Okay, we're gonna get started. This is the cloud containers and DevOps track. This is going to be our last session for the day. Up next, we have Roy and Akshat. They're going to be talking about Procter. So without further ado, I'll just hand the mic over to them. Hello and welcome. So a quick question. How many of you have shared secrets with your friend using a communication platform like Slack, WhatsApp, email? I'll raise my hand because I do that. Okay, congrats. Your secrets are shared with your friend, Slack, and obviously, shh, okay. Moving ahead, it's 2015. A small ride-hailing startup out of Indonesia, Gojek, is operating with 15 engineers and just 20,000 orders per month. This is the actual Excel sheet we used to share our secrets and credentials across organization. How many of you have seen scripts like these? GitLab, Elasticsearch, these are early attempts at automating repetitive tasks in a small organization. Going ahead, since Gojek was only running on 50 machines back in 2015, we were able to manage our infrastructure and run laundry tasks using those scripts. For example, you want to take backup of a database or you want to create a database. Moving ahead. So now when you have access to all the secrets and you have these scripts, you can use them to run your tasks. And the biggest headache with doing that is that you need to install dependencies. And it's a big headache. So every time this thing changes script, you need to update the dependencies. Fast forwarding to 2015, 2018. We realized that a driver who can deliver customers can also deliver food from point A to point B, courier from point A to point B, e-commerce drivers, e-commerce orders, and medicine and grocery. The number of products in Gojek grew from one to 20 in the span of three years. As our products grew, the business continued to grow. From just doing 20,000 orders per month, we are now doing more than 100 million orders per month. The services continued to grow. From two monoliths back in 2015, we now have more than 300 microservices. Team continues to grow. From 15 engineers back then, now we have more than 200 engineers. And machines continue to grow. From just 50 machines, to now we manage more than 20,000 machines across GCloud and AWS. So let's take a moment and observe the ratio growth. First, engineer to machine ratio was one is to three. Now it is one is to 100. Each engineer was responsible for 1,000 business orders. Now every engineer, half a million business orders. Five engineers managing one service. One engineer managing two services. Now with this ratio, let's see what happens. As Will Ferrell puts it in Anchorman, trusting 15 engineers is easy. Trusting 200 is not. You cannot have your secrets shared across the organization like we used to do before. You might be familiar with the concept of test-driven development. So at Gojek, we practice test-driven development. It is a philosophy where you first run right tests for the feature you want to implement followed by the feature. Now one step in test-driven development is clearing the footprint of your tests. All the data that was accumulated. You clear the database after the tests have run. And guess what? Somebody at Gojek has run tests against a production database that is deleting entire data in the production environment. Now when you have secrets shared across your organization, accidents like this are bound to happen. So we need a better mechanism for secrets management than trust. Going ahead. All the secrets and scripts we talked about were using powerful tools. So everyone in the organization had access to tools like GCloud, AWS. What happened? Somebody accidentally deleted VMs in production environment. So when you have your powerful tools shared across organization, such accidents are bound to happen. And as Spider-Man puts it, with great power comes great responsibility. So the one thing that can be expected of humans to do consistently is make mistakes. And Gojek has been the market leader in the transport, logistics, and payment platform verticals in Indonesia for the past three years. The stakes being too high, our stakeholders told us what Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruise and a few good men. And, okay, moving ahead. We are all responsible employees of our organizations and we need a better mechanism for managing secrets and powerful tools. You want to see how we do that? Okay, I see a few eager nods. Introducing Proctor, a developer-friendly automation orchestrator. The idea behind Proctor is that it helps developers contribute to automation and use it. Now, go back. Okay, now you have access to powerful tools taken away. So if you need to provision infrastructure for yourselves, like creating a database, what do you need to do? There are two options. You either wait, the option one is, you wait for someone with access to the powerful tools, come and provision Insula for you. And what do you do when someone asks you to wait for provisioning Insula? You tell them what Morgan Freeman told Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. Which brings us to option two, which is you can use Prox. So what are Prox? Prox are automation added to Proctor. The example that I can give you is creating a load balancer, creating S3 bucket, creating a database. This is how you execute Prox using Proctor. Proctor is the command line that we have, tool to interact with Proctor. There are several commands with it. One of them is execution of Prox. So what we want is a database to store Foreshia data with 500 GB size. What we'll do is, we'll tell Proctor to execute this Prox, which is creating a database and give it arguments. The name of the database, let's keep it Foreshia 2018. In the size of database, let's keep it 500 GB. And Proctor will provide you with the database. Let's see what happens behind the scenes. The Proctor CLI talks to ProctorD, a web service who is responsible for execution of all the Prox. And ProctorD pulls the Prox from Prox registry and runs them in a Proc engine. Going ahead to monitor the progress of your Prox, you can stream the logs from Prox engine to the CLI. And that's what ProctorD takes care of. Going ahead to execute a Proc, all you need is an API call. And you can build that API on top of Slack, UI, or even a simple curl request will suffice. Proctor scales infinitely. The engine Proctor uses to run your Prox is Kubernetes. And that helps Proctor run multiple Prox parallelly and scale to your requirements. The benefit of this, the edge this gives Proctor is against competing clients like competing products in market like Rundec.  And it's 2018, I believe scaling should come out of the box for every product. The Proc engine is pluggable. You can have multiple Proc engine to run your Prox if you want. For now, Proctor only supports Kubernetes, but if you wish, you can have any other Proc engine. There is a pull request to us. We are open to contributions on GitHub and we'll be happy to help you. Another benefit of using Kubernetes as Proc engine is running Procs in isolation. One Proc will not be affected by the side effect of another Procs. Unlike running all the automation in a VM, which again our competing product like Rundec does, this gives a edge to Proctor. And this is the most important feature of Proctor that you have controlled access to powerful tools. So you have access to GCloud, AWS previously, but now you don't. Whereas Procs behind the scenes use GCloud, AWS, Terraform or any other tool to create database for you, to create a load balancer for you. And you won't have direct access to the tools, but you'll only have access to indirect access of features to the tool. And we just established that to air is human, but to reduce the damage of error is divine. So how many people here are at a little high level? By that I mean you are accountable for not only your mistakes, but for the mistakes of subordinates under you. Okay, so in that case you can consider giving your teams Proctor. They have the tools indirectly and they will not be affected by it. So now we've just explained how you can use Procs. It is very, very, very easy. Now let's see about adding Procs to Proctor. Adding Procs requires a DevOps mindset. Remember, it's a mindset and not a skill set. And now we have my friend Roy, who will be talking on how you can add Procs to Proctor and demonstrating that. Hi, thank you, Akshay. Yeah, so now we just saw how to run a Proc. Now let's discuss about how to add a Proc. So in many organizations, there'll be a central infrastructure team and adding automation is a responsibility of only that particular central team. But using Proctor, you can decentralize that responsibility and you can empower your developers to add infrastructure automation. So let's say you want to create a DNS record in AWS route 53 and you don't have access to AWS route 53. So what do you do? So let's take a BAS script, for example. So it is easy. And what you do is we use AWS CLI. And for the AWS to create a DNS record set, you need to create the BAS data. So in the BAS data, you pass like record name and record type and record value.  