I'll listen to all the issues. But you know, a couple of people have heard this story a couple of times, but I had the opportunity to go up to Dignity Health Care at the hospital and I had a wonderful tour, a wonderful discussion with the team there and had a tour of the mental health areas. And we really need to deal with some of that, I mean, we do need to deal with that throughout the state and this district. But you know, to walk into a mental health 5150 ward and look around and see the people and talk to some of the staff and then going to the long-term mental health ward, it was moving to me. And I get a big lump in my throat to have nurses, big burly men, the nurses that hugged me as I left to say, no one's ever come to ask me about the issues of mental health, you know, talking about it. And so being able to have that heartfelt understanding and discussion, I think it's only made me a better assembly person. So that's why I'm really like, I really am trying to make sure I understand those issues. So when they come to me, I can easily say, have you ever been to a mental health ward? Have you seen how hard these people work? Yeah. Do you understand the stress that they're under? So not only for that, for many things that I'm trying to grasp as much information and learn as much as I can. Yeah, having that firsthand experience brings a whole different aspect to the table. It does. Are there any other issues like mental health that you think are underrepresented in politics? Well, one thing is that, so I'm a farmer. I farm 80 acres with my brothers and I think you and I've discussed this before. And I've learned a lot, there's a tenor regulatory that I had no idea about. So I really hope to, I plan on working hard in the agricultural, I'm hoping to be on the ag committee. I think also water, you know, water's a big thing that I'm very crucial in talking about different things with the water. But for instance, we've done tours at different water facilities throughout the region. We've done, I'm going to go do a tour at Sites Reservoir. Again, I want to thank and shout out to Senator Wolk. She's offered to help guide me with some of the issues around the Delta and the Twin Tunnels. So, you know, so again, it goes back to mentoring and finding those people in the network that can help you out. There's no sense in recreating the wheel so many times. But I've been really blessed with a lot of great women in this district and to follow in their footsteps on all the issues. I mean, Helen Thompson's been great to me. She's been a guiding force for a long time. I kind of give her a bad time every now and then. I go, how am I doing? You're doing just fine, you know? A delay in Easton. I mean, there's just people that you find along the way to help guide you, so. So do you find that actually talking to the people being affected by an issue is the best way to come up with some sort of solution? You need everyone at the table. So, you need a diverse group at the table. You definitely need to hear them. You have to be a really good listener during this period of time because generally it'll come out what the real, the issue is. And you know, it's been really amazing is that I have a lot of coffees that I do in the district. And I'm tired of coffee. But we'll sit there and I'll say, free coffee for the hour, come by and visit with me. And I've met with veterans. And it's very touching to hear that they are not getting their healthcare. And it was great being able to pick up the phone and call Congressman Garamendi's office, and they took care of it. So you have to be kind of a, learn a little bit about, you know, learn a lot about what many things and trying to coordinate them. And it's really been fun because luckily I've had the relationships with Congressman Thompson and Garamendi with Assemblymember Dodd, Senator Wolk. All these people are going to help you a long way. Yeah, there's connections. All those connections. Where you need to be. Yeah, how do you network? And like as a woman, do you find that networking is different than it is for male politicians? I don't think it's any different. I think that, you know, women, you know, I like, I'm chatty as you can tell. But I like to find out about people.  And then people tell you, but like, what's your family like or where are you from?  Oh, do you know so-and-so? And all of a sudden you've got this network of people. I think you need to do, networking's the number one thing. Right now I have a great gal that's working for me. She's been helping me and I'm gonna bring her on to the staff and I take her everywhere. I take her everywhere. I want her to know this district as well as I know the district because I will not be able to be out in the district as much as I am right now. And I'm gonna have to depend upon and to have trusted confidants that are gonna help me out. And she's networking and she goes, I can't believe you know so many people. I go, well, it took me 62 years to do it sweetheart. So you got plenty of time to do it. Yeah, do you have any advice for, like I'm a college student. So do you have any advice for how I can start networking to build those connections for my future careers? Belong to some clubs. Oh, okay. So get involved in some clubs. Take a small leadership role because obviously you're schooling's first but find a leadership role. Get into a club, find a little niche. So you wanna be in the business, there's business sorority fraternity type groups that you can join. Go talk to your professor. They will lead you in great directions. They'll tell you some great clubs that are out there. So I would definitely do that. I'd get initially get on some clubs.  