Matthew chapter 14 this is going to be one of those studies that take a while to get to the point So so bear with me. There are various increments that we're going to be Involved in as we get to the the thing that I wanted to share with you the exhortation and encouragement that we do find Here in Matthew chapter 14 what we're looking at is Where Jesus Christ is going to still a storm and sometimes you may be thinking in terms of like How is that practical to me? How often am I going to be on on a? literal body of water Attempting to walk and of course we know that the miracles of Christ were intended to to produce people within people the Ability to see that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh sent by God and that his message was intended to be received Because he validated his his his words by his works He was confirmed amongst men by the signs and wonders that he performed and so when you when you read the Bible you Discovered that there are various things that pointed to Christ as being the Savior and you will see things Related to his words and his activities and and witnesses that were given concerning him Witnesses of John the Baptist witness of the father Witness of of his miracles and you see that when you read your Bible and and it's pretty clear to us So sometimes when we're reading the Bible we might come upon some fantastic thing like walking on water and we ask ourselves How does that really pertain to us? What is that really going to show us? And so as we go through this I'm going to be laying the foundation for you fundamentally For some time so that we can get a more full picture of the events that are taking place I'm going to touch on some things that I think have practical application, but ultimately at the conclusion I'm going to take you to a few things that might help us to understand What the Lord would have us to learn today in this passage So let's begin reading here in Matthew chapter 14 at verse 22 We're actually going to go and conclude at verse 36, but I'll take you to verse 33 So we begin at Matthew 14 verse 22. I read the verse 33. We'll get into our study And we begin with verse 22 immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side Well, he sent the multitudes away and When he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on a mountain by himself to pray and When evening had come he was alone there But the boat was now in the middle of the sea tossed by the waves for the wind was contrary Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them walking on the sea and When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled saying it's a ghost and they cried out for fear But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying be of good cheer. It is I do not be afraid and Peter answered him and said Lord it is if it is you command me to come to you on the water So he said come and when Peter had come down out of the boat He walked on the water to go to Jesus But when he saw that the wind was boisterous He was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out saying Lord save me and Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand caught him and said to him. Oh, you have little faith Why did you doubt and when they got into the boat the wind ceased And those who were in the boat came and worshiped him saying truly you are the Son of God And so let me give to you a couple of things to develop a context so we can flow into this passage Because last time we were together we looked at the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand and and I mentioned to you that Matthew in in chapter 14 verse 21 that Matthew only numbered the men It's estimated that the amount of people that were Ministered to on that day could have been as high as 15 to 20,000 because women and children were not counted and As I was looking at that I gave to you basically three applications And I want to begin with those applications by way of reminder I would remind you that they took up 12 baskets full of fragments Which could serve as a reminder that we're not to take God's blessings for granted and also Matthew made it clear that they all ate and were completely filled and the word filled means Glutted or satisfied totally satisfied So we need to remember that the Lord is able to satisfy our deepest needs I mentioned problem rather Psalm 23 5 where it says my cup overflows Psalm 22 verse verse 26 says the poor shall eat and be satisfied Those who seek him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever So they were completely filled and then third I pointed out that Jesus satisfies the hunger of all who come to him It was impossible to feed the multitude with five loaves and two fish But Jesus makes it possible Because he's able to meet the need of any and all who come to him is like what he said in John 6 35 when he said I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never go hungry He who believes in me shall never be thirsty and in verse 37 of the same chapter He said all that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will buy no means cast out so any who come to him will be satisfied by him And so I was pointing that out to you last time we're together looking in Matthew and so now Matthew is writing a Continuation of the events that took place and so in verse 22 it begins by simply saying immediately Jesus made his disciples Get into the boat go before him to the other side while he sent the multitudes away And so immediately after the events had taken place. He does something He compels them when it says that he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side the word That speaks concerning Making is a word that literally is urging or driving it speaks of compelling and Jesus Compaled his disciples to get into the boat now. Why would he compel them to leave? Well, we know that the apostles would fear for his safety and would not easily leave him by himself As we've been going through Matthew we looked at chapter 13 verse 57 and Matthew 13 57 tells us that the people were offended at him we know that death threats had been made against Jesus and They may have been concerned for him because all the way in the gospel of John chapter 5 verse 18 It says for this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father making himself equal with God And so they're already offended at him. They already desired to kill him And so it's very possible that his apostles were fearing for his safety We know that Herod was growing more interested in Jesus and Herod was beginning to pose a threat to Jesus Now Herod according to Luke 9 7 through 9 Herod the tetrarch heard about all the things that were going on He was perplexed because Some were saying that John had been raised from the dead others that Elijah had appeared and still others that one of the Prophets of long ago had come to life But Herod said I beheaded John who then is this I hear such things about and he tried to see him So we know that Herod was beginning to pose a threat to Jesus and a third thing that we would note is that These men may have very well been in danger of being influenced by the multitudes reaction to his recent miracle. I Point this out to you quite often but it's something that I want you to always know and to always remember and that is that you can be influenced by other people's opinions of Christ and Jesus is well aware of that Jesus is well aware of that Because John was speaking concerning this and speaking concerning the miracle and in John's gospel He records that they wanted to crown Jesus Christ as the king because he had fed them You see in John 6 14 and 15 how it says those men when they had seen the sign that Jesus did Said this is truly the prophet who has come into the world Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king He departed again to the mountain by himself alone So because the Lord had fed them they wanted to force him to become their king You see during that time there was a very fierce nationalistic longing amongst many Jews They wanted an anointed ruler who would lead them against the oppressive Romans and What they did is they wanted to crown Christ so that he could lead them as well as provide for them Well, Jesus saw it for what it was It was a hindrance to his divine mission the mission that he was sent on was to provide salvation And he saw this as another temptation from the enemy because it would have been a way for him to get the kingdom without a cross You remember how that Satan had said all these kingdoms have been given to me and Whoever I desire to give them to I can give them all you need to do is bow down and worship me And they'll be yours and and what he was promising Christ at that time was was a crown without the cross Well, this is another time that we see in scripture where they wanted to by force make him into the king And thus he's telling his disciples you need to move on while he goes and he prays So he orders them to leave according to verse 22 Because he doesn't want his disciples influenced by the world system of leadership. We need to remember That God's kingdom is primarily Spiritual in nature in Romans 14 verse 17 It says the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit And so Jesus wanted to teach his disciples that the greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all He wanted to remind them that in the system of the world Those who are great are called benefactors and they have a tendency of taking advantage of their positions in order to cause other people to Cow-tow to them and to do the things that they require so the model of Leadership that Christ would have the church to understand is what is called servant leadership That's why it says in in Mark chapter 10 verses 42 through 45 That Jesus said you know that in this world kings are tyrants and officials lorded over the people beneath them But among you it should not it should be quite different Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all for even I the son of man came here not to be served But to serve others and to give my life as a ransom for many So the model of leadership is effective in all places leadership is needed And so when you have a servant leader servant leadership can be practiced in families and businesses churches and even in government And so as Jesus sends away the disciples He also dismisses the multitudes and he had them go according