So managing secrets. So you cannot put secrets inside the script. Let's see how Proctor handles that. So what we need to do is we have to pull out all the secrets and arguments and put it inside a metadata file. So now we have a metadata file here. So in that, you'll mention the access ID. Basically you just define it. You don't put the actual values. So you just define the AWS access ID and AWS secret and then you pass in all the arguments it's gonna take like record name, record value and record type. And let's see what's happening behind the scenes. So Proctor D is a web service. So it will store the secrets for you in a secret store and whenever the procs is running, it will pass the secrets to the proc. And yeah, go ahead. And now the problem is in the script we have seen, right? We are not installing any AWS CLI but how does AWS CLI will work? So we need to create a Docker file and in that, if you see, you're seeing like install, we are installing like all the dependencies like curl bash and JQ, Python and AWS CLI. And after that, we'll create a directory and we'll copy the script, the batch script. Just now we created and we had an entry point. So entry point is basically to whenever you start the container, so it will trigger that script. Good, yeah. So to summarize, so now we added a Docker file for adding dependencies and the actual logic, the batch script and the metadata where we have our arguments and the secrets.  So that will trigger CLI. So that's CLI will do a Docker build and it will upload the Docker image to the proc registry along with all the dependencies. And it will also tell ProctorD about the new job and it will update the metadata. So that's how ProctorD discuss about new jobs, new procs. And this packaging is a pluggable. Basically, Proctor now supports Docker. So if you want anything else, it's a pluggable architecture so you can create a pull request and we'll be happy to help you. And this is the last step. So we haven't passed secret till now so now we need to tell Proctor about the secrets. So we'll make a call call and we'll pass the secrets. So in this case, AWS CLI needs to have two secrets like the key ID and the access key. So once you update the secrets, so you can see here the create DNS record proc actually. And along with the description. So this is shared across your organization. So anyone can run this job actually. And to run a job, you can use this described command. So it will give you a detailed explanation about this job like what all arguments it takes and what all secret it takes. Thank you. So we are open source Proctor. So if you have similar issues in your organization, feel free to use Proctor. And we have time for the demo. Yep, good. So this is the adventure sports that I've done in Singapore doing a live demo. I've been told multiple times that live demos always fail so don't do that. But yeah, let's do a live demo. So we just demonstrated how Proctor, you can add automation to Proctor and you can use automation. I'll demo the using automation part. So I have already gotten the Proctor CLI and I hope it's visible to all at the end, right? Yes. So this is the Proctor CLI, a command line interface to interact with Proctor D and the available commands with HR just one proc. So let's take a help for procs. So you can do three things with procs. You can either list all the procs in your organization, you can describe a proc and you can execute a proc. Let's list all the procs in our organization. So here are a few, but for the demo, we'll be talking about this one, DNS creation. Let's create the DNS that we just discussed in adding the proc. So let's say you want to get help for that. I don't know how to run that proc. What I'll do is Proctor proc describe and the name of the proc. So here we go. What it does is it creates any DNS record for you and it takes record name, record value, record type and TTL as arguments. For now, let's forget the TTL part. So I want to create a domain name for FossAsia. It does not exist as of now. What will I do? I'll run this DNS command. So I'll execute this proc and give it the name. The record name will be FossAsia.gojek.com. Sorry, I can't type with two hands. The record value will be the IP address. Let's keep it <IP_ADDRESS> and the record type will be A. Let's forget about the TTL for now and let's execute this proc. So now procs execution is successful and the logs are being streamed from AWS. So this is the record change which has been submitted. FossAsia is now pointing to this IP address and ta-da, we have a DNS created. Let's do an NS lookup right now. Okay, it will take a little time. Ta-da. Okay, so that's how you use procs. And let's head over to the repository in case you want to use Proctor at your organization. Head over to our repository on GitHub, which is under the Gojek Tech organization and in the name of Proctor, you will find three things here. The first is the command line, which is the code itself. And to set up the command line, you have instructions in the readme and tests, running tests for them. Then you have the code for Proctor D and everything is present in the readme. Same stuff. And you have a bunch of example procs, how you can write them. And you can find the future of Proctor mentioned as feature requests in the issues. And if you have any issues using Proctor, please raise one over here. You can reach out to us over here or you can reach out to us here. Thank you very much for your time. Any questions? And we have a couple of stickers also. Feel free to take it. Yeah, great talk. Just had one question. When you say the registry, the Proctor registry, what is that actually in the backend? Are you using something like Artifactory or something to store artifacts? Like we mentioned, we are using Docker to package our image blocks inside images. So we are currently hosting it on GCR, Google Container Registry. But if you need, you can host it anywhere you want. The secret store is Redis as of now. But like we said, everything is pluggable. If you need to use Vault or something else, you can plug that secret store in, encrypt secrets all there and store. No, so the job that we have, the proc that we have written, if you submit it with a different, this thing, IP address, <IP_ADDRESS>, then it won't do that. Let's see. Not as of now, but we are adding authentication on Proctor. We are looking for some open source tools where we can plug in the organizations team structure, and then you can have authentication as well as authorization for running Procs. But as of now, everyone across the organization can use your Procs. There is auditing, by the way. Every Proc that is run, it's audited with the arguments it was run. So you can make sure, basically no monkey business is going on. Yes. So the auditing happens in a Postgres, and you can actually query stuff from there. So like we just discussed, you have the features of a tool, you don't have the tool itself. So if there is a Proc for deleting databases, without any authorization, then of course someone can delete databases. But for now, we don't have any Procs to delete databases. We only have Procs to create databases. But someone with access to a tool like GCloud can delete your database in GCloud, of course. Well, quite hard. That is the Provision using communities, right? Hello. So the machines that run the Procs, they are spin-up using communities, correct? It seems to me that they need quite powerful access to run all these things. So how do you actually control the access of these machines that run the Procs themselves? Like, you know, if you need to run everything, do you need to ground them like all powerful access? Currently, we are using the Google Kubernetes engine to host our Kubernetes cluster for running all the Procs. But we've even run it on our local machine, that is Minicube. Of course it won't scale, but you don't need very powerful machines to run all the jobs. So it's a lightweight image and scripts. Access, yes. How? I don't know. Access, okay. So I'm sorry, but we're at time and the conference closing is coming up. So if you guys could just take this. Yeah. So with that, this track is closed. For anyone who's interested, the conference closing will be at five in the main hall, which I think is the same lecture theater we had the opening then. So thanks everyone.


Well, we're in 1 Timothy, we're in chapter 6, we're closing with verses 20 and 21. And what we're going to do as we look at this particular portion of scripture is I'm going to give you a prolonged introduction developing it along the way as we come to the conclusion in verses 20 and 21. And so let's begin just by reading those two verses. I'll give you the introduction and we'll move into our study. 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verses 20 and 21. What we're looking at is Paul's last word to Timothy in this epistle. And that last word is guard the gospel. 