Go to the chamber of commerce meetings. They're free, you can go to those kind of meetings and learn here about business and what people's businesses are coming to town and what their issues are maybe with the city how does permitting work. So you may wanna think about doing something like that. Go to planning meetings. You'll learn a lot about business there. Okay, thank you. We're going to take a quick break to announce the Davis neighbors night out. So it is this Sunday, October 16th. And to find out if there's an organized party in your neighborhood, call Carrie Dyer at the Davis city manager's office. And the phone number is 757-5602. And then for more information on that, go to daviscommunitybuildingprocess.net. And the upcoming guests on Davis Wednesday Live at five are Brett Lee, city of Davis mayor pro tem. And on November 9th, our guests will be the UCD interim chancellor Ralph Hexter. All right, and then a couple of last questions for you. If you could go back and talk to your college self, what advice would you give her? If I could go back and talk to my college, would I even hear that last part? And what advice would you give your college self about career and politics and? I wish I would have done it sooner. Okay. I wish I would have taken some chances earlier on. But I was raising a young family on my own and so I really had to have a job. But if I had it differently, still have my girls don't get me wrong. But I wish I would have gone into politics sooner because I look down the line that I wish I would have been able to start 10 years ago and make more change. And not that I would ever, maybe I would have never run for the assembly. I don't know, but right now it's an opportunity's in front of me. I can't wait to take off and do the job. But I will say that if I had a chance, I probably would have done this a lot sooner. I didn't know the power that was behind it. I was frightened because of, it was a man's world. I see it right now as I'm meeting with some of the assembly people and the people over at the Senate. It is, it's still a man's world over there. People don't realize that women are just as strong as the men are. I was told that I had a brass backbone because sometimes I just say it and it comes out and it's like, uh-oh, but you have to be tough. I've had to be in a tough business world.  So you have to be tough and I wish I could have done it sooner. I wish I could have done it sooner. And you mentioned taking risks. What do you mean by that? I'm putting yourself out there because putting yourself, what I'm doing right now is risky. I'm sitting and doing forums. I'm talking about things that are important to me. They're bringing up topics that I'm not familiar with.  And so one of the challenges I have is my opponent is just tries to bully me and I have to sit there very quietly and not say anything and it's frustrating. But you know what, you gotta take the high road sometime and people really know you. They'll know what you're about. So it's risky because not only that, I have children and I don't want my kids to hear some of the stuff that people are saying bad about me, which is all untrue. It's just really tough. It's tough on your family. It's tough on your friendships. It's tough on your, you know, everyone. So you gotta, it's risky.  This is risky for you to do this. And I'm proud that you are doing this. I think it's fabulous because you know, this interview might open the door for you for other things and you just don't know it. So now you've tested it and do you like it and will you do it again? And so I really think it's fabulous that you and I have a relationship now that we've met a couple of times. I think you're gonna do well.  You may be in an elected position, intern, ask about internships and stuff. I think you're gonna do great and I'm really proud that you've gotten through this. This is good. Well, thank you for being here today and thank you to our audience for watching. So I have learned a lot from this interview and I think some key points are that women need to get out there and just represent themselves and there's not enough representation in politics and in the government. And I think that you mentioned that going to city council meetings is a good way just to start and then you can go from there. And what, do you have any other tips?  I mean, I know that I think Rotary clubs have a group for high school and college people. I'd make sure that you go over to the campus. And although you said you go to the JC, but you know, go over to UC Davis and go see what the different clubs are doing. The Democrats, the Republicans, the libertarians, whatever. Go see what they're doing. Join one of those clubs. I think you're gonna just say, oh my gosh, this is really, really fun. And why am I gonna warn you? Once it's in your blood, it's gonna be hard to get out of because I love every minute that I'm doing this. And like I said, I wish I would have done this years ago, but it is what it is. Well, you're here now and that's what's important. So you also mentioned, or you're running for Assemblywoman. And what are your objectives once you get, if you get into that position? Well, if I get into