Every little thing can feel like a sudden reminder. You could be having a normal day and echoes from the past hit you like a ton of bricks. You may freeze up, you may feel rage, or you might even try to avoid these feelings altogether. But the pain of childhood trauma remains and can manifest into your psyche in various ways. There is no one size fits all when it comes to trauma responses and triggers, since trauma itself is complex and can come in many different forms. But in this video, we're going to learn about oddly specific childhood traumas with the help of licensed social worker Patrick T. Han. Let's begin. Emotional delay. Emotional delay is when an emotion about something can take several hours to catch up with you. For example, let's say your boss or partner asks something of you and at the moment you say yes. Later in the day, you start to get upset about feeling taken advantage of or not feeling seen. It may feel like an escalation of emotion that you weren't in touch with at the time of the event earlier in the day or yesterday. How does this stem from trauma? Well, it is due to disassociation and hypervigilance which refers to a state of heightened awareness and having your guard up. Childhood trauma survivors struggle with not being fully in their bodies and being present in their emotions in real time. The hypervigilance in survivors of childhood trauma occurs when our inner child kind of goes, wait a minute, was I just taken advantage of or let down again? This emotional delay can cause you to lash out later on which can leave those around you feeling confused but really it's a trauma response. Refrigerator buzz, depression. Imagine having a refrigerator that constantly buzzes loudly for years and you never notice it. This sound is just buzzing in the background until one day it hits you. What's that buzzing noise? This is the exact same thing that happens with refrigerator buzz, depression.  Until one day the pain and grief finally hits you. Where does this come from? It comes from not getting help growing up as well as several different childhood situations and dynamics that caused you to shut down emotionally and that haven't been fully resolved. Some examples would be witnessing a parent's struggle with alcoholism, death, medical trauma, having oppressive parents, etc. This creates a false belief in victims of childhood trauma that nothing will ever change for the better. Being depressed becomes a natural defense mechanism and over time you become numb to difficult situations. Being tired is a trigger. This simply means we confuse our body just naturally being tired with depression or failing such as not being good enough. Trauma survivors can be addicted to productivity or being on a mission. An example is punishing oneself for sleeping too much or even trying to relax which can happen subconsciously. This behavior is highly damaging to one's self-esteem because you're labelling yourself a failure or loser for sleeping or taking a break which is something you deserve and you shouldn't feel guilty for doing so. Where does this come from? Emotional neglect as a child from your parents not being present or fulfilling your emotional needs. Being tired can be a trigger to sad feelings so we try to keep the party going to numb the pain. You should never feel ashamed about feeling tired or emotionally exhausted. It's completely normal but your trauma brain may trigger you to feel guilt for doing so. On the spot, disassociation. This isn't simply disassociating or checking out. It's a feeling of literally leaving your body or freezing when you feel that you're being put on the spot. Some examples of on the spot disassociation include having to do a presentation in front of people at school or work and having an anxiety attack or even being nervous and fidgety on a first date when being asked intimate questions. Where does this come from? Psychiatrist Irvin Yalom talks about how we usually only put a child on the spot abusively An example is how a parent may put their finger on their child's face and speak to them aggressively in an attempt to instill fear and intimidation. This type of trauma response also stems from parents who are hypercritical and overbearing such as not giving a child enough space and not allowing their thoughts and opinions to be heard. Laughing Through the Pain This trauma response comes up when someone is expressing or discussing their childhood story and what they endured. Specifically, this looks like jokingly talking about abusive or horrific childhood trauma experiences in an overly casual or funny way. You'll see this come up when others are shocked or in disbelief about a person's stories of trauma. But the survivor isn't fully connected to the severity of what they are talking about and what happened to them. Our inner child pops up in these situations and tells the truth but doesn't know how to take the truth of our abuse seriously since no one else did. Where does this come from? This response comes from dealing with a highly toxic family with extreme neglect and having no one to stand up for you. It also comes from a highly caustic and sarcastic family that withholds love and affection intentionally. Can you relate to any of these specific trauma responses? Let us know in the comments. Be sure to check out Patrick T. Hearn's YouTube channel for interesting insights on trauma and family systems, which is linked in the description. As always, stay kind and have a beautiful day. Please let us know what your thoughts are on this video in the comment section. We would love to hear from you. And again, thank you so much for watching this and we hope you have a great day. Take care.


This is stock number 10528, and we are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, near New and used light duty truck headquarters. Today we are checking out this exceptionally clean 2015 Ford F-150 Super Crew 5.5 foot short box. XLT, this vehicle has the 2.7 liter EcoBoost V6 motor which pumps out 325 horsepower. This truck has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. The truck has been gone through mechanically 100% and is 100% ready to go. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second, so if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, or smartphone device, turn them on right now because it is definitely your best way to check out the quality and condition of the vehicle before seeing it in person. Oxford white over caribou brown, two-tone paint scheme. If you want to check out all the photos on this truck in the upper right-hand party screen is a link right to our website, click that and check us out there. It comes with the chromed alloy rims. These are 18-inch rims and they have brand new Goodyear Wrangler Fortitude HT 275 65 hour 18 tires. They are brand new. We put those on in our safety inspection. Our side front fender didn't see any dents or dings on that. Factory fog lights. The front bumper is in excellent condition. I didn't see any dents or dings on there. It does have the chrome appearance group, so you get the chrome trimmed grill, the chrome tipped exhaust. The hood, I didn't see any dents or dings on that, a very nice condition. And the passenger side front fender is in excellent shape as well. No dents or dings on there. Other side rim, no scuffs or scrapes. And as you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror like that paint is. We take these HD videos, so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the vehicle, hear the vehicle and have confidence in what you're looking at before you even get here so that when you do get here there's absolutely no surprises and you'll be all set to go. And that's why we offer the Summit Auto Fastpass option in the upper right hand part of your screen. A link right to our website where you can apply for financing, get pre-approved, see a payment quote, even appraise a trade, all from the comfort of your own home. So when you get here all you gotta do is drive the truck, love it and you'll be all set to go. Framing underbody is exceptionally clean, has the nice chrome step bars and the back tires on this truck are brand new as well. Box rails all look great and this back rim is in excellent condition, no scuffs or scrapes on there. You do get that chrome tipped exhaust like I was talking about and as we come around to the back of the vehicle, rear bumper is in great shape, I didn't see any dents or dings on that and the tailgate is in really nice condition as well. This one does have an undercover flex, fold up tonneau cover that's in really nice shape and the bed's locked right now, we'll have to unlock that and check out the back there. As you go down this side the truck just as clean as that passenger side, no dents or dings in the box and for full disclosure this back rim is in excellent shape and looks like those back brakes are brand new too. Capless fuel fill, down the rest of the side very nice and clean, it does have the driver side door code entry which we have the code for. Heated mirrors, built in directional signals and blind spot mirrors. Inside the XLT package gives you the gray cloth interior, there are no rips or tears on that seat. Power driver's seat with lumbar, weather tech floor mats throughout. Power pedals, auto headlamps and tilt and telescopic steering wheel. Four windows power locks, power mirrors and as we hop inside you can see that this one has 70,239 miles, you get a digital speedometer and a compass display up there. Leather wrap steering wheel, bluetooth and audio controls on the right, cruise controls and information center controls on the left, steering wheels in really nice shape. No rips or tears on that, it does come with the six speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift, the Ford MyTouch radio, AMFM and SiriusXM radio capabilities. This is also where your backup camera is going to show up and you can do your climate controls and everything down here and then you have your radio and then your information center controls right there as well. CD player, turned out four wheel drive, comes with a 12 volt power point, the sync system to connect it to your cell phone and the passenger side seat and floor mat are in excellent shape as well, no rips or tears, this truck smells very clean, I don't think it's ever been smoked in, the headliner is in nice shape, no rips or tears up there, map lights and this one does have a remote start system on it. We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then