to verse 22 go before him to the other side And so they're obedient to this command they leave and as they're leaving verse 23 when he had sent the multitudes away He went up on a mountain by himself to pray when evening had come he was alone there and So it's interesting to note that Jesus went up to a mountain by himself to pray Prayer is central to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ You know when you read your Bibles you might find this interesting when you read your Bibles The disciples are never ever recorded Asking Jesus to teach them how to preach Read your New Testament and see the various Interactions that take place between the man and Jesus and not one time Do you ever see one of the guys walking up to Jesus and say can you teach me how to preach the message? Not once you never see them asking teach me to preach They never come up to Christ and say would you teach me the proper way of fasting? Can you teach me how to give can you teach me how to serve? You never even see them say Jesus teach us to love But you do see them say Jesus Teach us to pray and Luke 11 verse 1 it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he Sees that one of his disciples said to him Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples and so they never asked teach me to preach teach me how to To fast to give to serve to love they never said that but they did say Jesus would you teach us how to pray? Now Jesus had a habit of prayer It was the essence of his time of communion with the father He was sent to do the will of the father He had fellowship with the father and the father was communicating with him And that's how Jesus was was moving along to do the work that God had called him to as a matter of fact his his prayer life was so obvious that the disciples in scripture often made comment or reference to it You see it in mark 135 very early in the morning while it was still dark Jesus got up left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed Luke 5 16 he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed Luke 6 12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountain site to pray spent the night praying to God And so We all have people Who see our lives What is humbling is when you realize that if somebody were to be interviewed concerning the life of pastor David What do you see in his life? I wonder if they'd say he often withdrew to pray because Jesus did Jesus won off to pray often and so much so that his disciples saw this as an earmark and that's what he's doing here He's going off and he's alone and he's praying and he's communing with the father Now Jesus is real busy. He had a little time to eat We see in mark 631 that just before he fed 5,000 it says in mark 631 He said to them come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while where there were many coming and going and They did not even have time to eat Jesus was very busy. So after the feeding of 5,000 and after the pressure To become king without a cross and the enthusiasm of the crowd well naturally he would withdraw and pray More than likely as he was praying he would have been praying for his disciples because again that was that was his habit in John 1720 he says it I do not pray for these alone But also for those who will believe in me through their through their word It was his habit to pray for his disciples not only the 12 But he was also praying for us those who would believe because of them. It's interesting how Hebrews 7 25 tells us He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them So Jesus was praying then he still prays for us now and So he withdraws to pray it says in verse 23 when evening had come He was alone there, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea tossed by the waves for the wind was contrary It's in the middle of the Sea of Galilee John 619 tells us that they had rode for They had rode from three to three and a half miles into the Sea of Galilee They're in the middle of the sea and they're being tossed by waves Because it says in verse 24 that the wind is against him It's contrary and according to verse 25 in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them walking on the sea So the wind keeps pushing them farther and farther into the middle of the lake They've been battling the wind and see for at least nine hours. They must be incredibly tired Frustrated helpless and alone They must have been at that point calling on the Lord Can you please help us and they may have even had that question that many of us have had in the past? Where's God when you need him? dangerous and difficult situations Often provoke us to begin the doubt the love of God We can begin to question why he doesn't intervene and why he doesn't rescue us from our situations and in the case of the Disciples they'd seen Jesus Christ come to the rescue over and over again Matthew recorded that Jesus had saved them when they were in a similar situation We saw that in in Matthew 8 23 through 27 how they were caught in a great storm They were fearing for their lives while Jesus was asleep They even awoke him and questioned his care for them and Jesus stood up and still the storm They must have been calling on the Lord to help them again. Where is God when you need him? He most certainly must be aware of the trouble that they're in In Psalm 38 9, you know what I long for Lord you hear my every sigh Psalm 130 verse 2 Lord hear my voice let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication Well, here's the thing. Jesus is aware of their situation Mark tells us in chapter 6 verse 48 that he saw that they were in serious trouble rowing hard struggling against the wind and waves He was aware of their situation. He hadn't forgotten them His eyes were upon them even when they didn't know it my son David sent me a video yesterday I Busted me up busted me and my wife Marie up It's a it's a video of his son David my son David has a son named David Makes it easy to remember and so he sends us a video and it's of my grandson baby David would call him baby David or a little David and All you can see is this little guy. He's a year and a half or so little guy all you can see is He's behind something so you you can't see his head But you can't see his little body and his diaper and he heard David my son David's voice saying Baby David, what are you doing? You call them Papa Papa? What are you doing? What are you doing and the baby's quiet? What are you doing and the baby's quiet? He says what are you doing and the baby pulls his head out?  I'm exactly that way. I still am that way just as last week We were someplace with the grandkids and all they were doing something and and and I see one walk away carrying the other one And and my eyes on them. I keep an eye on them even when they don't know that somebody's eyes are on them Somebody's eyes are on them and it's their father or the grandfather. That's how it is and my father my heavenly father His eyes are on me I may be thinking I'm getting away with it. Look at if I hide behind this sofa here I can do this and he won't see me. That's not a fact He sees me the same way that my David saw little David. They're hiding with his cookie and Sometimes a cookie can be sin Sometimes a cookie can be some I delight in it's what I want. Nobody knows I have it I'm not supposed to have it and we hide we think nobody's watching us or sometimes It's because we're there and we're not even aware that we're being watched when we may be entering into danger Here's the thing for you keep this in mind. We'll see this in a moment. I'm going to develop it further You're never alone There's never a time when God's eyes are not on you Don't forget that and it's not looking and say let's see what this brat does so I can take a two-by-four And put them into a left field. No because he loves you his eyes are upon you keep that in mind Because these men are at the point where they're thinking that they're all alone and that that God doesn't know Where they're at, but Jesus is aware of their situation again mark 640 48. He saw that they were in serious trouble He hadn't forgotten them and saw him 139 verses 1 and 2. Oh Lord You have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up You know my every thought went far away. He goes on in verses 15 through 17 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb You saw me before I was born Every day of my life was recorded in your book Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed How precious are your thoughts about me? Oh God? They are innumerable and So as this is taking place, they don't know that the Lord's eyes are upon them. It says in verse 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled saying it's a ghost and they cried out for fear It says when the disciples saw the word saw means to look at Intently it means to stare or to be transfixed their eyes are firmly locked on this Person walking across the water Jesus acted it at first as if he was going to walk past them in the storm conditions dark misty They didn't recognize him On a spiritual level in difficult times That's what we also experience when things are in chaos We may very well think there's no help and God is just passing us by and it appeared as if he was going to walk past them Now of course He wasn't going to leave them in that situation. He intended to rescue them What was he doing? Well? He has given them opportunity to cry out for him for help That they might know that he cares and that he's able the Lord by way of application Will allow us to find ourselves in a situation where we cannot help ourselves And at that point when we've got nothing That can save us. He allows it sometimes. You'll see this in a minute He allows it sometimes so that we can see he can rescue us Psalm 77 verse 1 I cried out to the Lord with my voice to God with my voice and he gave ear to me Well, they thought it was a ghost which was a common superstition of their day But as they're beginning to cry out verse 27 Immediately Jesus spoke to them saying be of good cheer. It is I do not be afraid Immediately he spoke to them he calmed them down take courage.  