1 Timothy 6 20, oh, Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and vain or idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. By professing it, some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you, amen. So Paul is concluding his letter to a young man by the name of Timothy. Timothy as we know by studying 1 Timothy was a pastor of a church, a mighty church in a mighty city. He was a pastor of a church in the ancient city of Ephesus. And as a young pastor, Timothy had been encountering several great challenges. Paul was his true father in the faith. Paul had brought Timothy to a relationship with Jesus Christ and therefore would speak of him as being his true or beloved son in the faith. And because he was a special or a true son to him, there was a great amount of love that Paul had for this young man named Timothy. As a young pastor, he naturally needed to learn and he needed to learn from an experienced minister. And so with that in mind, Paul wrote this letter to help him perform the work of ministry. Throughout the letter, Paul has instructed him concerning a variety of things and these things all related to what we today would refer to as church life. He especially was writing to instruct Timothy concerning his role, his role as a pastor. He had said in 1st Timothy 315, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. So as we've been studying this letter, we've seen that Paul has been writing concerning a variety of things. We see how Paul had given some time to give his own testimony. In chapter one, we saw in verses 12 through 15 how Paul spoke concerning the fact that not only was he a dispenser of the grace of God, but he was one who received the grace of God and he gave his testimony because he wanted to remind us as well as Timothy, he wanted to remind those who would read this letter or hear it read. He wanted to remind them that grace isn't something that you talk about something, it is something that you've experienced in a personal level. And he was reminding Timothy as a young pastor that he was received and Timothy was receiving from a man who knew the riches of the grace of God. In 1st Timothy, we saw him speak concerning his own testimony when Paul wrote in verses 12 through 15, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And so Paul would say, I understand grace, I've received grace, and we need to give grace. As we've been looking at the letter, we saw how that the grace of God that was so full in the life of Paul even caused him while he was writing under the inspiration of the Spirit to write songs of praise even in the midst of the letter. So he spontaneously praised God in what we refer to as two doxologies, one in chapter one verse 16 and the other in chapter six verses 15 and 16. We saw how Paul established ministry roles in the church in chapters two and three. We saw how Paul gave his own confession of faith found in chapter three verse 16. We saw that Paul counseled Timothy to be spiritually disciplined in chapter four verse seven. That would make him an example to the believers because that's what he said you to do. You're not to just simply speak concerning how one lives. He said you need to live as an example so that you're gonna win the credibility of ministry and the respect of those that you serve. So be an example to the believer in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith and all purity. And in doing so, you'll be an example to that church. Paul said to him, do not neglect your spiritual gifts. You need to live the messages that you give. Minister to the older members, care for the younger ones, care for the widows, make sure that ministers are properly compensated. He said, Timothy, do not show favoritism when it comes to ordaining ministers and make sure that you teach all the members to treat one another fairly and do so with respect. Those who desire to be wealthy were warned against the pitfalls of wealth and those who are already rich were to be humbled and to remain faithful to God. So we've seen all of those things as we've gone through first Timothy and now we come to Paul's last words. So the question is, how does Paul close this letter? Seeing that this is the last thing that he's gonna emphasize in this letter. So it actually begins to conclude with a command. Notice what he says in verse 20 when he says, oh Timothy, he gives a command. He says, guard what was committed to your trust. Guard. The word guard means to watch over or preserve, protect, guard it, value it, cherish it. Cherish the gospel so much that you'll do all that you need to do, anything that you have to do to protect it. Protect it, why? Because Timothy, you need to value it. When my daughter Corinne was a few months old, my wife Marie and I went to a restaurant that we would go to on occasion in Uptown Whittier and we'd gone enough times for the owner of the restaurant to get to know us, not as friends or even speaking to us. But when we would walk in, he'd nodded us, we'd nodded him and we'd go to the table and we'd eat and all of that. And we did that enough for him to begin to, I believe, recognize us. Well, Marie had given birth to Corinne and Corinne was few months old. And so we went into the restaurant. And as we were there, I was holding my baby. I would carry her and hold her, try and give her away. But no, I would, nobody wanted her. No, I would carry her and very protective, very protective father. And so as I walked in, I still remember coming in with my baby and we're being seated when the owner of the restaurant walks up to me. And again, he'd seen us before. He knew who we were by face. And he walks up and takes my baby from my arms. He takes Corinne from me. And when he did that and he just began to walk away, I was on his tail. I was following him. I followed him. He went all over the restaurant and I went all over right next to him. And I would stand when he would stop and he'd talk to her. And I'd just stand there quietly. Then he would walk and I was behind him and everywhere he went till he finally saw, I'm not comfortable with you holding my kid unless you pay her college. No, I'm not, I'm real protective like that. I really am. That's mine. That's my baby. I don't really know you. Who are you with my kid? I'm just that way. And the Lord, as I was preparing this study, reminded me because I was thinking about this, protecting the gospel. And that's kind of how this came about. I began to think about it. I understand protecting what is valuable. I protect my wife. I protect my kids. I protect my grandchildren. I protect my church. I have a protective urgency in me. And you understand it too. And what he is saying is protect the gospel, Timothy. Guard that gospel. Defend that gospel. Hold fast to that gospel. He says, I'm commanding you to do this. Guard the gospel. Defend it. Protect it. Hold fast to it. Observe it because it is the very word of truth. Commit yourself to guarding the gospel, Timothy. When we've gone through First Timothy various times, Paul has encouraged him to safeguard the gospel. Remember in chapter one, verse three, how he ordered him to charge some that they teach no other gospel? In chapter four, verses one through seven, he warned Timothy concerning deceptive spirits that instigated false teaching. In chapter four, verse 16, he encouraged him to remain faithful to God's word because God's word means salvation. In chapter six, verses 12 through 14, he exhorted him to fight the good fight of faith for men's souls. And again, I mentioned that in chapter three, verse 15, Paul revealed that the church was the pillar and the ground of the truth. Now when Paul said that the church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth, pillar and ground would connect with the way that the Ephesians thought because Ephesus had the temple of Diana. And the temple of Diana was center of the life of the Ephesians. And so when he would speak of pillar and ground, he was using terms they would be familiar with because the temple had 127 marble pillars. It was a magnificent structure. 127 marble pillars studied with gold and jewels. And they knew that those pillars were there to support the roof. And so they understood construction in that way. When he spoke of the ground, the pillar and ground, ground speaks of the foundation. The foundation, the ground supports the pillars as well as the roof. And so the point he had made when he said that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Well, the point he's making is one by contrast because they understood that the temple that was there was actually dedicated to idolatry and paganism. So as beautiful as the temple was, it's just an example of false religion because it's a belief system that's built on a faulty foundation. It's built on idolatry. But in contrast, Paul would be saying, the church is built on Jesus Christ who is the sure foundation. In 1 Corinthians 3.11, remember how he said to the church in Corinth, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ. And so the church is to be the testimony of the truth of God. You see, here's something for you to remember. In scripture, truth is divine revelation. When you speak concerning truth, it is divine revelation and it is especially contained in the gospel. And it's the church's responsibility to remain immovably faithful to the message of God because the church is the foundation and pillar that supports God's truth. The church, in other words, has the divine responsibility of upholding the truth of God's word. The church does not invent truth nor does the church add to it and the church does not take away from it. The church supports it. That's why it's important for us to study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. That's why, because it's the truth that sets you free. And Timothy is the pastor. Paul is closing with an excitation to his dear son in the faith. And that's why he says, guard that which was committed to your trust, protect it, observe it, defend it. Why? Because it's God's truth and you need to remember that. In Psalm 119, 160, the entirety of your word is truth. John 17, verse 17, sanctify them by your truth. Jesus said, your word is truth. Now, because it's been delivered to us, we remain faithful to its message. It is something to safeguard. It's to be communicated unmodified. We're not to alter the message to suit the hearer. We are to accurately present it. Listen, in these days today, especially, every pastor knows that there are very sensitive hearers. Every pastor knows that. Every pastor knows that there are things that you may say that can offend people. We all know that. We all know that if you actually rightly divide the word of truth, that people have a tendency of responding in a negative way. Many do, not all, many do, because they feel that the person speaking is being judgmental and harsh and unloving. And so pastors become shy to speak the truth because there's very few things that can be so discouraging as when someone just decides to stand up and just saunter out, not giving you opportunity to finish with what you're saying, not giving you opportunity to conclude the reason why this is being said. It can be very discouraging when that happens because people are hypersensitive. If they're not entertained within the first five to seven minutes of a message, they generally leave. That's what happens. And yet, it's the minister's responsibility to correctly divide and present what is true and not to alter it. According to Deuteronomy 12 32, whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.  