that position, first and foremost is that, you know, I have to make sure that I understand I'm trying to get my staff together right now. But I'm gonna be working on agriculture. I'll be working on water issues. I'll hopefully be on natural resources committee. So right now I'm kind of going through what committees I want to be on. I wanna make sure that I have some, I may or may not have any legislation the first year. It's not uncommon to do that. I think you gotta get your feet wet. You gotta understand the whole system. But you know what, I'll be very successful over there. And I can't, like I said, I can't wait to represent you and your family. The seven, the six counties in the region, I can't wait to be there. So I really appreciate this opportunity to work with you. I hope that you will feel free to come see me in the capital and sit down and we'll have this conversation again maybe for a year from now. Yeah, well thank you for giving me some more understanding of what you do and how, what you do and then what you plan on doing. And for giving me some insight on what it's like to be a woman in politics. I think that's very helpful for me and for any other woman and any actually men too, viewing to understand that and have some insight on that. So thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you so much.


Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching the behind-the-scenes divine intimacy radio very exciting unusual show today You're if you're listening to us live stream on EWTN's Facebook page or on our spiritual direction comm website This is going to be an unusual show. We don't we've never done one like it and it's about storming the gates of hell intercessory prayer spiritual warfare For the sake of the liberation of Armenian Christians who are presently being persecuted in a in a pretty grave way so we've got some very interesting guests and good friends, of course Simone Rizcala and Dr. Joseph Holcroft who wrote the book unleashing the power of an intercessory prayer So we're we'll start the show in a minute before we jump into that I want to make sure we let people know about our upcoming summit Which is also in many ways, you know central to what we're doing today on the show and Regarding the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the the summit this year is called the Marian mystery And the triumph of the Immaculate Heart. We have Amazing speakers Dr. Mark Maravalli sister Regina Marie Gorman You know Father John Burns and that Stephanie tell them about the dates and Location absolutely. It's October 13th through the 15th The Marian mystery and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart. It's in Hansville, Alabama the amazing shrine of the most blessed it's sacrament and You're just not gonna want to meant to miss this. It's we really bring together great speakers It's deep water amazing people in attendance amazing way to connect to others and And we know that in the end our ladies Immaculate Heart will triumph So it is directly connected to what we're talking about today. Yeah, very good. All right Well, let's go ahead and jump into the show Jordan Do you have I think you put this on that you put this on the desk, right spiritualdirection.com Forward slash Armenia Armenia, can you build a little? Label the flash up on the screen spiritualdirection.com forward slash a R M E and I a on your markets that go Okay on your mark get set go this is Dana Stephanie Burke Welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven brought wisdom from the great cloud of witnesses the great saints have gone before us the blessed mother Regarding how it is that we can face fight overcome Darkness in us and in the world and that is the subject of our show today Which we're talking about the gates of hell will not prevail intercessory prayer And prayer against a prayer vigil against the Armenian Christian persecution is going to be happening this Friday At 7 p.m. Central August 25th 2023. Why don't you introduce? Simone because I know you love Simone. I do love and I will introduce dr. Holcraft whom I have a mild affinity towards I Really happy to have Simone Riscala She is the director of program growth for endow groups an educational Apostolate dedicated to cultivating a new feminism according to the vision of Pope Saint John Paul the second She is also special advisor to the president of the philos project which is which is dedicated to positive Christian engagement in the near in the Near East as the daughter of immigrants from Armenian dysphoria Diaspora in Cairo, Egypt. She has a particular interest in matters of religious freedom and culture You can find her talks and publications on her blog at cultural gypsy comm She also hosts the endow podcast So love you Simone so very happy to have you here with us and I'll let Dan Say hey to father for father Dr. Holcraft he almost I mean he did he almost he discerned right, you know, he's a very holy guy So we think he chose right And his favorite my favorite of his offspring is named Abula, but don't tell them I said that okay So Dr. Joe watch everything Dan they watch everything My Dr. Joseph Holcraft is a good friend and Collaborator on one of the most important projects in the church, and I don't say that lightly Right, and that is our heart-calling priestly formation and discernment program Dr. Holcraft is also a man of deep prayer And he's the author of an important book