He needs to steal the storm in their heart and As all of this has taken place when he says be of good cheer. It's another way of saying take courage Peter verse 28 answered him and said Lord if it is you Command me to come to you on the water of all The men who heard the voice it was Peter who spoke to the Lord It was Peter who responded Notice what he says Lord if it is you command me to come to you on the water He's wanting to see whether this is really Jesus Peter knew that Jesus could make it possible for him to do the impossible If it is Jesus then he can support his body on the water still he's not going to take a step without God's command to do so so Peter's overjoyed to see the Lord his fears are momentarily vanquished by gratitude So what does the Lord do well verse 29? He said come Jesus is calming the hearts of the apostles and he's working in the life of Peter He said come when Peter had come down out of the water. He walked on the water to go to Jesus, but When he saw that the wind was boisterous. He was afraid Beginning to sink. He cried out saying Lord save me So What's interesting here is as this is taking place the wind is blowing mightily against him The waves are raising. They're beating against his body. His faith turns to fear. He begins to sink beneath the water Somebody said his faith was enough to get him out of the boat, but it wasn't enough to keep him from sinking Somebody wrote my peculiar temptation has been constant unbelief. I know that God's promise is true Yet does this temptation incessantly assail me doubt him distrust him? He will leave you yet. I can assure you when that temptation is aided by a nervous state of mind It is very hard to stand day by day and say no I cannot doubt my God and so Peter in verse 30 prays the best prayer he could have prayed It's only three words Lord save me And what is Jesus's response? Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and pushed his head under the water and drowned him That's how we think of the Lord sometimes If you cry out to him, he's just gonna drown you That's where you can get when you're in a state of unbelief That's where you can get when you can begin to believe the words of the enemy who whispers into your ear when you're going through your storm And you can say even if I cry out he's not listening even if I ask for help he never comes Even if I need him at that moment. He rejects me We sometimes can think that what he will do will press our head further down into it so that we end up drowning But that's not how the Lord is at all and I'm gonna show you this in just a moment I want to share with you some things to make this Something that we can grab hold of you see the Psalm is said in Psalm 40 verse 17 I am poor and needy may the Lord think of me you are my help and my deliverer. Oh my God do not delay Jesus instantly takes action, but not without rebuke. He asks why did you waver between faith and fear? It doesn't say that Peter didn't have any faith. He said that he had little faith Why are you wavering? I called you into the water. I can sustain you as you walk on it Wherever God guides God provides When when God says I am calling you to do this though. It's impossible I'm gonna allow you to see the possibilities that come through relationship with me and So when God guides us he provides for us when Peter said if it is you call me Jesus gave a one-word answer. He said come and here comes the apostle Peter Doing the impossible because Christ made it possible Now you can picture as this took place. He looks around. He sees the the waves are rising the wind is against him He sees everything around him. He realizes as we would that I'm doing the impossible. There's no way that I could what up and so I I would sink to and It's interesting how the Lord reaches down and pulls them back up and as he pulls them back up I can almost see him put his arm on him and say let's take a walk and Walks back to the boat and As they're walking back to the boat I wonder whether or not Christ Jesus was speaking more than the simple words that we find here where he simply says to him You're of little faith. Why did you doubt? There may be other things that he spoke within his ear as he took them to that boat But when they got into the boat the wind seized and those who were in the boat came and worshiped him saying truly You are the Son of God Now here we go. I want to develop something with you. I Want to show you a few applications here? Applications to our own lives from this miracle. Let me share with you what I'm going to point to one We're going to see that Jesus sent them into a storm to That he left them on their own three that he watched over them Four that he came to their aid and then fifth that he gave them a teaching about faith and provoke them to worship This is where I want to get real practical with you when it comes to this particular miracle Walking on water. Let me share something with you that some of you perhaps may not realize yet But you will I want the first notice with you that he sent them into this storm Notice what it says in verse 22. It says immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side One Jesus sent them into the storm Now that's contrary to much of what is taught today about God in his way of working with us Many Christians think that after they're saved everything is going to be smooth sailing and They're taken by surprise When they enter into a season that is dark and painful. They're unprepared for real life Sometimes you think if I go forward at that invitation or I raise my hand or I pray that prayer From that point on my whole life is going to be smooth sailing I'm going to be just gliding in a straight path to the Lord. I'll never have a bad day again Every morning I'm going to wake up and it's going to be sunny Even if it's storming everywhere out my backyard is going to be sunny and there will be birds singing in the trees at the window And we can think that we can think that okay I got right with the Lord and now my marriage is going to be healed. I'm going to be I'm now right with the Lord My kids are going to follow God. I'm going to be right with the Lord and The the problems I've been having on on the job are going to disappear. I've got right with the God the Lord I'm going to receive a check in the mail to pay all my bills. We can think that way We can think that that I will never have another rough season in my life and That's not true There are times when the Holy Spirit is going to lead us right into a storm and it happens This is what took place with with the Lord right here We live in a time when a lot of people don't understand this I don't know how to say this without it sounding kind of like just mean But I'll say it in a way that hopefully it'll make some sense We get our participation trophies, right? You played you get a trophy you bring it home you put it on your mantle I we all came in first Nobody came in first. We all came in first participation trophy And we don't understand that to really win a race you really have to discipline yourself To really come in first you need to work at it But we don't realize a lot of times we don't realize that in order to do What is great? Requires sometimes a lot of pain. I I've spoken to and heard of young men for example Who will say that they're going to go into the military and They'll say I'm going to go into the army and I'm going to be an army airborne or army ranger Because it looks like it's easy, right? It does looks easy. So what are you going to do? Well, I'm going in the military. I'm going to be at the age of second or whatever really Yeah, and and how are you going to be in the 80s? Well, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to sign up and they're going to give me jump wings really They have no idea Then not everybody makes it. They're not they have no idea That you actually weed people out through having to do a lot of physical activity in the first jump that I had in the 82nd before I was in the 82nd when I was going through the training at Fort Benning Georgia for Airborne School The very first jump that we had 14 men broke their ankles and legs That's what happens Everywhere you go you run you'll run in the morning three miles and after that you run everywhere else for the next eight hours You do that every day. It isn't something that's easy to do You do three hours of PT in the morning three hours of PT in the afternoon and then you do other training not everybody makes it But we have people today saying all I need to do is sign my my name on the dotted line.  I'm going to be special forces. Maybe you will maybe you won't I hope you make it But it isn't that easy. It takes discipline. It takes strength. It takes Determination I remember a guy when we were going through jump school who went and put a tattoo on his arm It was it was a little devil. It was called hot stuff the devil back then They used to have hot stuff as an emblem and he had parachute and he had jump boots And he in the first week of airborne training he went and he had a tattoo of himself Hot stuff the little devil because he was going to be airborne and he washed out within three days He didn't make it. So I want he even bought jump boots He never made it because it isn't that easy But people think it is and oh I signed my name I'm going to know that's not how it works if you want to succeed It takes work and effort and discipline and a lot of people don't understand that They just say well that guy did it. I can do it. Maybe so maybe not Because you don't know what you're like until you're put in the fire then you discover what you can and cannot do You can sit there watching this you can watch video of it.  