I have a very dear friend that many of you are aware of or know, Raul Reece from Calvary Chalf of Golden Springs. And he's known Raul since I was, I met him when I was around 27 years old. So I've known him for 40 years. I've known Raul for a long time, known as ministry for a long time. He's a very good friend of mine. We're very, very good friends and have been for many years. And there have been times when Raul has stood before going out to teach, shaking his head, God, I don't wanna say this. Even with tears, I don't wanna say this. I don't wanna say this because when you rightly divide, it's a sword and sometimes it slices.  And the word of God does that. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It's sharper than a surgeon's scalpel. And so when the word is rightly divided and it's properly applied and people receive it by faith, their lives change and are blessed. Nobody likes to see pain in somebody else. Most people don't. Shepherds don't. But we also know that when the pain concludes, healing is there. And sometimes things in my life are so serious that the Lord does a surgery on me. So a pastor has the responsibility of speaking the truth in love because truth sets captives free and truth is what God has called us to give. But you see, when you read your Bible, you'll see false teachers are guilty of changing the words of God's message in order to entice errors. Paul spoke about that in 2 Corinthians 2.17. Paul said, unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ, we speak before God with sincerity like men sent from God. You see, the gospel is a message of eternal life. Therefore, Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust. In Romans 10, nine and 10, Paul said, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You'll be saved for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified.  Jesus in John 12, 48 said, there is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words. That very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. And so the church has the job of caring for God's word. It is our most precious possession. Some of you are aware of this, perhaps others may not be. There's a reason why a pulpit is in the center of a stage. There's a reason why. Some people think, oh yeah, it's better theatrically. No, that's not why. The reason that we have a pulpit in the center is because the word of God is the center. That's why pulpits are in the center of a platform because the minister is taking God's holy word, the Bible, and is placing it in the center of the life of the church. That's how that works. That's why we have a pulpit here. We could have it anywhere. There are churches that have them off to the side. They have some that have it on left side, right side, whatever. Ours is in the center. Why?  We don't put the band in the middle. Why? Because music is praise to God, but it's supposed to be something that is a response to the truth of God. We worship him in spirit and truth. And so the word of God has to be the center of everything. And we get that out of the word of God. And so we're to guard that, which God has given to us. In 2 Timothy 1.13, Paul said, hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus. So it's a message of truth that God has commissioned the church to proclaim because it's the truth that sets people free. And we communicate it to any and all who would hear. That's what Jesus taught us to do. When you look in Matthew in 28, chapter 28, verses 19 and 20, he commissioned the church to do that. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And so that's what Paul is closing his letter with. Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust. The church has the challenge of receiving and delivering God's word to future saints. Today it is increasingly difficult because cynicism permeates our culture. There are those who say today, truth doesn't exist. And even if it did, it cannot be absolutely known. I was in a airport a while back now and as I was seated there on my way home coming back from ministry, as I was seated in the airport, it was sparse. There were just a few people around me and I saw somebody coming and they were coming speaking to different passengers and I was seated there and I knew they're gonna come and talk to me in a minute. I always enjoy those conversations so I'm looking forward to it. Because I'm wondering, what are you up to and what are you talking to people about because they were going one to one talking talk and I'm just watching them as they're coming towards me and they had a book. They had a book. So I thought, oh, they're talking to them about a book. That ought to be interesting. And so they finally walk up to me and there was a fellow and the guy says to me, I would like to give you a book that has the words of life, he says to me. It's the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu quote unquote scripture. And I carry a pocket Bible and call it my switchblade. And so I pulled out my pocket Bible and I showed it to him and I said, I already have the words of eternal life found in God's word called the scriptures. He says, oh, and I'll never forget our conversation.  And I said, you're right. That's why he took upon himself human form, dwelt amongst men and we were able to behold his glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth. That's why God became flesh for us that we might know Jesus Christ who died on a cross to set me free. I already have life because I have it in him and he walked away. They always do, but I wanna chase him going in. No, where are you going, man? Come on back, I haven't even received the offering. Come on, man. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's the truth. It's the truth of Jesus Christ. Never back down. Never say it's not true. It is the truth. And it sets you free. You need to understand that today. Remember that. It's the commission of the church, but they'll say, oh, it can't be absolutely known. Others will say, well, truth exists, but it's not divinely revealed. Truth is what you would call natural or general. Well, as Christians, we know that truth is revealed because by human nature, we do not know truth because we corrupt truth. So God reveals truth to us through the scriptures and he has revealed his truth to us and entrusted us with it. He gave us his word. We are entrusted with it and we act on it. We trust that God has given us truth. We embrace it for what it is. Now that doesn't mean that we don't have questions. Of course we do.  I don't know if you ever watched Disney cartoons, but one of my favorite characters is Goofy. For some reason, I've always associated with him, but you'll go, well, God didn't call us to walk around like that, right? Oh, no, I didn't take my brain and put it on a shelf. I have questions. I've had questions since I got saved. I have questions to this day, but I'm not alone. I read my Bible and I see that many of the saints had questions and they asked the questions of the Lord Habakkuk, chapter one, verse two. How long, Lord, must I call for help but you do not listen or cry out to you? Violence, but you do not save. Psalm 10, verse one, oh, Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I'm in trouble? Psalm 13, two, how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?  Jeremiah 12, one, you are always righteous, oh, Lord, when I bring a case before you, yet I would speak with you about your justice. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? Oh, Lord, why does Pastor David have dark hair and a white beard? I mean, we all have questions. We all have questions. No, I don't die it. And that's not an indication necessarily of unbelief in the sense of having no trust in God. It simply reveals that we're human beings in need of growth. It is often a revelation of faith that is being developed and refined because we're asking the question expecting the answer. Look in your Bible, Genesis 18, you look and you see there's a conversation that God has with a man named Abraham.  No, Abraham has relatives there. Lot is there, his wife. Yes, Lot had sons-in-law and daughters. And he had two unmarried daughters. There were at least eight members of Abram's family there in Sodom.  