check out under the hood, back seats just as clean as the front seats, no rips or tears back here, it does have the latch child safety system for all your child car seat needs, fixed glass rear window with the built-in rear defrost and these seats do fold up for extra storage and we do have a weather tech floor mat back here as well, carpeting is very nice and clean underneath there. We'll take a quick look in the bed, also you get the child safety locks on the back doors, all the bottom of the doors look great, so it does have the spray and bed liner, that's in really nice shape, the bed's in really nice shape, it does have the tailgate step assist where this pulls out and then the handle goes there and you can get into the bed easily, tailgate shuts nice and solidly and we'll take a quick look under the hood, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you've been able to tell just how clean this truck is all the way around, inside and out, under the hood we have the 2.7 liter V6 EcoBoost motor, 325 horsepower, engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth, this truck like I said has been fully safety to and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, it has four brand new tires, looks like it has brand new brakes all the way around as well and to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half tons, three cotter tons, one tons, you name it we got to go to our website www.summitauto.com, full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summitauto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left, a link to more F-150 videos like this tonight right if you have not been to our website on the bottom link to this vehicle on our website click those check us out and we really look forward to helping with this extremely clean 2015 Ford F-150 supercruise short box XLT thanks again


Grace to all of you in Jesus' precious name. How did those early disciples go off to war? They went off to war, seeing the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. May that be our way of preparing for persecution. I would like to say at the very beginning, I think that if we can get the vision of those early disciples, of this living Savior whom they had observed for three years, doing the miracles, the amazing teaching that came from His mouth, the suffering that He taught and then exemplified in front of them, the garden, the cross. But before that, some of them at least saw Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. And they all heard Him there on the Mount of Beatitudes. And now they come to the cross and they think it's all over. And for three days, His body was in the grave and then He rose again and they realized something is going on. And then He was with them for another 40 days and taught them about the kingdom and taught them how to understand the Scriptures. And then they watched Him ascend to heaven. A church prepared for persecution. And if we want to prepare ourselves for persecution, we can prepare today by asking Him to give us the same kind of vision that our dear brother Stephen had. I have a clearer slide in a moment. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, is a quote that we have often heard attributed to Tertullian. And here we have an image taken from the martyr's mirror, an image by Jan Leichen who did the engravings for this book. And for those of you who may not be familiar with this volume, The Martyr's Mirror, it's a collection of stories of the martyrs and of their letters and the writings that they sent home, these people who were the radical reformers from the 1500s and 1600s. And the volume begins with the martyrs of the early church. So I'll be showing a series of slides that shows the death of those apostles. So the reason, let me just give a little more on the martyr's mirror for those of you who may not be familiar with it. The reason this book was published, first compiled in the mid to late 1600s by Dutch ministers, was because in their country they had experienced a heavy persecution about 125 or 150 years prior. But now in the late, mid to late 1600s, the churches had grown comfortable and prosperous. And these ministers were concerned that their people would forget that the way of the cross is a way of suffering. And so they compiled this volume of the stories of the martyrs to help us, to help their people and us today now remember these accounts. So here is Stephen and his portrayal of his stoning. And of course, the image here has at the very center, Stephen looking up at heaven at the moment he is declaring, behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.  In the middle of the picture, you can see three men that are raising stones.  And then to the left of him, there is a man that has like a backswing with a rock in his hand. He's getting ready to bring a rock down upon poor Stephen. And he has a rock in his left hand ready to exchange it to throw it. And then in the very center, you see that man with a stone raised in his right hand. But I think perhaps the most mysterious and one of the most significant parts of this picture is off to the right. You see that slight figure standing there with his arms crossed. And he's standing there over the clothes. And we know who this is. This is Saul of Tarsus. And the way his stances portrayed their arms crossed, kind of confident, maybe self-righteous, and indignant, ready to stamp out this heresy. And we know the rest of the story. He did set out to stamp out the heresy. But he got arrested. And he realized what he thought was heresy was actually the truth. And he gave his life for it. And I have a portrayal of his death later on. Now here's what happened in the early church. Here is how they prepared for persecution, Acts 8 verse 1. And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Now, OK, so here we've got a problem. There is heavy persecution. There is a scattering of the disciples all over. So we have two hardships. Number one, there's the hardship of persecution. Number two, the hardship of the scattering. So what is their solution to this great hardship? Do we make a petition to the local authorities to ease the persecution? Their solution and their preparation for persecution was that they went everywhere preaching the word. Their preparation was to go on the offensive, preaching the word. We conquer in dying. We go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued.  Your injustice is the proof that we are innocent. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you. Rather, it is a temptation to us. The oftener we are moaned down by you, the more in number we grow. The blood of Christians is the seed. And we've seen that throughout the history of the church. And here we have following then the apostle, the disciple Deacon, Stephen, we have the beheading of James, the son of Zebedee. Here is a portrayal of the stoning of the apostle Philip. And we see here that they put his head against a pillar. And the stones are raised. They have his head tied to the pillar.  Now I might say that these portrayals are based on the church's tradition of how the apostles were murdered. Here we have a significant picture. And I'm sorry it's a little bit dark for those of you in the back. But maybe you can see in the middle of the picture, the apostle James is kneeling with his hands raised to his mouth. And prominent in the very center of the picture at the bottom, it's lighter. You might be able to see it, are his two knees. Because what the apostle James was known for were his prayers. And legend has it that he spent so much time on his knees praying that the calluses on his knees were the size of camel's knees. And so the artist gave those knees prominence in the picture. Here we have the burning of Barnabas. Our dear brother Barnabas, who's encouraged so many people, suffered this indignity of a rope around his neck being dragged to the flames. And we have the offering of Mark the Evangelist in the town where the mob attacked. They grabbed him by hooks and by ropes, and they dragged him through the streets of the town until they reached the stake. And by that time, he had already died. And here we have the apostle Peter, of whom the Lord prophesied that he would die in a way which he did not wish. And tradition has it that when he was being taken to be crucified, he requested that he be crucified upside down because he felt he should not have the honor of being crucified in the same manner as his Lord. Now here we have another portrayal of Paul now, Paul the apostle. Now he's an old man and has suffered the wounds of the war. And he's about to give his life, tradition has it, at the hands of Nero. And the executioner is drawing the sword from the scabbard. And in a few minutes in this portrayal, our apostle Paul would have met the Lord Jesus whom he had first met there on the way to Damascus. The crucifixion of the apostle Andrew. Bartholomew, skinned alive and beheaded, we won't linger long. And here we have, as brother Dale already alluded to, the apostle Paul, apostle Thomas got his wish. Let us go with him that we may die also. Well we know tradition has it that the, and actually we have good archeological evidence that the apostle Thomas ended up all the way over in India. Doubting Thomas, preaching to those people all the way to the east. And legend has it that they captured him and threw him into this burning fiery furnace. And I'm sure that the son of God was walking with him in those flames. Matthew the evangelist beheaded, pinned to the ground with nails and beheaded with that large axe. The crucifixion of Simon the zealot and the crucifixion of the apostle Matthias and the hanging of the evangelist Luke. That's the end of that slide presentation. So again, we could ask the question, what was their cause? And we know that their cause was not a doctrine, not a creed. Their cause was a man, a man whom they had followed, whom they had seen and felt and touched as the apostle John teaches us in first John chapter one. They had heard him. They had seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. This was their cause. This is how they prepared for persecution. The vision of the suffering, risen, ascended Christ and a commitment to follow him and the teachings that he gave them. This was their preparation and we could elaborate on this and sit down and we would be done and I think we would have adequate preparation. Let's go on and have a few more thoughts. From Jesus' teachings, let's look at the certainty of preparation and I'm going to read these scriptures and make no comment. The question before us is, can we expect persecution today? Let's listen to Jesus' teachings from Mark chapter 10 verses 22 to 25. I invite you to turn there. Mark 10 verse 22. Well, I have the wrong reference. Let's go on to John chapter 15 verse 19 to 21. John chapter 15 verse 19. Jesus says, if you were of the world, the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateeth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. Second Timothy chapter three. Now we will hear from the apostle Paul who experienced his share of persecution. Second Timothy chapter three in verse 10. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yay and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. First Peter four, the scripture that was memorized. Verse one, first part of the verse. For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind then over in verse 12. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. Now let's go on to the benefits and the blessings of persecution. Matthew chapter five, verse 11 and 12. Those familiar verses at the end of the sermon on the mount Jesus says, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Here I see two benefits in being persecuted. Number one is it gives us a good reason to rejoice because we can after that person say at the restaurant you've just given him a tract or maybe at the drive through and you wished God's blessing on that person and as you drive away you hear the ripping of paper and you think, oh, that person has spurned what I offered him. Well at that moment you can thank God. Now that may be a very mild form of rejection obviously but it did happen recently and I thought of this. Here's an opportunity to rejoice. Secondly, at the end after we have endured faithfully there will be a great reward in heaven. On to John chapter, I'm sorry, Romans chapter five, three through five, Romans five, three through five. Here we have Paul giving us the benefits and the privileges of tribulation. So let's read verse three and not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. So patience could be translated endurance and experience could be translated character. So here if we endure tribulation we can look forward to having our endurance built up which will then lead to greater godliness in character. So right there's two more benefits. Endurance and character coming out of persecution. First Peter chapter four back to the passage we had just read in verse one. First Peter four one says that we should arm ourselves since Christ has suffered. We should also expect to suffer and prepare ourselves to suffer and the benefit there is that he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. You want to help get some victory over sin well then endure some suffering. One of the benefits of persecution in verse 13 but rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed he may be glad also with exceeding joy. There you have that same combination that two part facet of reward as we saw there in Matthew chapter five. So we can rejoice now because of the glory and the rejoicing that we will have promised to us in the future. All right then in verse 14 if you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you on their part he is well spoken of but on your part he is glorified. There we have a couple of benefits. Do you want the spirit of glory and of God resting?  And we've probably all felt that at times when we've kind of gone out on the edge a little bit and talked to somebody or handed somebody a track or witnessed in some way. And we have felt that spirit of glory and of God resting upon us. What prevents us from seeking more of that through the right kind of witness? May God help us now in chapter five verse 10. But the God of all grace who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while. Now what's gonna happen after you've suffered a while?  God's gonna bring you to maturity. He's going to establish you. He's going to plant your feet so that you can stand securely. And it says there that he will strengthen you and settle you.  Do you see the blessings and benefits of persecution? Now here in the West, we tend to because of the rights, the inalienable rights that are guaranteed to the citizens of the United States under the First Amendment, freedom of religion and all that. The tendency is to fight for religious freedom when persecution comes. Instead of seeing the benefits of persecution, can we kind of turn things upside down a little bit and embrace the blessings and the benefits of persecution? Now let's talk about America. Is America a major exception? Because since 1791, the United States Bill of Rights in the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom as an unalterable right to the citizens of the United States. It says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of people to peaceably assemble. And the Constitution backs that up by saying, this can never be changed. Legislature can't change it. Federal government can't change it. This is the right of all the residents of the United States of America. And for 230 plus years, this country has guaranteed its citizens religious freedom. And we could ask the question, is this good or not? Because in 2000 years of church history, this is more of an exception than the norm. We are living, we have been living in very exceptional times in terms of religious freedom. What kind of persecution is likely to happen in America? We are guaranteed persecution by the promises of scripture. So we will declare that we should expect persecution. There is persecution happening. Of what kind? So my personal opinion is that there is a soft kind of persecution and more of a hard overt kind of persecution. And now brother in the back, if you could bring up that last slide, the slide of Augustine the baker. And if it takes a little time, that's okay. I'll bring up that story at some point. So in America here, what kind of persecution should we expect? It's of my opinion that so long as the, so long as the present government of the United States with its guarantee of religious freedom. My personal opinion is that we will not face is not likely that we'll face the kind of persecution that the martyrs faced in the early church and in the days of our forefathers. Under the present governmental system, but if, let's say due to some catastrophe that a new form of government would come in, a dictatorship, anything could happen or some undemocratic form of government of some kind or the other, anything could happen. And so we live in uncertain days and we're not sure what will happen. But until such a time, I see the U.S. drifting toward a very liberal kind of society, kind of indifferent to religion, maybe similar to the way the Netherlands are today. And I think it's likely we will, we will experience a more soft kind of persecution. Such as being charged with hate speech for calling people out of sexual sins as the apostle Paul did in Romans chapter one in which were common in his day. Of course, I am aware that there are people who have actually gone to prison in recent years for the sake of loved ones and for conscience sake. I am aware of that. But I think that it's pretty much a rarity in this country unless the democratic system collapses entirely. But if it would happen, and if we would have to experience persecution, we could do it. The grace of God would help us to endure and we will have cause for rejoicing. And the burning question is though, the burning question for us today is if the church were all that she should be, would there be more persecution? And we've been living in freedom for 230 years but we shouldn't forget that in many parts of the world there is persecution, the hard kind of persecution. Right now in India, for example, India for the last three or four years has been moved up to the number 10 country in the world where it is most, where Christians are most likely to be persecuted. For example, there are villagers, I've got a story here that I won't give the time to refer to in detail. But there's many examples like this where people go to their villages and the Hindu extremists ask them to worship the local Hindu gods at the threat of their lives. And people have to flee. It's a lot like it was in the days of the Roman Empire when the Christians were asked to do just a little thing, just offer a pinch of incense to the emperor once a year or so, that's all. And they said, no, we have one Lord and his name is Jesus Christ. And these Hindu Christians today are being persecuted in a similar way.  And if you don't leave, some of these people are dying for their faith. So let's remember to pray for our brothers and sisters in other places where persecution is actually going on. Preparing for persecution. I think that we should be realistic, number one, about the threats that the church is facing today. I think that we have greater threats than persecution right now. And one of those greater threats is prosperity. And I'll read a little bit from a portion of a paragraph that the compilers of the martyr's mirror put in a later edition of the martyr's mirror because they were concerned about the prosperity. They said, in the former times, in the times of the cross, when men could assemble under peril of their life, our zeal drove us into the night and at unreasonable times into nooks and corners, fields and woods. How precious then was one hour which could be employed in stirring up and establishing one another in godliness. Men did not ask for ingenious or flowery sermons but hunger devired all that was present. The sole treasure was diligently sought since bodily possessions could give but little comfort. Then heavenly riches were sought above all things for earthly possessions were altogether insecure. How is it now? Temporal avocations have the preference throughout. The oxen must first be proved and the field be inspected before one can come to the heavenly marriage. Simplicity is changed in pomp and ostentation. Possessions have increased but in the soul there is leanness. Clothes have become costly but the inward ornament has perished. Love has waxed cold and diminished but contentions have increased. Prosperity is a greater threat I think right now. I believe that with all my heart and soul, brothers and sisters. And the second thing is pleasure. If the church can overcome the threat of porn the church can overcome the threat of