There are times that they get disappointed and they don't understand They don't understand what happened. They don't understand why they didn't succeed They didn't understand the price of the cost. That's why Jesus said pick up your cross daily and follow me It's discipline. It's learning his lessons so that you can grow in the ways of the Lord and in one of the ways that God Will will raise you and this is for those who want to grow One of the ways that you will grow is once you discover God sends you into storms So that you can learn how faithful he is no matter what AW tozer once wrote God knows how long we can endure the night So he gives the soul relief first by welcome glimpses of the morning star and then By the fuller light that signals the approach of the morning Slowly You will discover God's love in your suffering Your heart will begin to approve the whole thing You will learn from yourself What all the schools in the world could not teach you the healing action of faith without supporting pleasure You will feel and understand the ministry of the night It's power to purify to detach to humble to destroy the fear of death and what is more important to you at the moment the fear of life and You will learn that sometimes pain can do what even joy cannot such as exposing the vanity of Earth's trifles and filling your heart with longing for the peace of heaven God will send you into a storm So that you may learn that he is the Lord who delivers you from that storm You will learn that Jesus sent them into the storm and we are sent into storms in order that we might put our Dependence completely on him. You see peace and prosperity are often the greatest pitfalls because faith is refined in adversity And so I'm 66 verses 10 through 12 you oh God tested us you refined us like silver You brought us into the net you laid affliction on our backs You've caused men to ride over our heads We went through fire and through water But you brought us out to rich fulfillment You allowed this so that you could bring us out and show us how great you are He also secondly he left them alone in order to teach them that they are never alone Listen remember that we walk by faith and not by sight He had left them alone But they in reality were never out of his sight Job 36 verse 7 says he does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous Isaiah 43 2 says when you pass through the waters, I will be with you through the rivers They shall not overflow you when you walk through the fire. You shall not be burned nor shall the flame Scorched you He watched over them and he was Constantly aware of their danger They were concentrated on rowing. He was concentrating on them in Storms we learned that God is always vigilant even when we think he doesn't care Even when you're by yourself in your house or you're sitting in a in a car And you've got your hands at ten o'clock and two o'clock. You know that I was in a Doctor's office. I had years ago now and had to go and met with a what our what was called what is called a neuropsychologist Put through a battery of tests. I had lost my memory and was hospitalized in Miami, Florida for four days and I had had some scans and it was I Was told that I needed to go and have a battery of tests and so I went and had a battery of tests and as I was there with the Neuropsychologist who was giving to me these tests to see what was wrong with my memory she told me that The things that I was suffering could possibly lead to Dementia I asked her How long do I have and She said if you do everything you're supposed to do Seven years That's when I was 58 years old So I I remember walking out of the Of the doctor's office. I turned to Marie who was there next to me and I said honey take care of Whatever paperwork and stuff needs to be taken care of and And I went to the car and I know the ten o'clock and two o'clock position that you have on a steering wheel because I had it and I was gripping that steering wheel and I started thinking seven years When I'm 65 I will have Dementia I won't remember my wife my children my Family it's all going to be gone Ten o'clock two o'clock You've been there.  Have you been there yet? You will be Isn't that a happy thought? There's a fact that's life Life's like that What do you fall on? What strengthens you When you hear words like that what strengthens you When you're told that your whole life is going to end in seven years That you won't be the man That you used to be or the woman that you used to be in seven years Murray took care of the bill came out sat next to me didn't say a word and I took it to the Lord See the doctor who had recommended that I go to this neuropsychologist had found on my brain on both the left and right front temporal lobes calcification and He had said that that is what is going to have the onset onset of up of dementia So I tell Murray we just have to prepare for all of this I Meet with my children. I explained to them what's going on. I tell them that your dad's probably not going to be if this doesn't If nothing changes Then the father that you know right now isn't the father that you'll have in a few years. I told Murray I said I don't want you taking care of me What I want you to do is put me in a home a Christian care home. I don't want you to have to look at me like that I Want you to remember me? As a strong man It's very painful here. It is I shouldn't even tell you these things forgive me for the emotion Have I been through storms? Yeah, I have Have I had my hands on a wheel ten o'clock two o'clock saying what am I going to do? Yes, I have just this no Many times in many things What have you learned? God will send you into a storm, but he delivers you out of it. I Went we took some time off. I came back the doctor and I met and he says David he says I need to tell you Sometimes we make mistakes. There's nothing wrong with your memory. There's nothing wrong with your brain. I Would I he showed me the x-rays? He showed me the Calcification he showed it to us. I would like to believe that I Have been graciously treated by God to his hand of mercy. I do believe that one way or another One way or another that's a fact. That's a fact That's a fact. Listen if my memory would have gone. I'm good with Jesus any way you look at it I am good with him. Please. Please remember at some of you are not Experienced in life enough yet or perhaps a bit young. You don't understand. Oh pastor. You have no faith. I Understand I understand how you could think that and I don't condemn you But until you've been in that valley until you walk through it until you've heard those words Probably is a good idea to reserve judgment because the Lord Has to bring you through so you can say and he does My God is able my God is able and that's what he does. He brings you to that place He brings you there The Lord sent through and he went through that season that time of night The Lord sent him into a storm in order that he would know that if he was walking through fire He would not be burned the flame would not scorch him because he was constantly watching him in Psalm 121 verses 3 and 4 He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep So as you're going through that he comes to their aid like it says in Psalm 107 28 through 30 They cry out to the Lord in their trouble He brings them out of their distress as he calms the storm so that its waves are still they're glad because they're quiet He guides them to their desired haven. He comes to their aid in his time And he teaches them to have faith in him It says in verse 33 those who were in the boat came and worshipped him saying truly you are the son of God And they worshipped him.  Oh, they won't eat with me on the job site Oh, my neighbor's throwing his dog stuff into my backyard the things that don't matter.  This is evidence. You are the son of God Storms help to reveal who God really is and they help to reveal what God can do Remember that remember that What I'm giving you today is called meat. I hope that you can digest it That's what it is Because some of you right now are saying oh come on. What a downer man. I mean with Jesus. That's always sailing That's only because you don't read your Bible Because when you read your Bible, you see that these things are common in the spiritual life because that's how God Refines you you've heard the term refiner's fire This is how God refines you so that the things that don't matter are burned away the things that do remain And that's where you get this strong faith. You want to have strong faith? You want to have deep faith? You will go through deep things you want to have pure faith You will be purified through the fire. That's a bottom line and once that happens You will come out of it and you will say God was with me every step of the way Every step I didn't see it when it was happening because the only thing I could see was one step in front of me But now I see he never left me nor did he ever forsake me and now I see the fruit of what happened And I see the testimony that he's given to me and the strength that I have a faith in him because he did not leave me And I can speak to you in that way and I can say that you go through that tunnel Yes, but you come out of it though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me. I can say that and That's what Christian faith is and so they said truly you are the son of God and finally when they They crossed over they came to the land of Gennesaret, which was off to the west of this the place called Capernaum And when the men of that place recognized him They sent out into all that surrounding region brought to him all who are sick begged him That they might only touch the hem of his garment and as many as touched it were made perfectly well They reached out to touch him and we can do that today People continue to come to him They continue to reach out to him and he continued to minister to them and We can do that today. We can reach out to Christ and we can say Lord would you touch my life as I touch you? And finally one thing I'd like to leave you with it's this It is always safer for you to be on the water with Jesus Than in a boat without him Keep that in mind It's safer to be on the water with Jesus Then in a boat without him Peter did something that we sometimes mock. Oh look at little faith. Where were the other apostles? Sitting in the boat, you can do it Peter sideline Christians You can do it. Ah look at he sunk Judas was taking bets and Thomas is saying I doubt if you'll do that Keep that in mind because what I just gave to you is a very important thought It's safer on the water with Jesus Than in a boat without him Never forget that


3 ways to identify if employer sponsors H&B or not 1. Go to the existing LinkedIn profile and identify whether their existing employees came from international background. If they do have a diverse candidate, it looks like they already sponsored people's H&B. 2. Identify companies that are fast-growing and hiring quickly. Those companies usually do not care about H&B nor H&B. They care about the growth as long as they find the best employees to do the job. I have a YouTube video about the top 10 companies I recommend you to join right here. 3. Check out if the employer already verified or not. In order to hire anyone who is on H&B, they must be verifying themselves through the US government.