unleashing the power of intercessory prayer And today we're talking about the power of intercessory prayer, you know, I was the so welcome dr. Holcraft It's great to be with everyone this room. So how the reason this came up came up is I'm Jewish By birth by identity. I'm a Hebrew Catholic. I'm not My Judaism is not a minor part of my identity. It's it's the essence of who I am That's how God made me he put me in the womb of a Jewish woman You know and it's always been how I've understood myself and my faith even as a Catholic And and so because of that I I'm super sensitive to the the suffering of Jewish people in particularly In particular with the Holocaust and history of the Holocaust years ago though I came across some photographs that rocked me to the core Um, it's it's actually emotional Even talking about it and that was a series of women Who were naked? Uh crucified Um If I remember right Simone, there were 13 of them. Is that the number? Do you know? You know, and I don't remember the exact number to be honest Yeah, and it just it it was so gruesome because when we talked about crucifixion in our time It it you know, it's like well, that was the first century. It's like no no It actually happened at the beginning of the 20th century Um Or in the early around 1915 or somewhere around there. I don't remember the year Simone you can fill me in on any of this stuff. Yes, and then I'm thinking what is this? Is it a movie photograph?  They tended to be they tended to do well and so because of this and and because of their faith as christians in in contrast to The surrounding hostile environment And because they wouldn't convert to Islam They were slaughtered so ever since studying all of that I've been moved by it and then recently we had this news report of a blockade An eighth month long blockade and I don't have television and I don't watch the news So it came it hit me this last week Then I saw you simone on Trent horn's great podcast um council of trend And I was just I said we is there something we can do we are a people of prayer The community of apostolate va is a people of prayer, you know, uh, what can we do so simone? Like fill in what I missed on the blockade or Some of the details that you think are really important for all of this Sure, and I I just want to thank you so much dan and stephanie and the whole avala family for Personally caring about this is very moving to me as an armenian catholic And as a as a human being in front of such a gross human rights violation on just a natural level um, so thank you so much for uh for being you and for You know the the power of prayer that you have been promoting in your apostolate in your work. Um But yes, it even if you were the sort of person that watches the news and reads the newspaper every day You wouldn't be hearing about what's been happening to the armenians in the last eight months. So there's this region Known to armenians as arzach known to most of the world as the nagorno karabakh Which is an enclave of 120 000 armenians 30 000 of which are children There's a route that connects this region, which is part of ancient armenia the the uh The armenian alphabet for example was born in this region um There's only one route one corridor called the lachen corridor that connects this enclave with the republic of armenia This is a completely ethnically armenian place since December of last year The aziris have blockaded That corridor and have not allowed food medical supplies sometimes fuel electricity To enter in and thereby starving the people of the nagorno karabakh They won't eat let even the international red cross and they won't let any anybody in to Help these people That's been happening for the last eight months There might be a question. Why is this region not just part of the republic of armenia officially? And that goes back to a long history stalin decided to put it under aziri So to speak But it has always been ethnically armenian Very good. And i a number i wanted to keep repeating 30 000 children 30 000 children I want everybody to remember that number 30 000 children And this and this is the is this the only route For food and supplies there into that community or the primary it is and You know for months now for those who have been trying to listen trying and again There's no fault for anyone who really doesn't know what's going on because how could you know if the media isn't paying attention to it And why would the media be paying attention to it to attention to a small christian nation? Let you know surrounded by hostile neighbors But for months now we've been saying oh my goodness if this blockade isn't lifted People will eventually the supermarkets will run out of food medicine So in the last month or two it's been extremely dramatic Babies and the nicu having to share electricity because there isn't enough because the aziri is cut off fuel Moms who are pregnant miscarrying because they're mount there's malnutrition We just knew now we're getting reports of people who have literally been starved to death A single mom one of the most heartbreaking stories lost both of her children Just they she's a she's a single mother both her children have died So, you know, it can sound dramatic, but it sounds dramatic because Yeah, now these people there's a name for these people by their enemies That references the original attempt at the genocide of the armenian people. What is the name they're called? So