persecution. Politics, as kingdom Christians, I think this is a third greater threat than persecution right now. But politics, as kingdom Christians we are called to be politically neutral. Are we in reality politically neutral? The problem with losing political neutrality is this. In the world it has always been this way. One of the major causes of persecution has been religion and the church sadly and other religion but it has also been the state. So if I align myself with a political party left or right, eventually I might find myself aligned with the persecutor. We saw that happening in the days of 1940s under Hitler. So let's identify our major threats and work on those. Prosperity, pleasure and politics. Secondly, preparation for persecution. We are to arm ourselves as first Peter 1 teaches us. We are as non-resistant Christians we are to arm ourselves. But our armor is a different kind of armor. It's the armor of God on the right hand and on the left. And it's the armor of the breastplate of righteousness of the sword of the spirit of the shield of faith and of the word of God. And it's the armor of a mind that is prepared for persecution because our master has endured persecution Peter tells us we ought to also prepare ourselves for that same kind of experience. And the martyrs mirror says that if you find that you live in a time when persecution is waning, persecute yourself. If you find that the time of freedom from persecution has given liberty and room to your lusts then persecute yourself. That's pretty good advice. Three, consider the early church. They went everywhere preaching the word. It says there in Acts chapter one verse four, we read it that the persecution scattered the believers and they went everywhere preaching the word. Now I'm not sure if we're going everywhere preaching the word, but we're really good at scattering. Just follow the vehicles out of the parking lot today and we're gonna be scattering all over the place. And we have the means and the method of scattering the word across the world in ways which the apostles couldn't even dream of. We have the opportunity to scatter and share the word. Now how are we doing with that? I think we tend to reduce, well I'll leave that. I won't make a judgment. But I think that we could leave this place with a desire to make preaching the word our vocation in whatever ways God gives us the grace to do it. So while we lived in the country of Ireland, we met at a large convention of a gentleman who was carrying a cross. I'm going to raise this as an idea. So there may be some young men out here who would wish to maybe do a little crossbearing in a literal sort of way and use this as a means to offer a witness for our Lord. This man was from America and he would go around to these large events and this one was a tall ships festival in the town of Waterford. So I'm there with my family enjoying this and just seeing the tall ships and then we went to the town center and here we saw off to the side this most unusual sight. Here was a man with a cross on his back. Now we've probably all heard of this or maybe seen it and we think this is weird. Why would anybody do this? Well, I'm saying it's one opportunity to preach the word and this man had a wheel on the back of his cross and he was pulling it along but he said, I asked him about that wheel and he said, yeah, you've got to have that wheel or you will lose about one inch per mile. And he said, it's the Christians who are legalistic who ask about that wheel. Everybody else understands. So I'm driving down 81 and occasionally I come to this overpass. I go under this overpass every day but occasionally on my way home from work I see a man up there on that overpass over this very busy artery in the east. He's up there demonstrating his allegiance to his country and he's got this flag up there that is waving in the wind and he is smiling and waving at the traffic passing below. And I thought to myself, what if some young man would have the courage to build a cross like that and stand at that overpass and just be friendly. This gentleman that we met in Ireland was a radiant face, a beaming testimony. This wasn't some grim experience for him and he used this as a witnessing opportunity. People came up to him and asked him what is this cross about? Well, was he ever ready to tell them what it was about? And it was an opportunity to present the cross and people came and asked questions. So we're in a visually cued society and I'm offering that as a suggestion. I know it's a little bit edgy but our family has done a few edgy things, other things. They went everywhere preaching the word. How about going into Wal-Mart or somewhere with a handful of tracks? If you've got some children, they're young and innocent you can go over to the beer section. And did you know that the beer boxes, a lot of them have a little slot in the middle and you can drop a track right down into the heart of that beer box? And I'm not sure now if it's quite legal or not but the worst thing that could happen is the store manager could come and tell you to stop doing it then you can move on to the next store. So yeah, and you might wanna be careful what address you have on the back of the track also. So many ways that we can go everywhere preaching the word. I think we could, I don't think that the days of the printed track are over. Yeah, it may be more limited now but I don't think the days of the printed track are over. Maybe the printed track is now for me too. To help me remember that I'm to be out on the front lines preaching the word and of course we don't want to neglect the deeper things such as conversations with neighbors. And I know there's a lot of good Bible studies going on with foreign students. There are short encounters inviting people to church and I know there's probably people here that are involved with refugee ministry and by God's grace my home community in Stuart Strat we're now about to offer help to a second refugee family. And these are ministry opportunities, people who've come from the Middle East out of terrible suffering and we can show them the love of Christ and hopefully some of them will choose to follow the lamb. I think we could prepare for persecution by memorizing the martyrs. We should read the stories of the martyrs to our young children and maybe have students in school write papers on the martyrs and on what they taught. We could have a memorial day for the martyrs. Our brother James Hershberger back at Stuart Strat has kind of gave us this idea. So the world has memorial day to celebrate the fallen soldiers who died to protect this country. What if we would set aside a day to celebrate and to remember those who've given their lives for the king? But then I want to talk about faithfulness in ordinary life.  We may never, probably none of us will be called upon to offer our lives as a martyr for Jesus. We live pretty ordinary lives. We may never get to do something that the world calls heroic, but we can be faithful in the small things. And I want to close with an example from athletics and apologize if this is a poor way to close. But back in 2003, the British bicycling team re-organized because in 110 years, they hadn't won the Tour de France and they had won only one gold medal in the Olympics since 1908. And their performance was so poor that a major bike manufacturer in Europe refused to sell them bikes for fear that it would harm their sales. But in 2003, the British bicycling team hired a new performance director and his philosophy was the aggregation of marginal gains. The philosophy of seeking for marginal gains in everything you do, he called it the 1% principle and they decided they would break everything down that break everything down in riding a bike and then try to improve everything by at least 1%. Put it back together and see what you get. So they did things like they improved the seat on the bicycle, they provided heated clothes for their athletes to get the muscle tone just right. They experimented with the right kind of pain gels for muscle recovery. They even painted the inside of their van white so that dust particles might appear a little better. Dust particles that might actually harm the performance of their finely tuned bikes. All that and much more. They took apart the process of riding a bike, tried to improve in many ways and put it back together and the results of those tiny changes added up more quickly than anybody could imagine. In 2008, just five years after that new takeover the British team won 60% of the gold medals at the Olympics and four years later they won nine gold medals and set seven world records and in the 10 year span won five Tour de France's. All by taking everything apart, examining themselves and trying to improve a little bit here and a little bit there. And what would happen to us, with us and in our churches if we could examine what we do in the light of Jesus and his teaching and seek to be just a little more faithful in a number of things. A little more obedience, a little more testimony, a little more praise to God. Maybe we can't sing all day long but could we sing one hymn a day? Maybe I can't pray for all the people in my church once a day but maybe I can pray for them in once a week by dividing them into a number of lists for each day. Could I be a little more considerate of my wife and the people I work with? Try the 1% rule on the Lord's Day worship. What if we'd come to church, we'd set up and sing with all our might and first of all get there on time so we can prepare our hearts. Do you like try to be there at least 1% earlier than what you are, I might say 10% earlier would be better. Try it on the Lord's Day service. Take notes when the word is preached and think about those notes later on Monday. If you're the father in the home, revitalize family devotions and maybe I'm not that great at sharing my testimony. Well you can practice it with an older person. That will do two things. It'll get you to visit the older people and it will help you practice your testimony and then you can share it with the world. Take a snack to the neighbors, seek to honor your parents a little more than you do today. If we can try to be a little more faithful with the help of God, we can make a difference and we can prepare ourselves for persecution. Every small act of obedience done out of honor, respect and admiration for our master will strengthen us and we'll prepare the church for persecution. May God help us.