And as he's listening to the Lord, say he's going to destroy, we have that very famous dialogue between God and Abraham. Shall not the judge of the whole earth do that which is right? What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? Will you spare the city for the sake of 50? Yes, I will. For the sake of 50, I will spare the city. Well, seeing that I've begun this conversation, let's continue it a moment. Seeing that there are possibly 45, would you spare the city for 45? For the sake of 45, I will spare it. Well, I might as well continue. Seeing that we have this conversation, what if there are 40? Will you spare the city for 40? If there are 40 righteous in the city, yes, I will spare it. Well, let's keep going then. If there are 30 in the city, will you spare it for the sake of 30? For the sake of 30, I will spare the city. Okay, well, how about 20? Isn't it interesting, 50, 45, 30, 20? How about the sake of 20? Yes, I will spare it for the sake of 20. Well, here we go. One last, how about the sake of 10? Would you spare it for the sake of 10? Now, why 10? Surely, his family would be spared. And he says, yes, I will for the sake of 10. I will spare the city. Did God grow in the sight of Abraham?  Through questions, you learn the character of God. And when you're reading the word and you read in puzzle and question and pray and say, God, God has a way of developing you. So you see my natural way and my normal solutions, God had a different way that he was gonna work in this and you learn something of the character of God. So listen, if you puzzle and if you are reading the word and you say, I don't get this, you're just joining the crowd of the saints who've gone before you, who've asked their questions. Why does it seem that the wicked prosper and those who do their best end up losing their children at an early age? Why, Lord? Why am I a man who does my best? Why did I lose everything that I have? Job could ask, why Lord? It's part of growing up as long as you're willing to receive the answers. So there's nothing wrong with asking questions. God was open to them and he gave to him answers and that's how Abraham learned that the judge of all the earth would do what was right. God's truth is what the believer entrusts themselves to and God's truth is what we try to learn to act upon. One of my favorite writers is a man by the name of A.W. Tozer and A.W. Tozer said, our Lord made it very plain that spiritual truth cannot be understood until the heart has made a full commitment to it. Jesus said, if anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. The willing and the doing, or at least the willingness to do, come before the knowing. Truth is a strict master and demands obedience before it will unveil its riches to the seeking soul. And there's truth to that. You see, we're not to take his word lightly and God does bless us as we trust him. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 66, verse two, to this one I will look to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at my word. So as Paul was writing as the aged apostle and he had opened up his letter by speaking to Timothy as his beloved son, his true son in the faith. And as he was tenderly writing to him, he was writing as a father would to a son. And he's sharing with him the things that he needs to know. He is now concluding and he's coming to that point where he wants to settle something in his heart. As somebody said, he writes now no longer addressing church or pastor, but his own favorite friend and pupil. The loved heir of his God inspired traditions and teachings but so faithfully represented the teachings of Jesus. Oh, Timothy, keep the sacred trust committed to your charge. Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Timothy, observe, preserve, maintain and protect the gospel. Hold fast to the message of Jesus. Do not allow it to be polluted. There are false teachers in your midst, Timothy. Hold tightly, preserve the word of God and its truths. So Paul is passionately commanding Timothy to be faithful to the word of God. In second Timothy in chapter four, verse two, he'll say to him, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching. So Timothy, guard that which was committed to your trust. You've been given the most important message that's ever been handed to man. You've been entrusted with a message of the gospel. Do not take it lightly. In 1 Thessalonians two, verses four and five, Paul said, but as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at this time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness. God is witness. He went on in 1 Thessalonians two at verse 13 to say, for this reason, we also thank God without ceasing. Because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it, not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. Somebody said, what is meant by the command, keep the trust. Timothy must guard the healthy teaching of his master and keep it safe from robbers and foes. What is meant by the trust, it is something entrusted to you to keep, not a possession that you have discovered for yourself. It is something you have received from another. It is not something that you have thought out for yourself. Of this trust, remember that you are nothing but the guardian. What then is the meaning of keep the trust? It is surely nothing else than the command to guard the treasure of the faith. The faith of the gospel is gold that you have received. Make sure that you hand gold to others. He says, avoiding profane and vain babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. If you're going to succeed, these things must be avoided. When he speaks about avoiding, the word avoid means to turn away from something, to resist associating with something. You're to avoid certain things, Timothy, avoid profane and vain babblings and contradictions of so-called knowledge. When he says avoid profane, the word profane speaks of something unholy, something ungodly or worldly. Vain babblings are empty arguments. Vain chatter that leads to ungodliness. Contradictions is a word that was used to describe counter propositions in a debate. He's referring to pseudo-intellectual arguments there. The word knowledge is gnosis. It's a reference to a philosophy that developed opposing the gospel. This can be a reference to anything that runs contrary to the message of grace. You need to avoid this. Why? Because the effect will be destructive. Some people don't understand that bad teaching produces bad lives. And not only does it produce a bad life in that person practicing it, but bad teaching, when acted upon, infects other people. In 2 Timothy 2, 16 and 17, it says, shun profane and vain babblings for they will increase to more ungodliness. Their message will spread like cancer. And so you stay away from bad doctrine. He says in verse 21, by professing it, some have strayed concerning the faith. Now, when you speak enough professing this, some have strayed. The word strayed means to deviate. The faith is a term that is used, not of the saving faith, but the message of the gospel. They have strayed from the entire message of the gospel. They've gotten away from what God's word actually says. You see the word the faith used to describe the message of the gospel in various places. In Acts chapter six, verse seven, the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. 1 Corinthians 16, 13 says, watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Philippians 127 says, only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. So the fruit of bad doctrine is ungodly lives because bad doctrine eliminates a cardinal thing that every believer is to have. Bad doctrine eliminates the fear of God. Bad doctrine does. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter seven, verse one, therefore having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Bad doctrine undermines the fear of God, which is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. The unbeliever has no fear of God in them, Romans chapter three tells us. There was a question posted on Facebook. Actually it was a statement that was made that people began to respond to, Facebook can be an interesting place where people began to share ideas and give their thoughts and all. And somebody had asked, what is it that causes some who at one time were professing pastors to step away and to fall prey to the various things that occur? But there are people who say, well, that guy used to open the Word of God and he used to have a good-sized church and he used to have a lot of respect and he ended up doing the things that he did and all of us have read the newspaper accounts of various well-known individuals who represented the kingdom of God who have stumbled into sin, entered into sin and the gospel of grace has come under a bad repute because of that and there are people who will ask about that, how did that happen? And so a lot of people are posting why they think arrogance or pride or they became too big too soon and a lot of people have their ideas, the answer to that question is much more simple. Why did they enter into sin? They lost the fear of God. They lost the fear of God. It is a very, very, very important thing to retain in your heart, the fear of God. I have a healthy fear of God and I'm supposed to because it's the fear of God that keeps me from evil. It's the fear of God that keeps