there's a there's a phrase in turkish Called leftovers of the sword And so armenians are leftovers of the sword. So turkish and azar bhajan, of course do not recognize that the armenian genocide happened they have failed to recognize it and As long as and this is so much and actually Dr. Hallcraft and i've talked about this in terms of the importance of memory as long as there's an armenian in existence And an armenian people in a country in existence There is a christian witness that is a spiritual threat to those who are trying to destroy her And so it's leftovers of the sword meaning they we need to finish the work that was begun the murderers need to finish The work the the horrifying work and that that means killing 30,000 children however many adults whatever So I want to shift gears here to What's really going on and and we're going to blow through the break We're not going to do the break. We're going to just do the show as long as we need to do the show The dr. Hallcraft scripture says It scripture reveals a couple of things. I'd like you to speak to one And and if you're not comfortable that I can I can do one of them, but I know the other you are One is In scripture you have this indication that there are demons assigned to regions of the world There's references in the old testament to Demons that are that have you know jurisdiction over localities And then we have this passage in the new testament. We were not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers You know And this is what I want to focus on I want to focus on In all of this it is true that there are ethnic groups that are Culpable for this murderous action and behavior But when you get to the heart of the thing like what causes all this division, where did it begin? Um, it's it's about the enemy and the sin and the fallen nature of humanity That causes us to be So brutal that we could crucify one another that we could starve one another to death all of that That to me is the heart of the battle if you win that battle You you can you have an opportunity to win the war. So talk a bit about that joke Yeah, well, it's it's a battle for souls, right and What's so essential? I think to this discussion make you Simone for everything you just shared Is that each and every one of us has been given a very particular baptism or call To sharing gods out going love and mercy and in doing so help save souls, right? In first Timothy chapter two St. Paul makes it very clear. He says first of all so from the outset He wants us to understand that there is a priority that we as a church Exists for prayer right was first of all then I asked for supplications prayers Petitions and thanksgivings to be offered for some no everyone Yeah, the greek word for intercessions Is is is a verb that really describes the favor all of us have received by virtue of our baptism as subjects to be admitted into the presence of the king And and to remain to make our requests known to God Right, so this is a baptismal call that each and every one of us have been endowed with And if we're going to fulfill a baptismal vocation, this is what we do Right, all of us are subject to the one king, of course who we call friend Jesus Christ So this is is is essential and the context is for paul's letter to Timothy the salvation of all people All people even incredibly those who are persecuting the ones right so we pray for the The the it is a radical prayer but for the conversion of all souls and for The these these powers of the demonic to be overcome by virtue of our prayer and by virtue of our conviction You know, we are just not baptized into the body of Christ incorporating the body of Christ But the mystical bond of Christ so we have this this mystical call and We're not talking necessarily in the captain of st Captain sienna where st trees of battle were given that great But in a sacramental sense right in a sacramental sense, which means all of us And the context is Eucharistic right with thanksgiving st paul and his letter to the Philippians Says do not be anxious about anything. I know this is a verse close to your heart And you know do not be anxious about anything but by prayer and supplication make your requests known to god That the peace of god which transcends our transcendent understanding may protect our hearts and minds and hearts of Jesus So we've been given this particular gift this particular grace and we do so in Eucharist, you know The language of offering is everywhere in st paul's corpus when it comes to intercession Why because it's Eucharistic And when you talk about petitions when you talk about our role as intercessors, you know, we have to understand it It comes out from our union with god St. Alfonso de Goli says one of the great doctors of church You know in mental prayer and meditation It's it's most profitable And perhaps even most useful to repeat our petitions to god That in receiving the holy love of god We also then share in that great act What we have to understand too is that And I know this is hard for some people to get their head around But we don't necessarily change god's mind Right, I get that the question asks a lot, you know, I go these different parishes But can you change god's mind? No, we don't change god's mind But we bring to fruition what is in the mind of god Yeah, this extraordinary gift We've been given to bring about the will of god when when what is it john chapter 16 verse 23 Jesus says