John Lee, pro-Beijing hardliner and the new chief executive of Hong Kong, and this is on Global Connections here with Michael Davis. Welcome to the show, Michael. Michael has been around the world in various places. He's still, even in these difficult times, gets around the world, including a lot of time in Hawaii, and he can look back on his 30 years in Hong Kong, and he can make some sense of it where most of us cannot. I cannot. Sorry. But Michael, let me ask you the last question first here. You know, 30 years in Hong Kong, and now you've seen so sadly what has happened to Hong Kong since the umbrella movement, question, you know, how has that 30 years affected your way of thinking about diplomacy and government and society and civil society in the world? What, you know, special gifts has it given you? Well, I think it's made me aware, probably more than anything else, that you can't, that old dogs don't change, that Beijing basically tried to be inventive, and its early promises to Hong Kong, Deng Xiaoping was an innovator and wanted to put forward ideas, but the Chinese Communist Party basically seemed, I guess, in its DNA really doesn't have it in it to allow for the space that they promised Hong Kong. And that's unfortunate, but I don't blame it all on them. I think in terms of what I learned about process in Hong Kong is that the elites in Hong Kong that were rewarded by the regime from day one, the whole political system was rigged to ensure their power, and the idea was that eventually that would be relaxed and the opposition and others could have a greater role. But the thing is, is over those years when Hong Kong people were nervous about the direction things were going, these elites never really represented Hong Kong. I think that's kind of the source of today's problems. I kind of, maybe I'm naive, but I think that if they had found their voice, I don't think anyone expected them to be against Beijing or fighting Beijing, creating tension with Beijing, but if they had found their voice and helped Beijing officials to understand what was the concerns of Hong Kong people, I think there might have been a chance to try to make this one country, two systems model work. But they simply were too, I think, too greedy. They wanted to be appointed to this and that. And so the way you get appointed in China is you go along with the regime and you do whatever the regime wants you to do as much as the regime wants you to do it. And I think these Hong Kong officials, and we're seeing them in action now, today's topic, the new leader in Hong Kong, is a guy who central aims to please Beijing. And I think that this was seen by many of them as their avenue to advancement and advantages that they wanted. So they never did represent Hong Kong. And so they wanted to. John Lee was a policeman. Right. He was on the right wing of things and always favored Beijing and law enforcement and all that. And he was involved in the movement against the umbrella movement, right? He was trying to bring Beijing's law and order view to Hong Kong. And he's a good pick for Beijing, isn't he? Yeah, well, that's exactly right. So what happens is that they don't represent Hong Kong's views. They are using their connections with Beijing to their advantage. And the people of Hong Kong protest. Now, they wanted to blame all this crackdown on these protesters. That as they put it, any society would not tolerate these protests, blah, blah, blah. Therefore, we're going to crack down on them and arrest all of them. But in fact, I blame it on them that they basically failed to carry out what they needed to do in order to have an autonomous city, kind of a territory in China that they needed to represent that territory. Not in a way that's going to get them in trouble, but at least to have a voice. And they never had it. And so Beijing basically fell back on its own tactics. And that's repression. And that's what we're seeing right now. Well, does they have a legitimate concern that Hong Kong and the protests in Hong Kong or the pull at the resistance in Hong Kong would have been an exemplar for other communities, other cities in mainland China to take a whack at the PRC?  I don't think it ever came to that. There was a kind of idea that, you know, in China, the regime relaxed a lot of its economic policies from the hard line period of communism. So it's basically a market economy. And the result has been China's economic growth has been pretty dramatic. And I think a lot of people in China have been pleased with that development and that change. And at the same time, they've been able to travel. They travel to Japan. They travel to Hawaii. And they see democratic societies. And I think they more or less took Hong Kong as one of those. So I don't think it was an envy of Hong Kong. I really never heard that, that they, you know, that Hong Kong being allowed to have this open society and it was a very open society would somehow spread across the border into the mainland. I don't think so. But I think when Beijing carried out its policies in such a ham-fisted way and, you know, more and more interference and eventually heavy repression, then the protest against that, that's the kind of thing that could spread. So in a way, Beijing's, the danger of Beijing perceived national security as it now tries to protect, is largely caused by these policies that in effect turned Hong Kong into a kind of, you know, protest environment that they now then crack down on. And I think if they had carried out their commitments to Hong Kong, there was a decent chance that could have worked. It worked for a number of years and it could have. But I see the failure in these, especially in the Hong Kong establishment figures. Well, is it all over now? I mean, somehow, Zhongli is emblematic of a new and more heavyweight oppression by Beijing and Hong Kong and somehow it's an inflection point. It's turned a corner or Beijing has turned a corner on it and you can't go home again. Am I right? Beijing is not going to let Hong Kong return to any level of open society. Am I right? Yeah, I think certainly that's what we got now. The thing is, is we don't, there's a lot we don't know. We don't know what's going to go on in the future in Beijing itself. You know, what kind of leadership will emerge after Xi Jinping? We don't know, you know, what kinds of problems China will face going forward right now. It has a very tense relationship with much of the developed world, which it really depends on economically. So if economic conditions prove unfavorable going forward, will that stimulate some kind of change of attitude or change of leadership? So there's a lot of unknowns. I mean, we didn't know when the Soviet Union was going to collapse either. So there are a lot of things that we, you know, when we look at it today, it looks pretty grim and it looks like they're willing to do whatever it takes to silence everybody in all opposition in Hong Kong. Virtually the all opposition of any influences in jail or in exile. Let's break that down. I know your friend Jimmy Lai, who was a big publisher of a newspaper, popular newspaper, he's in jail on the mainland now, right? So and that would be warning to Hong Kong in Hong Kong. OK, and he would that that would be warning to anybody who wanted to speak out in a free press. So it sounds like, you know, they've done they've taken steps to make a free press pretty unattractive and dangerous. And then, of course, I'm just trying to break this down to various components. You can tell me what the other components are. The Hong Kong University, where you taught for decades. And, you know, you were in touch with the students there, the students who were involved in the movement and all that. I doubt very much whether Hong Kong University is anything like what it was. Yeah, this is what's going on right now. And Apple Daily Jimmy Lai's newspaper was the most popular paper for sort of on the side, politically, of the pandemocrats in Hong Kong. So very widely read newspaper, long under pressure from Beijing where they would lock its reporters from covering stories and they would gang up against the paper and not let mainland known companies or mainland companies that want to be to please the mainland would not give advertising to this newspaper. So there was a lot of, you know, sort of treacherous path it had to follow. But it was still successful because it was so widely read. And they closed that down. They really went after it. They raided the office with over 200 policemen. They arrested the publisher, Mr. Jimmy Lai, who owned the newspaper. He's a very wealthy man. They arrested his editor, you know, chief guys in his newspaper. They forced the newspaper to close down going after its bank accounts and freezing them and doing all these things. And when after that, they went after an online newspaper called Stand News again, with the same approach and it was forced to close down another online newspaper called Citizens News essentially chose to close down because it felt that it would be next. And yet there's still some there are some more of these online. In fact, some of the former reporters of Apple Daily newspaper have formed their own online sort of newspapers. So that, you know, while the the the crackdown is so comprehensive, as you say, it touches universities. It touches unions. It touches civil society organizations. There was just a hearing this week in the U.S. Congress on the sort of death of civil society in Hong Kong. Over 60 organizations that were more or less free of the government have all shut down under pressure. Some of the leading ones, their their top people have been arrested. One of them was the Alliance in support of the patriotic democratic movement in China, which quietly held a candlelight vigil every year to commemorate as a memorial, commemorate the June 4th crackdown in 1989. They did this every year since the 1990 government. They would get permission and they would carry out it all peaceful. Their leaders were all arrested, several of them with friends of mine actually are in jail and they're being charged under national security law with collusion with foreign forces and the national security law that was passed by Beijing can can result in a sense of life in prison for the kinds of crimes they're charged with. And so we're talking about some of the leading figures in Hong Kong society. People highly respected, not the kind of guys, you know, who are billionaires and and are known because of that, that people who were grassroots members of society over many years always like my friend, Lechuk Yan, was the labor leader of a whole Alliance of Labor Union. They're shut down as well. The teachers union of the 100,000 members shut down as well. So in universities, they have to teach national security now. Some of my colleagues have been are in jail, arrested under 47 politicians, including one of my colleagues in Hong Kong. You were arrested for holding an electoral primary, which was said to be a kind of incitement to subversion that their intention was to win the election. Why does this remind me of some of the things that Putin has done in order to