Hello, Tom. Sorry for the late start, just copying our page over, and then I'll share our agenda for today. Let me get logged in. Time shifts are a bear. Hey, Roto. Good. Just getting a little bit of a late start. Time shifts are tough. Yeah, I'm also an airport, so. Okay, I need to drop. No worries. Might be a shorter one today, depending. We'll see. Tom, if you'd like to come off mute, I don't know if you had been talking before, but I hadn't heard anything. But if you wanted to start giving us an update, I've seen a bunch of of your work going. While I get the page set up, we'd be happy to hear how things are going. I think I saw the peer did to work and some other things. I don't know if you're still trying to talk, but you're on mute. Okay. I don't see anything in the chat. So I don't know, maybe Tom can't come off mute. But that's okay. All right. So let me publish our page. I see him. He's here. Hey. Hey. Did you, did you want to give us some updates on your Nessus work? Yeah, I can. I can just a quick one. I looked at did peer. Did peer. I'll go to and try to rework the, you know, the out of band invitation thing. So that's the, the document attachment is optional. Right. So, so what we now have is, is I got rid of the. Did conv2 switch command line switch or yeah, because I assume that the other side speaks did conv2. And if the other side is Agapai, I know that it doesn't. Right. So if I talk to Agapai, then it uses the old protocols. So there's no need to, to switch anymore and, and get protocol confusion. But I must say, I'm, I'm generally not so clear about how, how this is supposed to work, right. And with, with it peer number go to and, and the reason is that the inviter generates the invitation. And the invitation now contains just the did, you know, which can be resolved and an endpoint can be discovered from the data. And the did happens to be did peer. And, and then of course the, the invitee can make the connection and so on. But what I'm not clear about is, is that invitation is seems to be in a sense it seems to be public. Right. So, so whoever gets their hands on the invitation right has, has at least a did an endpoint to connect to and, and the invitee doesn't really know, you know, whether, whether that invitation is really coming from, from the intended invitee. Right. So, so this is a thing. I'm sort of, I'm aware of that this is a chicken and egg problem. Right. And maybe this has been solved in a, you know, more intelligent way, or maybe this is by design, the way it is, you know, but, but, but that was a, you know, what do you say, a tripping stone, right. So tripping point. Then you have the same issue with the tier one, right. Yeah, of course. This is not chicken egg. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, this, this is not, this is not. It's not coming from it pier two. It's a general issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 16 is public. So I can read, maybe if you are, you can generate in your wallet and show to only one people, but that's, that's the only duration that you can trust, right. If you show personally, you know, the private place, okay, this is only for you. You see it, I know, but you scan it. And, but then I think that the way to work is, well, after that, you start with that connection. You have this upper layer protocols and trying to find something on that. Yeah, but in a way, it's, in a way, it's the root of trust, isn't it. You know, because if, if your invitation falls in the wrong hands, then the other party can pretend to be whoever, right. And, and I'm fully aware that this is probably very much related to the old did to the old key exchange problem. Right. So that's always a very hard one, I think, although I don't know much about it. But, you know, I'm just saying that, that this is the current state of my understanding and right. And it is, it is that way. Yeah. The only thing that you can do is just ask for it. Also, maybe you, if you like the credential, you can make better know. It's, it's very choppy. I don't, I don't hear you properly, Rodolfo, unfortunately. Yeah, I caught it just a little bit on my end. I'm going to move to another place. Yeah. Yeah, he's in the airport. Can you hear me? Okay. Tom, can you hear me? Okay. Let me try this. Okay. Then brodo, I think you were pretty good. So I think, I think that was on Tom's end. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I hear you well. And there was like a little, it was like a little bit wavy, but I could understand you, you know, very well. So I think that's on Tom's end. Yeah, it's interesting the idea of asking for credential. I mean, we can talk about it when Tom comes back, but here he is. Tom, how do we sound now? I just got rid of. I got rid of my screen. Yeah, you, Tom, that was interesting. So Rodo was mostly clear for me and your video was clear and your audio was clear. But yeah, I think something happened on maybe your end. If I wasn't clear, because well, maybe my, my connections also have problems. No, it's clearly on my end. Okay. Can you hear me well now? Yeah. Yeah, what I'm saying, Tom, is maybe after you, yeah, you, you, you share this out of ban, then the, the inviter should, should maybe ask for a credential or something that you can make your, yeah, to validate something extra and see if you're talking to the right person. Yeah, but I think that's the way, yeah. That's the way. Okay. So this is, first you establish the connection, and then you get the trust pin going so both sides know who to talk to and, and then they need to have some other form of authenticating each other. Is that what you are saying? Yes, yes, right. So but we did only, yeah, yes, this concert, so you know, if you, the intuitions, you know, there are the other nations, right? That's every time we did the same, right? And we don't go with those credential, I see. Sorry for the noise, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's in the airport. Yeah, it's a good question. So as a side effect of this, yeah, the did peer, so that the project from sigma has been dormant for some time in nine months or so. So, so that needed to get resurrected before I can actually integrate it. Yeah. So as a, as a side effect, there's a few, you know, commits to, to the did peer project that bring it up to speed to current Kotlin compilers and so on and so there was some issue with the document serialization as well. So that got fixed. So, so the, the did peer project now, at least in the Java space is, is usable again, you know, so so that is, not sure if it's really that much useful in Nessus but but it's, you know, maybe better than what we had before. And, and also, if you're interested, I have another funny story. I tried to connect with, with the decentralized identity foundation with div, right. So and and I was asking, I was asking whether IBM or redhead is already a member of the diff, right. And so the managing director came back to me Claire Claire something I forgot her surname. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, and she, you know, she seemed to be very excited that somebody from IBM is asking and she wanted to set up a voice thing and everything right. But, but I'm in no position right to speak in the name of IBM, of course, right, not even in the name of redhead not even in the name of my team in redhead right. So, and, and I asked what what it would actually cost, right and what it would cost and and what would the benefits be for, for our organization to to, to, to join and, and the answer was well you know, IBM has more than 10,000 employees so it would be 50k a year right 50k. And I said okay thank you very much and I'll talk to people. I'll talk to a few people and see what I can do right and five months later she says, Oh, you know, it could be 10k if that makes a difference right. Well, yeah. Okay, very nice but I don't know if it makes a difference I still need to talk to people. Selling, selling the stuff. This is where it, this is where it ended. And I'm actually now, you know, I'm really trying to sell the idea I'm really trying to, to sell that technology and and I'm always as you know you know I'm making the, the, the use case with with the airport, the unnamed airport right and, and, and I think it would be usually beneficial if, if that tech would actually eventually, you know, be in our integration product, because that's what we do you know we integrate stuff right. And, and so, but, you know, and, and our end. It only resonates with my, you know, with my manager really, you know, he's very supportive. Right, but, but he is sort of, you know, keeping my, my back clear and allows me to, to work on this stuff when time permits right. You know, it seems that, that we have, we have priority company strategy and everything, every little thing has to be directly related to company strategy. Right, so, so if this is not company strategy, you know, I can do this, more or less in my spare time right and of course, you know, this this is a flexible definition what spare time actually is but, but yeah I wish I wish there would be more resonance in in redhead or IBM. So if you know somebody in IBM, who I can talk to, you know, that that would be great. Right. I know they had a, they had a supply chain group. I know it's blockchain related. But nobody related to to did come. Right. So, right. So this is at least how far I got. And this is why I'm telling you this right so this is where it stands. Yeah, because I was hoping you know if I, if I can actually find somebody from IBM, then maybe they can pay for me coming to to the meeting. Right. Yeah. I'm trying to remember the last time there was an IBM person in what meeting. Maybe Roto also has come across some IBM folks, but I definitely came across an IBM person. The last month or two. I want to say it might have been the OWF open wallet foundation. I don't recall. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'll keep an eye out for that. For sure. And certainly roots ID is no stranger to do as much as we can in our free time while we have far customer work. Yeah, customer specific work. Speaking of IW, you know, I mean, we are certainly trying to get as much going for there in terms of the airport. For example, I think probably that would be like a fall thing that we would shoot for because as best as I can tell the spring IW did come. The two stuff will be just showing, you know, interaction messaging basic messaging and you know maybe a couple other protocols between agents from different vendors. If we can say it that way. So next week, if you like, you know, or the week after, I could do another demo and I have credentials ready verifiable credentials more or less ready. So I hope to have, I hope to have the, the airport example completed. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And it would work with what what portion of the airport credit. Yeah, like which credential for for the airport scenario. All of them. All of them. Okay. Yeah, all of them. So, so it starts with, you know, it starts with a schema and I could, I can show how you, how you define the schema and then I can show you how you, how you create verifiable credentials and how you, and how the verifier can use these open policy agent OPA. I think so, so it's, it can use, you can apply all sorts of verification policies to verify the credential right in that, in that special language. It's not what it's called, but it but OPA is the thing you wouldn't want to be looking at. And, and the roadblock I hit there was conception conceptual roadblock was, was that you can verify. Well, you can verify the credential as a whole. Right. But it's not possible to disclose just certain attributes from it. Yeah. So, so that was, of course, you know, I thought that might be tricks. Right. So if a verifier asks you for, for a presentation, you could go in that time, you could go back to the issuer and asked the issuer to provide you with a verifiable credential that just contains the that the verifier asked for, but, but this would this approach would surely not scale of course right and yeah, and, and the way to go seems to be zero knowledge proofs. Right. What type of credentials are you using? W3C credentials, would that be. Which one. Okay. W3C JSON LD. That is a question of representation. Yeah, but, but yes. Okay. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, they selected this cluster. You're going to have to use an inquiry. Right. We go with backup. You can use it because it's. Yeah. Does. So, are we saying that JSON LD doesn't provide selective disclosure. I think no unless you have this BBS class. Oh, option that is not available. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So. Right, but a non creds would be more complicated. Okay. So, is this something that we could show in roots wallet in the near term? What would we need to do in order to interact with Tom? I think we, I'm sorry. Are you asking Rodolfo? I'm sorry. Yeah, but either of you, I mean, you know, if, if we can speak did come be to obviously that's that helps, but I, I. Remember if we've displayed JSON LD credentials in roots wallet and what, what else are we missing? We need to check that if with Alex if there's. Okay. How far are we with that? But yeah, we should definitely can do it that way with that version, even in WCC. I don't know if what you're using the JSON LD or the shawty, there are many options inside the WCC. Yeah, so shawty for sure we are doing that. So it's really easy to make those credentials. So we can define a like the type and then work on that and see if you can issue a credential to the root one something like that. Yeah. Excellent. So, so I'll do the presentation. And then we, we see, you know what we can do and maybe we can have a little workshop together or something. Right. Yeah, for sure. Right. Yeah, I mean. And if I didn't realize you were that far long. So that that's something that we could display at IW as like, maybe an introductory scenario that we could try to get more participants to join in. Yeah. So that we can just show, you know, a wider variety ecosystem. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just this will be ready for what is the thing in mid April and April. Yes, April 18, I think is the start date and it's three days. Well, I'm in no rush. Right. So I need to, I need to, you know, tie a few loose ends and bring it all together but but this this will certainly, I think I can get this done in March. Right. Yeah. Depending on how it goes on. As I say, you know, I'm in no rush. But if you think it's useful for a demo and then we can, you know, make an effort to make it happen. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see how far we get. You know, even if I if I can't go, it's not a problem. Right. Yeah. And at the very least we also want to, we had the idea of a video for, especially for those who can't attend, but at least we, you know, would have a recording of, you know, interactions and and could talk about Nessus and our integration, you know, that way and. Yeah, I mean, honestly, anything, you know, last time we demoed just did comfy to between two roots wallets that had the same, essentially, agent, you know, architecture, this, this month, or this time we want to show multiple agents so same same as we run in, but multiple agents behind it but then obviously we want to interact with as many other agents as possible and, you know, start talking about scenarios that we could build towards so. I think, you know, the top on the top of my priority list would be the idea of the TCK, you know, I would like to push that really urgently, probably with diff, right. Who owns, who owns the TCK, right. And then this is probably not roots and probably certainly not Nessus, right. So, but there needs to be some some home for for the TCK and then as many agents as possible to sort of flog around it and and try stuff. In the scope of, of a given TCK version, right, really, right. So that would be ideal, you know, for to push adoption to define a set of functionality that everyone must comply with to to get that checkbox if you know what I mean, right, level ABC or whatever they are called right so so that would be ideal and and I found, I found. Can you tell me TCK. Yeah, technology compatibility kids. Ah, yes, right so similar to like the AIP concept. Yeah, yeah, and Rodolfo, you didn't hear that last time was like offline conversation so in the Java world, there's this notion of TCK right technology compatibility kid and formally it was owned by son and then Oracle acquired son of course and if you, if you want to provide a compliant Java application server, j2e, j2e server, then you need to license the TCK and that that is big business, right, licensing, licensing the TCK costs a lot of money, and then you have like thousands of tests and and you you pass those tests. And only then you can say you have a, you have a Java application server, right, you're not allowed to use the brand Java, you know, unless you've passed the TCK, right, so in did come in did come it could be similar. So, so you, there could be a brand established around what it means to to be ready for interoperability, you give it a name, right, and and maybe it has levels or maybe it has sections or whatever, right. And, but there, there must be somebody who owns that TCK and, and it must be must be somebody who is not, who is not at the same time an agent, right, and Java in Java, it is the case that there is the TCK, and there is also the reference implementation. Right. So there is the reference implementation is always right. You know, unless proven wrong. But, but, and that worked really well, at least from from, you know, what I have seen in those many years in Java. When you say reference implementation in the did come context, are we talking like what Sikpa is providing. Well, it would be an agent that passes the TCK. Right and it would by, it will probably be the first agent who passes the TCK. Right. And, yeah. I'm sorry I need to drop or maybe some minutes until I borrow the play. Okay, yeah, no worries. Okay, bye. Okay, thank you. Bye bye. Yeah, thank you for jogging my memory on that. Okay, so that is, I mean, all of that sounds great. Obviously, the community is small. So I'm with you that essentially we have to make it happen, right, as a community that's the whole point that's why we started this meeting. And, yeah, they're really, I don't know how to stir these kinds of things up, you know, within like an IBM or, or things like that, like how other than essentially all of us setting up services showing integration demonstrating it, you know, creating hypothetical scenarios that are hopefully attractive. So, looking up buzzword things like chat GPT, you know, to a did come in point like all these kinds of things like beyond, you know, building software, I don't know how to cause adoption or cause investment into these things. I personally think that that the diff should own it. Right. And then there should be, there should be an initiative within the diff that provides the TCK, right, because they have, they have digital identity in their name, right. So, so they should be very much interested in interoperability because, because, you know, self sovereign identity is nothing without interoperability. Right. So this is the whole point. Yeah, so you need, you need to have these back end wallets, seamlessly to communicate with each other, and, and a little later, you want to see a front end wallets. You know, communicating with each other and communicating with these back ends and for that to happen. You need a very strong body of standards of specifications. And as you know, you know, with every specification there is always some or a lot of room of interpretation. Right. And these gaps, they need to be filled by the TCK, right. So they need to disambiguate. What's the world disambiguate. Yeah, disambiguate.  Right. And yeah, so, and I think the diff would be the right home for it. I think. Yeah. And, and there, there's a lot of posting recently in the did com user group by Fabio Pinheiro who we work with him. Because he's an IOG guy, I'm just looking, but he was basically saying yeah where is this did come V2 test harness like this needs to be something hosted that everyone can can hit. Exactly. Exactly. That's that's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah, to Fabio. I'm just going to put his name because I don't think he's on is asking for and did come. Okay, so maybe I'm always trying to figure out, you know, okay, we're whipping up this this interopathon, you know, for IW but, you know, what should we come out of that with maybe that's what we need to bind together for is basically what you're saying a reference implementation on test harness that we collectively make sure this is the shining star right to that that it's the north star that everyone is is, you know, coding towards. He was complaining, for instance, one of the CICPA libraries, I can't remember which one he was using it was probably the Java one, but yeah, essentially he he was getting some TYP field that he wasn't expecting, and it was embedded in a way that he wasn't expecting so on the on the Diff did come user group. There was a whole discussion going back and forth about, you know, why is this returning something wrong and I believe they've submitted a PR for it. Oh no it was in the CICPA Python library. So yeah, I mean we're going to keep finding these things but yeah there needs to be kind of yeah that test harness that we can all just say I am what percentage you know on the test harness. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And, and there's this business angle to it as well. Right, so right, if you if we could. So, you know, for me it's funny to say these things because I'm not even a member of the diff, right. Okay, and it's not it's it seems to be kind of difficult to become a member, because I have these 10,000 employees at the back they all want to become members right and there's this price tag associated. Yeah. So, this is a bit awkward at the moment. But, but yes, I think, I think there needs to be a project on GitHub that has does all the tech right so the, the architecture of the TCK itself needs to be defined yeah how this should work. And encryption comes into the game and what should it see and what is the contract with with the TCK and how can it verify that stuff is actually working right. And, and then there is the business angle to it. Right, so what does it is it can, is there a license associated with it is there a brand associated with it right. So, can anyone claim that he is compatible without proving what is the process of proving that that you've actually that you've actually are compliant right so. So all these questions need to be answered I think in Java. It was self certification yeah it was not some police turning up in your shop and then looking over your shoulder that you actually pass it was self certified So, and I think, if I remember correctly that this was the way it worked, but it does not necessarily have to be the way it works with diff right so, but it needs to be defined so that people know what it means right and to how to become compliant. What it means, you know, is is this available in various levels or is this just one shot.  Roots wallet is did come compliant. Right. And there's a little logo to it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right.  