In my name, I will give to you anything in my name If we abide in his name in the holy Eucharist He will grant us The the petitions we give to him. Why because they're not our petitions. They're his petitions I you know, we tend to say when we receive the Eucharist, you know, we consume Jesus and that of course we do But it is also Jesus consuming us You know, we we tend to think that by Abiding the Eucharist and living this faithful catholic Christian life We you know, we we put Jesus at our disposal to get what we want, right? When in fact we abide in Jesus Jesus is putting us at his disposal But it's not a utilitarian thing. It's a very relational personal thing And the beautiful output the manifestation is of this Is offering to god our petitions and we do this most profoundly in the Eucharist. So storming Heaven is this our tagline? I mean, let us storm heaven With this great petition of bringing about radical radical change I'm made to think of revelation eight verse five when the angel goes before the altar of god And the angel comes over writing and puts incense and the incense is mingling with the prayers of the saints and the smoke Is going up and then the angel takes the fire and puts it in the golden sensor and he throws it onto the earth That's the vision. I have I don't know about you, but all of these people coming together and With our prayers and prayers the saints prayers the holy ones prayers of those who pursue god Taking all of these petitions all of these hearts mingling with this Is golden sensor and then god taking that and throwing it back on earth, you know And in that and that landing on earth things are transformed things are changed You know dan, when you brought this up last week, I have to tell you I got really excited At the prospect of change Right that james 516 says the fervent prayer of the righteous person yields great power The fervent prayer is is the personal fire for god It's the fire that we're talking about that's in the courtroom of god that the angels are throwing and you know throwing on the earth this is exciting humbling but one of One that's necessary And I and I thank you for again What you've initiated here? Yeah, beautiful You know something that you were talking about that I think is just so powerful And when we talk about the spiritual warfare warfare realm of this, right? That the lord puts that desire on our heart and then he brings us to he calls us to prayer to bring about his desires That desire of ours that hunger that those children Be fed and be set free that their parents be set free that there be peace in this area of the world Is that hunger that the lord's put on our hearts? It's his hunger that he's calling us to fulfill through this intercessory prayer And the thing is is when we get anxious I love that you use that scripture verse that anxiousness gets us out of the present moment Like it we start worrying we start wringing our hands or we're worrying regret I should have done something months ago about this or or that opportunity I had whatever it was and so when we stay in the present moment Then our prayer our prayer becomes very powerful So the enemy works constantly to get us in you know into speculation or worry Or regret so that we don't stay in the in the moment Where that's the power of our prayer stay in this moment pray at this time for this purpose Don't worry. I'm in this. I've got it pray Pray pray and surrender and I will bring about a greater good. I will bring about even good from this Amen. Amen. Beautiful. So I want to recap something really important that Dr. Holcraft and Stephanie have been saying God has desired ends What he wants to occur And he has chosen means this is the easiest way to understand this in my mind Desired in and chosen means what are the so the let's say the desired end is that these 30,000 children are saved That these these these christians are are protected and spared or that the region becomes Yeah, sure The lord can make all things new listen So that's the desired end. What are the chosen means? What are the chosen means the chosen means is us joe gave you the theology Joseph gave you the theology from the new testament. It's us cooperating with the lord So if this is his will And it is the way he designed the divine economy all grace is mediated That's the way it works if we want grace to flow. We need to be a part of that grace So let me tell you about this event because I don't we're already 21 minutes in and I I wanted to make sure people get this and I want you all out there listening live right now Share this on your facebook page every share it everywhere. You can because the news is not covering this We want as many people to gather together this friday as possible august 25th 7 p.m. Central time And the url to sign up for this time of prayer is spiritualdirection.com forward slash armenians And it's on the screen, but spiritualdirection.com forward slash armenia We are joining with The the filos project This is spiritualdirection.com is who we are you guys know that catholic answers and the I can't read the name of gia's group simon for the martyrs for the martyrs. It's easy. I should it says martyrs, but it's tiny So we're we're we're coming together to pray The gates of hell will not prevail prayer vigil against the armenian christian persecution And whether or not your armenian it doesn't doesn't matter We're all we one of the most beautiful things about