suppress any expression of thought in Russia? And I guess, you know, you can say that with the tools available to autocrats these days and the way they can shape the database of their constituents, shape public thinking that you can do this not only in Hong Kong, but elsewhere. You can suppress any kind of democratic freedom of speech, open civil society with with with with not that much effort. You and I have been talking about this for a few years now. And and, you know, in a sense, it was all kind of predictable. They were never going to let Hong Kong get away with with an open society. And it does teach us that in the land of autocracy, all this is possible. It would not be a big surprise in other autocratic governments to see newspapers closed down. It has happened. And to see their leaders in jail for an indeterminate time on trumped up charges, think of Maria Raysha. Think of Maria Raysha in the Philippines. Yeah. Well, what you see going on is interesting because in the Soviet period, the effort was to build communist parties around the world and institute communism in countries aligned with the Soviet Union. But China is mostly dealing with countries that have a kind of semblance of an open society, but have a kind of perhaps like populist leaders, sort of in the middle societies, where they actually have institutions that are supposed to be independent like courts and so on. And they pretend or a hope or claim the rule of law. And what you see in the is in Hong Kong case, it's like a model for what China's version. We know there's a big debate in the world between the kind of authoritarian model that China promotes and liberal democracies that others promote. Well, what China does is it doesn't convert these countries that it aligns with into quote unquote communist countries, but rather does what or encouraged is what it's doing in Hong Kong, which is the hollowing out of liberal institution. So you have courts that are supposed to perform a role that's independent and maybe in that society, either in their colonial period or post-colonial period, tried to maintain independent courts and so on. And then what you see and what you're seeing in Hong Kong are pressure on the courts. Now, one of the things in the national security law is that national security cases can only be heard by judges that are designated by the chief executive. So the judge basically Beijing doesn't trust judges and certainly doesn't trust independent courts. So he wants courts that are part of the administration, in effect, the fist that Beijing has the hand that holds out and they make the fist to carry out Beijing's design. And this is hollowing it out. And if judges don't rule the way they want, there's pro-Beijing newspapers, Beijing owned newspapers, Daogongbao, One Way that will attack the judge, will attack an academic that says or does something they don't like. I mean, I once got an entire front page of the Daogongbao. And it was a badge of courage, the badge of an award of some kind. Yeah. And what they do is they follow you. I mean, in that case, there are all kinds of pictures of me having dinner with other pandemocrats and so on. And we saw no cameraman. Somewhere in the bushes or someone, there's cameras going on. And what we've seen lately is when someone leaves Hong Kong, because some people who are feel they're at risk, may just go to the airport and try to leave. You see cameras following them that that are broadcast and are published. And so you wonder who's holding the camera. And so recently, the former chairman of the bar was invited in for tea with the police. So they didn't call it tea. They call that tea on the mainland, but they basically invited him to talk to the police. And when he left the police station, he went straight to the airport. Now he's in London. But so it's one of the things I wanted to ask you about. And that is so we have civil society, including, you know, journalists and people who read newspapers. We have we have the universities. We have teachers who really can't teach what they want, who have to do the party line. We have a whole generation of people who are in the streets protesting, who can no longer do that. So the question is, who's left? Who's left to like what's going on in Hong Kong? Is there any? Is there one good person in Hong Kong who likes what's going on? Who is he or she? But, you know, there's basically there's a kind of united front tactic so that you get people to go along with what you're doing. And Beijing has done a very good job. Most of these officials now, the new administration is full of officials to fill those jobs. And they're all basically what they said now. They have to be patriots. And being patriots doesn't mean what it means in the United States that you're sort of a member of the country, a good citizen, but it means being loyal to the Communist Party. And so that's kind of what's going on. Now, U.S. government and its recent hearing, there was a paper issued where they targeted by they identified prosecutors who were going along with Beijing and going after people for the various reasons and so on. So there's an attempt to try to target these individuals and sort of impose a cost, but at least you do with sanctions. And it's not clear whether that really changes behavior. We don't know. But in any case, that's sort of the contest that's going on. Beijing then had a law that it was going to impose on Hong Kong. It has on the mainland already, which was an anti-sanctions law to target back people who impose sanctions on them. So this is the contest that's going on. Beijing finds its loyal supporters and they will do whatever Beijing wants them to do. Now, in the old days, Beijing didn't really have such direct control as it does today. It certainly interfered a lot, but it now has this National Security Office in Hong Kong that pretty much directs all of this. So this is what's going on. And people like John Lee, the new chief executive, are proclaiming that they're going to pass a new local national security law as well under Article 23 of the Basic Law and that they're going to make sure that the same provisions that apply in the Beijing's imposed national security law apply under this law. So it's getting worse. Yeah, most of the people arrested under the national security law are denied bail because the national security law creates a presumption against bail. Some of them have been in jail for a year and a half and probably would be two years in jail before they ever go to trial. So it's and this is a tactic of many authoritarian regimes that you don't try the people that you're picking up and arresting and putting in jail. You just put them in jail and you see, I mean, I read Storys this week about that happening under LCC in Egypt that a lot of people are in jail that were in the opposition. So so this is all of this is going on. And there's no end in sight right now. Like I said, I think a lot of people in exile are pushing back. Hong Kong, their organizations are very active overseas, especially the US and the UK and exiled the diaspora. So we just don't know what they can accomplish. But they're certainly trying to improve immigration options for Hong Kongers who do want to leave. So that that's one policy that is on the table. So on John, on John Lee, you know, I wasn't clear on how he was elected. I assume it was a manipulated election. If it wasn't election at all, how did that work? I mean, they keep on, you know, putting people in there who have who were not not elected by popular vote. Somehow, magically, Beijing makes it happen. How does that work? Well, in the past, there was all the chief execs that were chosen by the election committee, they still are. And the election committee Beijing made sure that its makeup was like 80 percent pro Beijing people. And but 20 percent could be from the opposition through various labor unions and so on. Well, after the national security law was passed, there were no longer going to take chances. They want to make sure only patriots could hold office in Hong Kong. So they imposed another law on Hong Kong and they stuck this into the basic law annex, which is an election. They called an election reform. To ensure only patriots could hold office. And the reform essentially made it so that the election committee now would be 100 percent in the pro Beijing camp. And then they they had it. The various sectors of people that would choose the election committee. They even increased the numbers. They want to make it look more democratic. They think if you make the body that chooses have more members, then it's more democratic. So then they went 1200 to 1500 members and they were all pro Beijing and they're so called patriots. And then they decided to have the election. But they thought, well, in the past, they would kind of encourage more than one candidate to run. This time around, they didn't bother with John Lee. He was the only candidate. And so Beijing anointed him ahead of time. And they always did that in the past. They would signal who they wanted through the local office from Beijing office, which was called the liaison office. This time around, they didn't bother to have two candidates. They had one John Lee and then everybody voted for him. And he got a high voter, you know, he could say I was elected by 99 percent of the voters, but the voters that could vote for him were 1500 people in this patriotic election committee. Now, it doesn't stop there in the old days. Are you saying that he got a lot of votes or just a handful of votes? I mean, if I was there, if you were there, we wouldn't have voted for the guy. We would know the story. We'd never vote for him. We'd soon as stand home. Yeah, but now he's voted for by only members of the election committee. And there's so there's never is a popular vote. No popular vote. They've never been for chief executive. Just the election committee and the election committee itself is was chosen by only a few thousand people that Beijing chose to choose the election committee. And so so then the election committee is just a Beijing shock. And then its members in the past would be presented with two candidates. Now they only had one. And so they all voted for the guy the election committee member. But then it didn't stop there in the past. The election committee had nothing to do with choosing the legislative council. Legislative council was chosen 50 percent by direct geographical votes from like we do in the US and 50 percent from so-called functionals constituencies. And these would be like lawyers, doctors, you know, accountants, whatever. Various business sectors. And it was always designed to ensure that most of the functional seats would wind up in the pro-Beijing camp because the functional makeup of the functional sectors was very favorable to Beijing. But now this time around that well they dispense with all of that. They they actually increased the number of legislators in the Hong Kong Legislative Council from 70 to 90. And then they provided that 40 of the legislators would be chosen by this election committee that they redesigned. So the same people that chose the chief executive, 