me usable and it's the one thing that I see in the church that has been lost by many. They don't have a healthy awareness of the awesome God that is revealed to us in scripture. All you need to do is read concerning how Moses went on that mount to get the word of God and there was thunder and there was so much, so much going on up there that when he came down the people said, we don't want you go up there. They were trembling in fear at what they were seeing as Moses was meeting with the Lord. That's a great picture of the awesome majesty of the God that you and I serve. And a lot of people do not have a healthy sense, the awareness of the presence of God in all things and we actually can take him into the sinful situations we practice thinking he approves because he hasn't broken our legs yet or done something. So we think that because he hasn't done something that he must approve of that. But in fact, he is long suffering and patient and he keeps on giving this opportunity to repent because ultimately we are gonna reap what we're sowing. And then what happens is people blame God and start saying, where is God? God has been right there all along saying, do not do that. My word has given to you enough. You know you're not to do that. You're doing it anyway. You're upset. A young lady who approached me after a service prayed for me pastor, I think I'm pregnant. She wasn't married. And I asked her, what do you want me to do? Pray that God removes the baby from your womb? What do you want me to do? You entered into sin. You're reaping what you've sown.  You think you're not gonna have repercussions for that? Or the guy who was drunk on Christmas or New Year's and he got pulled over and comes pastor, can you pray for me? Of course, how can I pray for you? Well, pray that the judge will be lenient with me because I was drunk. Well, you know, I will pray that justice be served and mercy will superintend.  Where's the fear of God? Where's the fear of God? And that's the concern.  A lot of quote unquote believers have none at all and do not realize that it's the fear of God that marks them as a believer of God. It marks them. It's one of the identifiable traits of a genuine believer in Jesus Christ. Bad doctrine gives permission to continue living ungodly lives because it eliminates the fear of God and it veneers it with a pseudo grace that is really recognized as permission to sin. That's the fruit of bad doctrine. What can we do to maintain our walks with the Lord and remain strong? Let me give you a few things as we close. One, cultivate a love for the word of God. Cultivate that. Like it says in Psalm 119, verse 97. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Second, devote yourself to reading and studying and growing to know God's word. Like Job said in chapter 23, verse 12, I have not departed from the command of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Third, make a determination to obey what you read. In John 14, 15, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Fourth, be careful to remain loyal and faithful to God's word. And fifth, make sure that when you share it, that you don't alter it. Simply release it and watch what God can do. Read the Bible daily.  You know, you could read the book of Proverbs 12 times in a year, just by reading one chapter a day. 12 times in a year. And Proverbs tells us that that's where you get wisdom. So read the book of Proverbs. It'll take you 10 minutes to read a chapter and pray. Be committed. Get involved in Bible studies, small group studies. It's a good thing. Come to places, come to things here or the church you attend. Go to the studies there. If you can't be in a small group, get involved in an evening study and get in the word of God. Because if you do so, your life is gonna change. I'll close by reading something to you that I found. I forgot I had, I forgot I had this. And again, I'm gonna read this to you and some of you may get mad at me. And if you do, please feel free to write. My name is David Bustamante. And you can write me at David B. at Calvary if you'd like. A while back, now I was given a study just like this and I mentioned a TV preacher and I mentioned the error that he had presented on his program. I mentioned it as an illustration which at one time I was very more open to doing. I do it less now but there were times in that and this is one of those times that I thought it would illustrate by giving an actual example. So people would say, oh, that's what he's talking about. And that's why I do that. Not to be a judge, quote unquote, on somebody's motives, that's not what I do. What I do is I say this is an example of what I'm trying to say. And so I made a comment about a quote unquote teacher by the name of Creflo Dollar and I got a letter which I told Raul, you shouldn't write me, you can call me. No, I got a letter. And this is, and I'll share with you an excerpt from the letter or actually her letter and my response to illustrate. And this was the letter to me. I found Pastor David Rosales's remarks against Dr. Creflo Dollar unfounded. I have watched Creflo Dollar for some time now and have never heard him refer to Jesus as anything else but the Son of God, God in the flesh or the word become flesh. The program Pastor Rosales was referring to was actually depicting the biblical account of how Jesus calmed the tempest on the seas and disciples fear the storm and was stressing our need for absolute trust in our savior. Creflo Dollar was merely implying that since Jesus was born into this world in the form of a physical body as a man, he required as all men do sleep when exhausted from ministering to the people. I'm sure Pastor Rosales meant well but it may be wise not to pass judgment on a man who has given to us some real foundational truths. Dr. Creflo's teaching surpass any I've known. So I wrote back, her name was Debbie. Dear Debbie, thank you for your recent response to a teaching I gave that included Creflo Dollar's error. While I appreciate your love for him and his ministry, my hope would be that you would have a solid knowledge of doctrine in that having a sure foundation in God's word will safeguard you from deception. Indeed, Creflo Dollar made the remarks I cited. Here is what he said in my correction of his error. On December 8th, 2002, while on TBN, he said, Jesus didn't come as God, he came as a man, and he did not come perfect. How many of you know the Bible says God never sleeps nor slumbers? Psalm 121 verse four. And yet in the book of Mark, we see Jesus asleep in the back of the boat. This ain't no heresy, I'm not some false prophet. I'm just reading this thing to you out of the Bible. That's what he said. Now Debbie, I cannot for the world understand why you do not see this for what it is. He said plainly, and I quote, Jesus didn't come as man, he came as a man, I'm sorry, Jesus didn't come as God, he came as a man, and he was not perfect. This is error, even heresy, and has nothing to do with him implying anything. He was specifically saying that Jesus did not come as God, and that he was not perfect. This is an actual quote with no need of spinning to change its meaning. From the beginning of the age of the church, this has been recognized as heresy and error. Obviously, Jesus is God in the flesh as well as perfect. John 1-1, John 1-14, John 8-46, first John 3-5. As the God man, he needed to eat, drink, and sleep like other men, but was and is sinless and perfect, God in the flesh. Debbie, I stand by my quotation because it's accurate. Your response reveals what I was concerned about in my teaching, that people are being deceived. I thank you for saying I meant well, but the fact is, I'm right in being concerned about people in the body of Christ falling for bad doctrine, and sadly, you are one who has. I have heard Mr. Dollar speak many times and have recognized his teachings as simply repetition of Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagan, two other well-known teachers of biblical error. If this is passing judgment, then I am guilty with no sense of shame. I am simply teaching what the church has helped fast to for the last 2,000 years. And when encourage you to go to a church that teaches the truth, not profane and vain babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, you have been deceived. And the foundational truths you think have been given to you are in reality, sinking sand. Please find a church that teaches the truth. Learn God's word from one who actually is a student of the Bible, not a repeater of other men's error. Check out my source and you will see, I quoted him accurately, David Rosales, Philippians 117. I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. And that's what we are called to do. That's what we're called to do. Present the gospel of Jesus Christ. As I close this book and I close this message, I close with another promise I've made many times over the years. Whenever you guys come to church here in this church, I wanna promise you one thing.  I will tell you the truth. That's what we're called to do. That's what we do.