But adoption is hard if we don't all have a reference implementation and test harness to work with so. Okay. Well, I'm, it seems that there's a movement for this. And so let's try to make that one of the results of the IW interopathon. Yeah, this is a joint effort to make a test harness that exists. Yeah, I think that's good, and somehow start providing a score. I mean, we can definitely use the Aries agent test harness as a as an example for that. Yeah, good. Interesting. Okay. You haven't done anything with OIDC. Correct. No. Okay. I came across it because it's, it's heavily used in, in vault. Yeah. Okay. And, and vault uses it before EPC uses it a lot. Yeah. It wants to position itself well within the European community effort. Yeah. And for that they have, they have this OpenID communications thing. Okay. It's on my list, you know, I know very little about it. I only watched a few YouTube videos about it. But I can't say that I really know what it is and it's not integrated in Nessus yet, but it will be. Yeah, sure. Yeah, the reason that that was mentioned last time is there had been a session at IW where they were talking about, you know, people talk OIDC versus did come. But the truth is they have overlap, but they're not. They don't completely overlap, right? And so they were talking about ways that you could be issued a credential over OIDC for VC, but then, you know, did use that credential, you know, in a variety of did come V2 protocols, but, you know, obviously as a present proof. So this is obviously much more advanced topic than the work that we're doing for did come but yeah, it would be nice to. If there's agents that we're integrating that already have OIDC for VC support, then why not leverage that support and show a workflow that includes it. So that may be something we don't do in the spring here. Basically, if there's two agents that can do it and we have time to, you know, practice a demo, then we would do it. But something to consider as well. Okay. And I wanted to. I can probably come. I can probably make the fall meeting because I expressed my dismay loud enough at, you know, various. I think I, you know, we should be able to go to these things and meet with people in person and actually, you know, get inspired by others and show our own work and it should be possible to do this at least once a year. Yeah. I'm just looking really quickly at the open wallet foundation. As they announced their sponsors, I was just going to check really quickly. I don't know if you knew if IBM's already on that. Okay, so diff is on there hyper ledgers on there. Just over IPs on there. Okay, but there's no, no IBM. Accenture and visa and okay. So we had listed the agents that we were hoping might participate. At IW. We haven't heard. So Ariel's going to be there animal is actually going to be there as well. But we don't know if AFJ will actually have that did come be to support necessary. Bjorn's going to be there from block trust Brian said he's in. It looks like in DCO is interested. Bruce is also interested obviously roots ideas. So they have a lot of prism. They, it sounds like Tony's going to come from IOG Tony Rose. So, at the very least, we'll have a recording of, of our, our interop with them over did come be to but they might actually be in attendance. So they have an example chat app that we did a quick, you know, did come be to messaging with. As well. So, do you want me to just call it Nessus here. And yeah, my, my be a recording. Okay. How do these things work when you, when you do these interop sessions, do people actually sit in the same room and try stuff out. So that at IW. Yes, they tried to do that last in the fall. So we had done, there's a demo hour, but then you can have a session on anything at any time at IW. And so we had done our demonstration in the demo hour for roots wallet with two roots wallets doing, you know, chat, messaging over did come be to and then that kind of spurred others other agents who support did come be to to say, well, let's try to get together and do an interopathon right in, you know, in a session. And so Alex was in that session he they tried with Varamo with Nick and them, but because, and also I think Brian might have been in there as well. But at that time. I don't think any of the agents other than ours had been settled on the Sikpa library, like I'm pretty sure Brian had implemented his own crypto. And I'm not sure what Varamo had at that point. I think I think the problem with Varamos was their implementation had been prior to the. They had done their implementation before did come V2 had been accepted by the diff so it had changed enough. And so essentially interrupt. It didn't happen. Nothing was able to interrupt but I think people have solidified much more on the Sikpa libraries, which helps a lot to avoid some of the issues, including, you know, a teleprism definitely. If they're not using the libraries they essentially are making sure they're compliant with the Sikpa library so. Yeah, we would get in get together in a room but what I'm hoping is that if we get the word out now that we've essentially practiced. It means that when we're together, we're mostly having success, we know where we fail and we can essentially, you know, talk more about like, well a test harness, you know, let's how we implement that so that everyone can. Yeah, can start to use it so that's my hope is instead of it being, you know, a last minute type maneuver that we're prepared. We'll see how it goes. Yeah, we had just talked about obviously basic message, trust ping. Well, I guess basic message routing. Discover features would be nice. But yeah, I mean, obviously this is this is where we'll sit there's there's several did come agents. Well, I guess, at least one that maybe doesn't even care about issue credentials so that's fine. Right. What about very fine. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, would be nice to show the full triangle the trust triangle. Validation is also a topic schema validation. There are various, various formats you could use. Yeah. I would, I think this will be a smaller group of us but yeah, I mean we would certainly be happy to do these things with with you. And then, yeah, as long as we have successful at the very least we record it and show it and talk about it. And there's no way to call in order. No, they, I assume they do that on purpose. Oh, yeah, they, and I think when they release the recordings, they only release it to attendees. I think they're trying to force, you know, people to attend in person, which I used to not like because basically I didn't, you know, I didn't want to spend the money and other things to attend but honestly, when I did attend. There's there is magic that happens by being in person. Yeah. So. Okay, I think that's pretty good. There was a lot of talk in the Aries working group stuff about did peer to support. Apparently several Aries agents have did peer one support in various ways, but they haven't really got a good ride between the agents to make sure that their did peer one support is good and did peer ones complicated so that's why the support is, you know, not well formed even the spec itself, basically is not clear on on several parts so but they are talking about did peer to in terms of they have these things called legacy dids that are essentially not fully qualified did so they don't start with did colon something right, but I think they're often used in the indie or sovereign world. And so they need to upgrade those dids to something. And so it sounds like did peer to is what they're going to use to do a transform. And so we supported. Essentially, we had been talking about Kerry light as a possible solution but there's too much resistance, you know, not people don't know Kerry light they don't trust it necessarily. And that's fine. But I think it was good that it was just mentioned. So Kerry starting to get on on people's radars because of the trust spanning protocol work. Yeah. Why is that such a big issue. You know, I mean, can we not. Can we not. Let's say from, from the perspective of the TCK. Right. Maybe there is this section where you don't need to resolve a did and it could be, you know, in those scenarios did key would work just fine. Right. But in cases, in cases where you need to resolve a did, you know, from from the actual did you are I, you need to go to the document and then you find the whole lot of metadata right this scenario. Is it not possible to define a least common denominator, denominator for for that. So for example, you know, essentially you need to, you need to have some sort of a registry ideally the registry is the centralized, but it doesn't have to be right so so what it in the context of the TCK not be possible to to have a mock, you know, a mock registry, or even use IPFC IPFS. Yeah, for, you know, why not, you know, or, or you even use the, you know, the sovereign blockchain maybe right that's easy enough to set up that we have the Docker containers. It's really, you know, up and running in no time. And you have those four nodes. And you can do all sorts of things but I haven't looked at it closely enough if that only supports dissolve method method. Maybe maybe that's the case. Right. And there's also this universal resolver project. Do you probably know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so, so you know, maybe it's as part of the TCK setup. There's a definition of, you know, we use this or that registry, and it may be IPFS or it may be sovereign and, and there's this common interface to this resolver here. So, so, you know, first stop would be universal resolver with a number of did methods, it supports and, and you know what I mean then then this whole discussion of, of did carry versus did peer v2 and so on and so on. And that would go away. Right. If, if, if the TCK had a way of saying, right, you know, if, if it's, if did key is not working in this scenario we use a B or C. Right. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that, well, like, I see Alex just hopped in. So when, when he was doing the JFF challenge agents supported a variety of, of did methods, but a small set of did methods and so you know if you didn't support the same did method as someone else, there was issues. So I think they're just trying to define this simplest set of did methods that, that should be supported. And so did peer to just is I think gaining even more momentum as kind of one of those base implementations because that's the other thing there's there's did peer it's confusing you know for people that, oh I do support did peer well you don't just you don't support did peer to you support maybe zero and one or some, you know, and so I think they're just trying to get some momentum, you know, towards exactly what it will be. But you are right that, yeah, we will, I think the goal from a lot of the agencies to be able to just support whatever the universal resolver will will allow. So, we're almost out of time, Alex, I call, if you can hear me. I Hey, I tagged you on. So, Thomas is gotten pretty far with his W3C credentials for his Nessus agent for the airport use case that he's working on so at some point in the nearest future we would like to try to see if we can, you know, accept the credential and display it in Brutes wallet. You know, essentially showing integration with with his work, you know, in hopes of having a solid integration prior to IW at least recorded. But you know, we might even be able to show some things at IW. So that's that. Is that the issue credential protocol? Have you implemented Thomas? Yeah. Yeah, issue verify schema. Yeah. Yeah, we should be able to get some interrupt there. Good. Great. Okay, that's our time. It's good to see everybody. Roto was here. And so, yeah, Alex, you missed him because he's flying out, but he was here for a bit. So that was great. Good meeting. Good to see you all. And yeah, we'll stay in touch on the on the roots ID. Yeah, okay. Yeah, channel. Yeah. Yeah.