40 of the legislators be chosen by them. The functional seats would still remain and they reduced the direct election seats from 35 to 20. And those 20, then they set up a vetting committee that every person who declared they wanted to run for any of these offices has to be vetted by this committee, which required that a police investigation by the National Security Police decide if they could run. So basically by the time that happened and then the election committee had to approve all the candidates that ran or direct office or for any other office and the result. And then when it's all over, they all have to square a loyalty of so that if they are any way in violation of it, they could be arrested or whatever. So the result was that the new Legislative Council in Hong Kong is one hundred percent in the Beijing camp. The chief executive is in that camp. And now the chief executive, like the former one, is so happy saying now we have a legislature that really functions well and makes good decisions because there's no opposition in the legislation. So this is it not only is it's an obvious authoritarian model of control, but I think what's interesting is how it demonstrates Beijing's complete distrust of Hong Kong society and of electoral process. So now only designated judges hear these cases and they don't just hear national security cases now. They've started bringing all these sedition cases under the old colonial tradition law that hadn't been used in decades. And the courts then rule these national security judges rule. Only national security judges can hear those cases as well. So you have three branches of government. Hong Kong people used to get some satisfaction from the legislature because they elected half its members. They used to trust the courts and the rule of law. And the chief executive, of course, was always representing Beijing. Now it's worse. None of that is the case. Where does this all wind up? So you have a termination of civil liberties and freedom of expression. You have people who might disagree with that, but who have no channel to express themselves as citizens, as electorate. And there's nothing they can do if they don't like it too bad for them. So, you know, over time, this has got to have an effect on the way the average citizen thinks of government, thinks of Beijing. And for that matter, John Lee, the average citizen must be walking around with smoke coming out of his ears. This is nothing he can do, not a thing. Where does this all take us? Well, what they're trying to do to solve the problem you, the smoking year problem you're talking about is that they're also now engaging in patriotic education in the school. So they're going to try to create a whole new. They did this after 1989 in the mainland when the protest in Tenant Month Square occurred. The next year, college students had to go through PLA military training before they began their first class. And so they created a whole generation of supporters, eventually. So now they're trying to apply a similar model in Hong Kong. The idea of liberal education has gone out the door and now it's national education and to learn about China. So when the new chief executive took office, one announcement that was very prominent and featured in the news was and I say the news, even the public broadcaster you modeled on the BBC has now become the mouthpiece for the government. They issued new guidelines for that public broadcaster RTHK, which I for years, I'm actually I was paid by them as to do what I'm doing here now comment on public affairs.  But this is what they do. So they're controlling information and they're reeducating the youth in the hope that they can create a generation that won't make problems for them. Will that be successful? That, you know, that's what Putin is doing right now. Broke the broken in Russia. And that's what Hitler did. Autocrats do that. Will Beijing be successful in creating a new generation, a new thought generation in Hong Kong? And for that matter, in China. It's hard to say. It seemed like they did reasonably well in China after 1989 that they use these methods of emphasizing national education. And they set up hotlines in Hong Kong, too, where students can rat on their teachers if the teachers say anything that's not consistent with Beijing's views. So they they they've done that. I mean, the kinds of things I teach might my courses, which I last taught in Hong Kong in the fall of 2020. I guess the entire course will be a lever. But but the the the kinds of open, critical discussion. Now, the new administration, I was starting to say they made these announcements about national security and that they're going to apply that it creates this new national security law. The second thing that was very prominently focused on is the education secretary for education is saying that we're going to improve the national education of students. So what does that mean? And and presumably that means even more stringent standards for teachers. And now she then immediately after she made this announcement immediately said, and we're not going to brainwash the student. Of course, anybody who follows authoritarian politics knows when an authoritarian leader immediately announces what they're not going to do. That's exactly what they're going to do.  So this, yeah, Michael, this this new educational package, this new curriculum, let me call it a curriculum. Does it include external affairs? Does it include the foreign policy? Does it include foreign relations? Like, for example, the perception of the United States? Well, it will certainly I don't think typically undergrad primary students or secondary students get a lot of that anyhow. And so whether they will trot out the fallacies of America, I'm sure they do that. And my guess is they will do that. They're creating new books on liberal education, liberal studies, they call it. So I don't I don't know the content of that yet. But presumably they will highlight why and they said this already in their announcements that why the mainland system works so well and why it's important for China, the kind of system they have. And presumably one would expect to do that. They will highlight all the problems we see in open society, you know, of political polarization and all these things. I mean, we don't do a very good job of presenting ourselves to the world sometimes. And so there's lots of fuel and ammunition they can use to highlight or claim their system is superior and that youngsters should should appreciate that superior. Indeed. So you were there. You thought there and you've been writing books about Hong Kong. Your family has been writing books about Hong Kong. Yeah. And then, you know, you're part of a think tank and various other schools outside in India, for example, talking about among other things, Hong Kong. So my question is, with all the shutdown going on, with all the suppression of information, how can you and you are obviously well informed about the day to day life in Hong Kong without being there? How do you follow it? What sources of information? How can you reach in and and get the gestalt of what's going on? Well, this is one of the curses and perhaps the only good side of all of this is that when you try to claim under one country, two systems, that you're running an open society still, that one country, two systems is a success that the basic law still applies. That means you're locating yourself not fully over where China is at with the great firewall around the country to block out all outside information that, in fact, outside information still comes in. People can can read the New York Times. They can read the Washington Post. They can have news feeds of CNN and all of this. So it is still there's a quasi openness. And and if they close all of that, then they risk completely discrediting their claim that all they're doing is cracking down on a few bad apples. And and and teaching people about their country and encouraging patriotism. All good things, you know, all of mom and apple pie. So that that that's the message they're trying to convey, which means that they're kind of a intermediate society that's positive open. And so I can get information. I get it every day. There are papers in Hong Kong that really work hard. One paper in English, which is online and it's free. It's called the Hong Kong Free Press. So you can Google it and you'll find it and you can read their stories. The editor chief, I know well that the reporters are dedicated and they keep pointing out the very things we're talking about. Oh, that's incredible. So they can do it in Chinese for people that are trying to follow this locally that there are, like I said, some of the papers were shut down, but others reporters have set up their blogs and webpages in online mini-medias to report. And they're all navigating around the red line. If they're in, it's a very obscure line. They don't know where exactly it is. But so, so, you know, while civil society is in dire states, there's still this sort of passion in Hong Kong for freedom and for information and honesty that means that there is a lot of information available, and especially for people who have lived in the society for a long time, and we know how to interpret the information. Well, it seems clear that we have to continue. And I know you will continue to follow the story, not only on civil society, but in business there and who is left to do business after all the ex-patriots have left. And I think on a larger plane, though, we have to see what an autocratic government does. We have to see the tricks they use, the mechanisms, the propaganda, the messaging they use to try to change the way things work and bring everyone into line. It's a kind of laboratory, I think, for what happens in China, but what happens in other autocracies around the world. And we know that things are moving right, autocracies somehow are more popular now, and every autocrat will be watching. And so we should watch. We should watch to see what they do, how they do it, and maybe to resist it, if not only in Hong Kong, but elsewhere. Don't you think? Absolutely. And I think that's the real thing here. And a lot of Hong Kong activists I know in exile are not just focused on Hong Kong. They realize that what they're dealing with, that in some ways Hong Kong is just one of the front lines in the struggle between open societies and quite specifically liberal constitutional system, liberal institutions, democracy, and authoritarianism and hollowed out versions of those things. So while one could, as we started our conversation, be very frustrated, that seems hopeless to try to change that situation, we can't really afford to ignore it. And it has such wider implications. And ultimately, the end of this debate globally between these competing models is somewhere down the road. And we of course want to see the right result. Yeah. Thank you, Michael. Michael Davis, our regular contributor in Hong Kong and Asia. I really appreciate your insights. We'll check back with you for more. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jay. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.