the catholic faith is that no matter which region of the world we come from because the particular apostle that affected our Our whatever Ethnicities we were around the world or peoples that we were whatever we are we're all one body And when one part of the body suffers we all suffer and when one part Is victorious we all share in that victory. So we're coming together. So stephanie and i'll be there simon Christopher jack who's the head of the catholic answers wonderful human being Gia shekone and then also we're going to have the eparch mickael mordean mordean mordean did i get that right simon moradian I didn't even follow my own phonetics moradian He's the of the eparchy of our lady of of nadeg. I know I got that right We're all going to get together with as many thousands of believers as we can And then and I'm also beginning today fasting every day This week for this purpose So you can begin praying now you can begin offering your rosaries up But I want to storm the gates of hell because scripture says The gates of hell will not prevail and this is a principle that most christians don't understand When you advance the kingdom of god you crush the kingdom of the enemy Simultaneously It's inevitable. It always happens the kingdom of god never advances Without crushing the kingdom of the enemy. What are we seeking to crush? We're seeking to crush evil. We're seeking to crush hatred. We're seeking to crush all That prevails in the hearts and minds of men and women who would Establish a blockade like this To starve 30,000 children To try to do to try to bring about the the the the final end of the initial attempt to gen genocide Whatever the evil is We want to come against that evil. We were not against flesh and blood And what we want to see and I believe I mean I'm I'm a crazy person. You call me crazy I believe the lord can disintegrate every vehicle in that blockade You know, they're just sitting there. I've seen the pictures of it. They're they're all empty I think and they're just sitting blocking this main highway I believe you can disintegrate every single one of those vehicles or cause a huge, you know landslide or or what at work or bring about a political change Because there are people that you're working with steam moan. I'm gonna throw it to you here Who are petitioning our government? president biden and have a formal effort to Help to call upon the president to to ask Those who are persecuting these christians to stop so tell us a little bit about that Yes, I've been so grateful to For example ambassador senator brownback who has been, you know, just doing everything he can as possible to Get the biden administration to uphold section 907 of the freedom support act So we give a lot of money to these governments to the tazara bajan That should come with the condition it does come with the condition that it's not to be used against aggression against the armenians But of course it is being used Uh against the armenians so I I pray that everything you said dan set my heart on fire whether it's through politics or Whatever whatever. I love what you said about grace being mediated. It absolutely. That's obviously absolutely true However, it comes out You know once this blockade God willing and it would be amazing if it happened today this week right after our provincial I don't know when but as soon as possible, you know, these forces these strongholds That's I love that you're going to the root of it, right because it's not just about ending this particular blockade But whatever demonic strongholds are keeping this particular hatred and oppression against these armenian christians and You don't have to be armenian But you know, armenia is the first christian nation in world history armenia Declared christianity. It's official state religion A decade before the roman empire legalized christianity And 80 years before the roman empire declared christianity. It's official state religion So maybe that's part of the spiritual warfare dan and stephanie and joe But you know, this was this was the first people in history to declare christianity It's official identity point. Yeah, absolutely So we want to we want to again remind everybody to sign up At spiritualdirection.com forward slash amini armenia. We're going to get together It's called the gates of hell will not prevail It's a prayer vigil against the armenian christian persecution You want to join us with gia chicone christopher check simone Uh are the most reverent michael Muradian you got it dan and myself and and the felis project I can't read that from here What does that say martyrs for the martyrs catholic answers? Sorry, it's too small But you know all all of us joining together to do the one thing necessary, right? Unumis necessary. We go to pray We listen we watch we step up and we say okay lord now. What do we do? We pray and then we follow his lead we pray and we follow his lead the gates of hell will not prevail Against us amen and if between now and then as I said, I'm I'm going to begin fasting every day and offering rosaries and Everything that I'm doing that we do spiritually The community of apostole va is also going to be joining us in this as well We're inviting all the abla institute students to join us All of our subscribers to spiritualdirection.com So we need but we need your guys we need your help those who are listening on live stream to share this On your facebook pages or wherever you share