Hi everybody. Hi, I'm Chris Lethem and this is another episode of The Economy and You at here at Think Tech Hawaii. And you know, one of the issues folks that we're going to talk today about is sustainable tourism, as opposed to economic tourism or what we call ecotourism. Our guest today is Dr. Linda Cox. She is from the University of Hawaii, our very own, and she's a professor with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Did I get that right? Yeah, well, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on today, Linda. My pleasure to be here. Yeah. So, you know, we're just going to have a little chit chat and talk about sort of the sort of the weird, wonderful things that you all are doing to promote sustainable tourism here in Hawaii. And but I'd like to kind of find out from you, how did this sort of come about and how did you gain an interest in it? Well, I'm very interested in community-based economic development. I'm a community-based economic development specialist. And I think that we have a situation that we built in Hawaii from the 70s and 80s, where we developed a very large mass tourism engine. And what we really need to do, given the change in our modern travelers, where they want to do things besides just staying Waikiki, they really want to come into our communities. And this is very challenging for our communities because they may be very small, unsophisticated. And in order to really take advantage of things, rather than have the bus go there, they get off, they do one thing, they get back on the bus and go back to Waikiki, we want to make sure that the visitor has a quality experience and also the people in the community actually benefit from this. Yeah. And this is very important. Because a lot of times nowadays, we get this notion of well, it's just better to leave those turries in Waikiki and not bring them into our community. The reality is visitors are changing. They want a very unique experience. And they're very interested in our communities. Well, they've done Waikiki.  And, you know, there's sort of people moving out to the neighbor islands and to the rural areas there. We're doing lots of really creative things, you know. We are. We are. We're doing everything. We're growing cocoa now. We're doing more with growing grapes to make wines.  So we have all these things, sort of weird, wonderful things that we're doing and we're diversifying our economy in interesting ways. It seems like there's these sort of spurts and starts and things that we're sort of trying to get going. And some of them will last sustain and some of them won't, I guess. And we also have challenges as we do this. Because as you have a visitor, you're welking and mean them into your home, but you also have to kind of set a little bit of standard of how we're supposed to behave in our home. That's right. So this is very important and it's very challenging for our rural communities when they're not sophisticated. These visitors get in their vehicles and start driving around. Just driving around is difficult because the maps and the signs and what is the name of this road and it's very confusing. It is. And you don't want them in our sacred places. And we're also facing some additional challenges as social media starts to take off because they can get a lot of information that may not necessarily be the information that we really want to have. So this becomes very, very challenging. Well, you know, when we talk about sustainable tourism and you're saying this is sort of, you know, you said this is the start of a couple of decades ago or maybe back in the 80s. Ecotourism became popular in the 70s. In the 70s. In Hawaii in 1994, the Hawaii Ecotourism Association was formed by a group of concerned individuals who want to help protect our resources because as you see this traveler becomes more independent, they kind of just go everywhere. And so we need to protect our resources. We simply cannot be having eight, nine million visitors getting off planes and thinking we're not going to have an impact if we don't make a concerted effort to be clear about what it is we're trying to do here. Well, you know, if you hike on trails, for example, I would say trails is probably an obvious example because I know the trails that I have walked, raising two daughters here. We've used these trails throughout and the trails have changed. The layout has changed and we've had to make accommodations. Of course, things happen. Trees fall down, rocks fall down. Where people are walking back and forth, you have more erosion. We have to go back and work on the trails to rebuild the paths so that, you know, they're usable. Bridges go out. These are parts, part of that is sort of a natural occurrence sometimes though it happens because, you know, the usage, the amount of usage that we get, but of course, you know. And it can get worse. As you get more and more visitors, they're wanting more and more of this authentic experience. So they're going to be going on these trails. They're going to be going into our marine environments. And what we really want is to really develop and promulgate best practices so that everyone involved in this is trying to minimize this impact and helping the guests do their best job. And there's also, to me, there's sort of a leveraging of our resources. I mean, we're using our resources also to bring visitors to Hawaii. Yes, we are. We want to protect them. We want to protect them because we want to keep having those to leverage. Yes. A worn-out resource is not going to produce much. Yeah, it doesn't. All right, yeah. And so we do have to invest money back into those natural resources to keep those there. So I became involved with the Hawaii Ecotourism Association around the turn of the century. And one of the things that... Now, when you say that, you mean just like, you know, 15 years ago, 16 years ago, when you say turn of the century. It was the turn of the century, wasn't it? Were we worried about Y2K and others? I guess my thought process is that it would be turn of the century. It was a long time ago. Well, it was the turn of the century. Yes, it was. But I don't know why in the context of, oh, yes. Yeah, go ahead. So not that I'm that old. Not admitting to be that old. So what's happening is we really need to ensure that these are authentic experience and following best management practices and how do you actually do that. That's right. So that really becomes challenging. So I begin working with the Hawaii Ecotourism Association. And by the way, we are talking now sustainable tourism, because if you ask a lot of tourists about ecotourism, a lot of our tourists that come here don't know what exactly that is. And they also tend to identify sustainability as eating local food. Which is okay. That's a good step. That's a good step. When I was in the 80s, worked with agriculture. I'm delighted now that we've had an impact. But we also need to educate them about how to actually support our tour operators that use best practices. We need to educate operators about that. And we need to help residents understand how if there should be an issue that they have a feedback loop. Right. And then that's actually an interesting component is our tour operators are following safe, you know, best practices. Yes. Because if they're doing things that damage the environment, you know. Exactly. Yeah, then that is a problem for us. And how do you expect the visitor to know? They're only here for a few weeks. Yeah, they don't know. So we have really launched and I have written several grants and involved been involved with this certification program. So Hawaii Ecotourism Association now has a sustainable tourism certification program to certify operators. We did a great big push this year for the IUCN. We just had a many of our operators featured yesterday at the Hawaii Tourism Authority annual conference speaking about this. And we're hoping that together we can all raise the bar. Yeah. To do a better job every year and help our visitors who really want to support us and really want this state to remain sustainable because many of them are repeat visitors. Yes. Yes, that's right. And you know, the thing is that each of our islands has unique things to offer. Yes. And the beauty of course is when people come to Hawaii is if you just are one island, you get to experience that island.  I mean, all these are absolutely unique experiences that are all memorable. And we really do lead the world in being a top tourism destination. So I think it's only fitting that we're one of the only two states in the nation that actually has their own certification program. We're very unique. It's we have spent three or four years really fine tuning it. It is our idea that we're going to keep raising the bar and we'll be working with Hawaii Tourism Authority and trying to educate visitors about the importance of supporting those certified operators. And then also linking them. We're just going to launch a new website soon that will link them to hotels and restaurants and other businesses that also promulgate best management practices. And let me throw my hat in the ring if you need somebody to develop the website for it. Yeah, I mean, we really, it's very important. Yes it is. And so with our new travel planner and also to be perfectly honest, we also have a situation with some independent travelers who sometimes may be doing things that maybe is not exactly a best practice. Well, and sometimes they do things that are just out and out dangerous for themselves. Well, yes, they do. And that's a big challenge because particularly with our younger people, they don't maybe have the resources to pay for an expensive tour as they see it. So we're also working to educate these independent travelers. And I think we have seen some issues with hikers falling off of mountains and people getting swept away in streams. Yeah. So these are very important things because nobody wants to come on vacation and have a tragedy. Yes. And so that's another thing we're also working to do is really help educate people about what are the best practices even for an independent traveler. Yeah. And this is very, very important. We also need to avoid greenwashing where people say they're sustainable but they're really not. So we actually are a third party certification. We inspect all of our operators. We have an extensive evaluation checklist. So it's not a minimal effort. We're very proud of it. We're also kind of co-partning with a white green business program, which is really more of a building thing, which is much easier actually to do. Much easier to certify a building because you can measure things. Right. Well it's quantifiable. Yeah. There's water flow and electrical and there's a benefit economically to the owner of the building being more sustainable. So this has been a very long road. However, we think we maybe have reached a tipping point. Okay.  