Alright, let's figure out how to how to crank this thing up and down But just head like a big wheel Hold on a second. Oh What is that right there? It's a wheel from a dirt bike, I think kind of from the junkyard Can I attach that? I might be able to connect that. Oh if only that pipe was a little smaller I I think I can get that on there though Well that would that would be a pretty good murder Okay, connect this to here. I guess step one is get all this grease and crap out of here Clean it up so we can see what we're dealing with. All right, this hole in here It tapers it gets skinnier toward the other end I think there's a piece that's like an insert in there hoping maybe I Get like a Chisel and maybe I can rest on the edge there. Yeah, maybe I can knock out that piece Come on luck. I'm not moving at all. All right. Do I go online and try to Look up how these are put together Or I don't want to deal with the internet.  So let's just see if we can figure it out Oh, I'm starting to think this taper is right built-in like mold like it's all just one piece. Oh All right, maybe I can maybe I'm snap off a little chunk and see if it breaks off inside or if it's There's when I was scraping along here. I couldn't find a seam All right, let me just snap off a little bit and see where it breaks Like no seam in there at all Yeah, I'm pretty sure the taper is just built into the piece. Okay, that makes it a lot harder to Catch I'm less excited about this thing now Let me just see if I can work something out Well, it's just stupid Does fit I guess I'll put a few rivets in there and yeah, I'll call it good enough. That's a nice handle Now hopefully This whole thing has sufficient strength to lift up the entire saw Which is a lot heavier than this little thing. It's pretty easy to lift right now. Supposedly put the saw in here Last thing is the wheels Is that right? Okay Saw goes up and down it goes that way in that way it swivels. Oh, it doesn't lock in place when it swivels Oh, I gotta do that. Yeah, so I gotta lock the place the saw in place when it swivels up That's gonna be hard to do and then Yeah, I think the last thing other than finding two tune-ups and stuff, but the last thing is to put Wheels on the bottom here On the four corners that will ride along some kind of track. Oh This thing looks gorgeous. I Gotta admit I really like this This is probably one of those touches where people are gonna come up and say, ah It looks like such a beautiful thing But this wheel looks like it's from the junkyard and I'm gonna be like dude Most of this is from the junkyard and I like the wheel so go away All right All right, what what kind of track am I doing and what kind of wheels? You know what I better test this thing with some weight on it before I trust that it's gonna be good this thing weighs like About 40 pounds Put a hundred pounds on this to make sure it's fine let's just See this 40 Okay, no problem 40 pounds lopsided weight too The weight of the size is gonna be in the middle. All right, I want to put a hundred pounds on here That's gotta be pretty close to the weight of saw about a hundred pounds All right, what else can I put on here? That's got to be pretty close to a hundred pounds See how we're doing no problem. I mean I could double that weight Yeah Without it I would I would bet a million dollars I can get on that raise myself up and down Not that I have a million dollars I bet a million nothings One of the things I love about this wheel is that it has all these spokes Obviously now why are the spokes useful? Well, I'm gonna be able to once I start cutting wood and stuff I'm gonna be able to count spokes to to know how much I'm adjusting the height of this thing so I don't know what it is right now, but like Just Yeah, that's roughly a two-butt four.  Yeah, I can I can just count Spokes I can be like all right. I just did a cut there. I want to move up Like whatever centimeters or whatever count the right number of spokes I'm just gonna measure my wood by spokes. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be like that's a 16 by 12 16 by 12 like spokes Yeah, and maybe I'll mark mark Get my permanent marker out and put some little marks on here to help keep track of everything But yeah, I'm just gonna measure all my wood by my number of spokes.


Hi, Dr. Jere here, and as a fellow dentist, I care about your mental health. This month is National Mental Health Awareness Month, and that's why I partnered with Hope for the Day to bring coffee talks to you, a group lead therapy session, next Wednesday, May 10th at 7 o'clock PM. I would like to invite you to join and have a conversation with your peers to figure out what might be bothering you, how to deal with it, and challenges that they are facing as well. I hope to see you there.


Good afternoon, folks. This is Steve Rhodes coming to you live from the shores of very sunny and pleasant Delray Beach, Florida. This year, 2 p.m. update and currently we have all U. S. Indices trading to the downside. The Dow is off 185 about a half a percent S and P four tenths or 19 points Nasdaq 100 half a percent 81 points Russell's off by two tenths. That's three points to the downside semis of 46 one and three tenths gold trading up 1150 1950 50 is its print. That's up six tenths is over is a dollar. It's basically flat trade out of 25 10 likes recruit off $5 and 90 cents 101 90 is its print natural gas up 13 pennies 574. You know, we usually take this time and we go take a look at our industry charts, but we're going to shift gears here for a moment. We're just going to go to the play by play. When I mean play by play, we're going to go look at the 30 minute timeframe charts because here's what we've got. You have a confirmed rogment to indicator bottom now on the ES many for its 30 minute timeframe new profile. That's forming price should basically find support where we're trading right now. If you do get a close below the low of the day, that's going to suggest we had lower. We do know where resistance is. It's this red oscillator and change line. That's currently at the 50 45 81 level. The low of the day, by the way, is 45 72 25. So close below that says the short term time frames did not take hold. If they do take hold, you've got to get above the oscillator and change line. The NQ has a TD nine count bottom. That has been in place ever since this morning at 10 o'clock. So that level is being tested. That level, by the way, is the 14 9 80 25 area. We can see we were taking a look at that during the trader's ed show. That was at 130 price bounced as we came in at two o'clock hour, right up to where that red oscillator and change line. So that is a key level that's currently printed at 15 0 16. I don't have a bottoming signal or pattern, I should say on the Dow equity future contract. We can suggest that the price for the close of up its oscillator and change line even without a bottom signal. That would be a bullish outcome. That's currently printed at 34 973. We do have a TD nine count bottom that has remained in place all morning when I say all morning. I mean, since 9 30 this morning, but that is being tested right now. So that load to be watching is 20 82 50. If there's a close blow 20 80 to 50, that's going to suggest lower price. Now you would say lower price to where Steve Oh and Steve Oh would say lower price to 20 75. That's the next TD nine count breakout level. So folks are we didn't get to the end of sea charts, but I thought maybe what would be helpful to you is the play by play. David White he'll give you the bigger picture. So stick around for that. Have a terrific Thursday, folks. We'll see you tomorrow.