it in email You can send the url spiritualdirection.com forward slash armenia out and you do need to sign up so you can be A part of the live stream so that you know you can log in and see it, you know So and then get notifications about you know, what's happening if anything comes up with technology or whatever But we need you guys to help us get the word out So that and I want you to remember Over and over I I want something to never leave your mind 30,000 children I want that to to to stick in your brain. Yes, and that you can buy becoming an instrument of god which he desires you to be And joining us with us in prayer you can become the chosen means of god to bring about The breaking through of the gates of hell to breaking through This blockade at whatever level needs to be done political Or physical or whatever whatever miracles need to be done I believe god will do them if the people of god will join together and there there it is You know joe joseph touched on this briefly. There is a conditional reality to this When god decides that he has an end and he decides he has a means he's saying This means is what is going to get this end done. We have this revealed in scripture And when we abdicate the responsibility to be the means the ends don't come to fruition So when we fail to do our part, so it's not our power You right the power comes from god himself But when we join with him his power moves through us in prayer And but when we don't join with him the every single person who could join in with this who doesn't I and I really honestly believe every one of you is hearing this. That's divine providence So you're hearing this every single person who who could join in and doesn't join in You have abdicated your responsibility to be a part of this to be a part of this solution Everyone who believes in jesus.   Yeah and and Go to confession get on your knees pray with us join with us in this battle And uh, let's push back the darkness. All right. So the last word i'm going to say friday august 25th 7 p.m. Central time And if you want to be a part of it spiritualdirection.com forward slash armenia Spread that url out spread this show out. We're going to post it You it'll be out on youtube when we're done. You can you know share that We'll send it out to all of our email lists and all of that But uh simone, uh joe. Thanks for being with us simone I want to just give you the last word because this this resonates Very deeply in your heart and then we'll wrap things up Oh my goodness. I guess for the last word Uh, first I feel like this whole initiative is miraculous And i'm like, yeah And then second they're in the first genocide of armenians during world war one It was american it was americans was american christians who in the words of historian howard sasher He said this Literally kept an entire nation alive And if that's a That was a grace mediated to our meaning christians Through american christians through america So the fact that this is happening again through american christianity an american christian initiative this this visual Means a lot All right, well, thank you guys. Thank you dr. Holcraft Thank you And uh, thank all of our listeners for joining with us and we'll see you On friday and so you can do the normal into the show. Maybe we'll forgot to use it as a normal show Until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness May he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body Irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ. Amen. Amen


Going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cars. We've been four boxes 2324 Bowman University chrome basketball delight for a child to watch L. So good luck here, buddy Let's do it Travon Brazil to 399 to 299 is Johnny Broom to 399 AJ Hogger to 99 Jamal Sheen and to 150 Ryan Colkbrenner First your fractures Travon Brazil Simeon Wilcher Ray John Ellis and Justin Edward Sharpe here first base auto mark sears for Alabama Lava Freddie De Leon to 199 for Tennessee And Travon Brazil first base auto for Arkansas Omaha Billy you to 399 299 Simeon Wilcher to 299 Isaiah Collier 399 Armando Baker and to 199 Taryn Shannon post Sean Stewart Jadon Akin's big kahuna Jared McCain That's on that short print. You've got Garway dual first base auto for Providence We've got a region Ellis boogie us to 199 for USC first base auto Dalton neck Tennessee and Zayed Lowry to at 75 on the yellow for Marquette Mac Ryan to 100 It was like a sequel He does kind of Cameron Brink to what? 199. I'd be about 299 just these dr. Dusty stromer 399 Haley Vanlif 299 is Zaden high and a 75 Johnny Broom I need a sound Please base auto Kyle filler base of Kyle Philopauski first of my real little AJ Hoggard first refractor Stefan Castle Sharp shooters for you come first base auto Kwame Evans for Oregon Aaron Bradshaw first base auto for Kentucky and then refractor Otto to at 250 Kyle Philopauski 299 Justin Edwards I might watch queso play be bomb The 399 Darren Green jr. 199 Zaden high 299 Brandon Garrison and then the 399 simian Yeah, first refractor Angel Reese Justin Edwards first refractor first refractor RJ Jones and orange big kahuna Justin Edwards to 25 Thank you for that awesome comment We are 250 is Cormac Ryan for UNC First base auto Michaela Williams for LSU and then I greens I had Lowry 299 for Marquette Very nice that will do it for your break. Thank you. Thank you as always for the sport buddy. Get him right out to my