I will address points made in the original call for this session, of course on the digital future, but also a bit on the ethics and the background of the democratisation. That's why we do the fair sharing and the open data. So I promise to return to these points, but first I will outline a bit of the case study and through Pan I will arrive there. Citizen science is part of, and also the open data is part of what you could call the democratisation of science, all kinds of challenges to science in the current society. So we're to share, to open access publications we have to explain to the public in simple language what we do and why we do it and we have to allow for participation that research is not a matter of professionals alone. In the field of history heritage and archaeology that takes the form of the question who owns the past. And of course the implicit answer is it's not the sole right of professionals in academia to write up what our past was. Private individuals can take part in research and there is actually human rights article 27 is the right to research and UNESCO devoted already in 1952 papers that academics should cooperate with the public. However, archaeology has moved in the opposite direction the previous decades. For instance, follow a letter, there was an increasing professionalisation in all countries created large infrastructures and large systems in which professional archaeologists did the job. More attention for non-professionals at Faro and now we're getting there that participatory heritage is a key word now adopted in many countries. Participatory government in general but heritage is seen as a field where this can work. A bit on metal detection because there there is this issue of participation is in archaeologists and the law in many countries are opposed to metal detection. But when we study their motivations, we find that they just want to keep a piece of history in their hands. They want to research. And of course that's happening a lot of other things that are not okay for instance objects get sold to the black market. But in principle they want to participate in research. Archaeology is about finding stuff isn't it and they're finding stuff so they think they're doing archaeology. They're not aware of our preservation in situ principles for instance. And they say plowing and fertilisers do the damage and I'm salvaging them. So I'll leave that discussion here but I'll stop now. But in the Netherlands there was a change in the heritage law in 2016 and we're now allowing metal detection and that's where we all started collecting the data. So the previous situation 40 years of illegal but generally tolerated private metal detection but a low level of reporting so we as researchers didn't know what was found and where it was in what collections. So in 2016 the topside of 30 centimetres was legalised to detect of course not of scheduled monuments and find reports are mandatory and the statistics are not completely gathered yet. But I can tell you that the 2017 reporting rate is at least 50% higher than the 2015 data in the older legislation. I say at least because find reports are still pouring in also about 2017. So it is taking up and there is cooperation and documentation of the finds. So the aims of our project is the systematic documentation of private collections making them available for heritage and academic research and the broader public via online publication in a link open data base. Improving the relationships between the private researchers and professional archaeologists and we want of course to contribute to European cooperation with partners doing it the same way or more or less the same way. We're not doing this alone, not just a university, now there is a broad national corporation of heritage agency, museums, universities, associations of volunteers and private individuals. The current state where it started three years ago, almost exactly three years ago, until now over 600 metal detector users, 6,000 locations, 60,000 finds are registered of which there are 61 boards. At the moment 21,000 are available online 37%. I don't like that that way too low, but we're going to work on that in the last year. The reason for that is the way we work. We work with standardized object descriptions, we call them reference time. What you see here to the left is the actual find, so it's a fragment, it has measurements, dimensions of course, it's a copper alloy, it's gilded, so that's the fragment and to the right is a standardized description of the crossbow roach of a certain group where it belongs to. That takes some time to write up, but of course when that object is found 100 times, we connect this find 100 times to do the same reference time. So these reference types contain an ideal type drawing, a preference label, for instance label, handroach, an alternative label or many alternative labels. Nowheim fibula is the same thing, but you have to tell the computer of course that is the same thing. Scope notes, definitions on the dating, distribution, etc. What is very important that you map it to other thezori, because we want others to be able to work with this data set. So we have to tell it to what term it connects in other thezori, and for instance we're mapping to the getty, art and architecture thezoris, and we tell them this is a, in this case, it's a narrow match of the getty term roach. That is why we do this is of course that every data set can be mapped to each other, every data set that is mapped to getty. But the getty is not very refined, it's not geared towards archaeology, so actually we should also develop other or make connections to different thezori, but this is the course that we chose. So pan is actually two things, it's a documentation and publication of privately owned artefacts, but it's also a reference collection of metal finds. It's bilingual, Dutch and English. It can be searched, this reference collection independently from the find reports. Objects and reference types have various URIs, and of course expansions are always possible, so it has a potential as a European thezorist or as a model for a later European thezorist. So we, although when writing up the application in 2015, I didn't know yet the fair term, the fair abbreviation, but we're pretty fair. The reference collection can be approached via an API server, if institutions want that. All images are free downloads under a CC4 licence, datasets can be downloaded as CS3 or TXT experts, so scholars can get access to this download function. The location data is a point where we have to be careful, it's not visible, the exact location of a find is not visible on the public website. Detectors are quite protective of their sites. Scholars do have access to the exact data, but have to promise that they will not publish them in detail. Furthermore, exports are shared with guns, are the Dutch National Trusted Repository, that's both for safekeeping just a backup, but also because they make the connection to European databases such as Ariadne. For these principles, we received the Dutch data prize last year, which we are really proud of. The public websites, you can order objects for periods, you can search the map, select provinces or municipalities where you want to see the finds. The reference collection can be searched independently and after lock-in, scholars can analyse and export the data and the forward tiers can manage their own collection. For them, it's a collection management tool and that's part why it's attractive to them. For the future, we were funded for four years as the setup phase and we had a specific aim for the backlog of older collections, so the detector is starting in the 70s of future collections and we wanted to safeguard these larger collections. Now we're in our last year and turning our eye to the transfer of the infrastructure to the National Heritage Agency. They take over this project in 2020 for new finds mostly and in preparation of that, we are trying to get a national pact together because it's important in the fair data and in the citizen science approach that I started with, it's important that it's not imposed by a governmental institution. It's vital that it's also supported by the volunteers but also by archaeologists in the country as well. So archaeologists of provinces, municipalities, scholars, museum and volunteers will come together in the coming months and discuss how they will use PAN and to what extent whether it's next to different systems or whether it will be the only infrastructure. And of course we hope that they agree to use and promote PAN as a central port of all artefact information. So what we aim for is that, of course the Heritage Agency has the infrastructure supports that but that it's a shared national ownership of artefact heritage, that's what we aim for. I wanted to make a quick jump on the durability issue to the CIL, the very famous corpus inscription in Latinarum started in 1853. Very influential, every study in Roman archaeology more or less makes use of it. 166 years later it's still highly relevant to Roman period research. But will our digital corpora achieve the same? I think other speakers have already voiced their concern that this might not be and there have been countless of websites and projects creating a database which is not available anymore. So what determines the success are just some thoughts which we have to take when comparing to digital repositories. Publication and distribution to all kinds of libraries was the form of open access I think of the 19th century. There was an international standard for the publication of inscriptions and it was supported by a stable and powerful organisation. So what do we have to arrange in the 21st century to achieve digital durability? Open access publication, of course the level of open access depends on the sensibility of personal information. You can't make everything open access, so think through which aspect you can open up and which ones you have to keep. Not only the data, but also the metadata of course. And you can think of open access for various groups. So different groups of users have access to different kinds of data. Of course we have to establish internationally accepted formats and interoperability. Data management I think must be done by this stable and central organisation. But at the same time the digital infrastructure is at a stable organisation. But at the same time make sure that also non-professionals and regional colleagues in the case of archaeology can use it and will use it and have interest in using it. And of course to ensure backup on various levels. I hope you visit our website and I thank you for your attention.