The website will be launched soon and we're really getting a lot more operators. We're getting a lot more interest among visitors to actually go with our certified operators. And I think it's very important that we understand that sustainability is going to be a very long journey. It's not a guided tool. Well, yeah. And it's a, you know, it really is a journey because, you know, what people like to do today and what people want to do 10 years from now, maybe something different or unique. You know, there may be things that we develop as we're, you know, technology of course is changing the world that we live in. We now have these sort of weird and wonderful devices that allow you to sort of ride up on top of the water and shoot up in the air and all these sort of weird things that we can do now. And so the, you know. Also global climate change. Global climate change. Well, you know, even that, I mean, if the water, if the, if the sea level rises, that is going to have a huge impact in Hawaii. I don't know that we've even begun to address the challenges that we're going to face if the sea level rises by a couple feet. No. So this is another area that if you have a well-connected network of people very interested in best management practices, not only can we reduce some of our impact that's coming from this state, but also be better prepared by being able to communicate better and understand what our goal is and all be moving forward in the same road rather than someone going off in different directions. So we're going to take a quick commercial break. We have a one-minute break and we're going to be right back.  Thank you. I'm Richard Emery. I'm with co-host Jane Sugimura of Kondo Insider, Hawaii's weekly show about association living. The purpose of these videos is to educate board members and condo residents about issues relating to association living. We hope they're helpful and that they assist in resolving problems that affect the relationship between boards and their residents. Each week Thursday at 3 p.m. we bring you exciting guests, industry experts, who for free will share their advice about how to make your association a better place to live and answer a lot of very interesting questions. Aloha. We hope you'll tune in. And yes, we're back again. Hi, I'm Chris Leitham with the Economy U here at Think Tech, Hawaii. Today's guest is Linda Cox from the University of Hawaii. Linda is with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management with the University of Hawaii. And so we are talking about ecotourism, sustainable tourism. Now, so we've sort of had a nice discussion about this. So let's talk about maybe what are the goals going forward. Right. So what we're really trying to do is really get more people to buy into all this. What we have now... But when you say people, when you say people, okay, you're talking about individuals or you're talking about organizations like JTB and HIS that sort of steer, because a lot of these tourist companies store steer people. Yeah, everything. JTB is one of our corporate sponsors. So we work with them. Japan has a slightly different definition of ecotourism. They tend to want to give it a certification to a particular guide. We give it to a company. So we are working with them. They've been a corporate sponsor of ours for two years. I organize events for people that come over so that they can understand how to actually incorporate our certified operators into their activities. We meet with them regularly. So we have already kind of recruited them to be on board with us. We are also now working with Hawaii Tourism Authority to actually have a page on the Go Hawaii website so that visitors are educated. We also do outreach to communities so that our residents understand how important it is to support certification and for their friends and themselves if they want to go on a tour. These are our best management practices that are being followed by this group so that they can also support. The other thing is it provides a way if they have a concern or something comes up. For example, we're having a lot of discussion recently about swimming with dolphins and mantis. I was going to go to that because we used to do that when my daughters were little and we were like we would go out to the beach. I don't want to say which beach but we would go out to the beach. We would go out maybe 150-200 yards out and early in the morning and just sort of lay there and the dolphins would swim through us. Quietly, we would lay there quietly and the dolphins would swim through us. We did that just before there was anybody doing it as a tour. We just did that as something my daughter did canoe paddling and they would come in and race the canoes at six in the morning and she would see them and they would act like they were having a big race with the canoe. But now there's so many people and it's getting exploited so when these controversies come up we will be involved. We will try to be listening to residents. We will try to keep tour operators in the loop and then if there's a new regulation then we want to make sure that all of our tour operators are immediately flipped over so that no one is not following that new best planning practice. Because we don't really want to do something that sort of says okay we're not going to do that anymore because then that asset or that that is not there to us anymore. What we need to do is we need to have some sort of control mechanism. Yes. The dolphins are getting asleep because that's their sleep time. Yes. Right. So our certified tour operators work with us. We connect them to discussions and then for them they're happy because we all are on the same page so if everybody's doing it the right thing then the whole bar goes up and that's really our mission. Right. With these things. Right. And it's very important and also the visitors can feel comfortable that if someone says they're sustainable they are. Yeah. And they have contributed because you know in the old days here in Hawaii it was all about relationships but with the modern economy we've reduced things to transactions so in order to back that up and still honor the culture and honor our natural environment which are not about transactions but about relationships that those relationships are managed properly and that is a big undertaking. So we see ourselves continuing down this road with the people of the state and our visitors the businesses our corporate sponsors of which we have many. Yes. And we just want to see ourselves joining together and working to make everything better. Now my question is I'm going to play devil's advocate okay are we creating a scenario though where there's not going to be opportunity for young startups and young entrepreneurs to be able to enter into this marketplace are we going to create because you know this state is all about creating barriers to entry. Huge problem with this thing. This certification is very low cost currently it's only two hundred dollars a year or a year or two hundred dollars for a two year certification. At the same time we also engage in training.  We are now working on training programs because there is no really way for people to get some of these guide trainings and cultural trainings tailored to what we need for this type of business. Okay. It's very difficult when you're on some of these remote locations. So we are now planning with people that do this type of work you know I write the grant. Some people are doing zip lines and some people are doing horseback riding in the trails and other places. We're going to make room for everybody. And that's what's the beauty of this program however it's also one of the things that slows us down a little bit to find a way to make room for everybody like I'm into agricultural tourism. So we have revised our standards to include agricultural tours. Now when you talk about agriculture tourists are you talking about taking people out to the various farms? A lot of our farms have tours. Okay. We have tours of processing facilities like coffee roasters that sort of thing. So yeah so we can all drink coffee while we're on our tour that's great. Well and again for us it's all about joining together. All these niche types of tourism are small and we need to all work together and we also need work with the groups that are more involved in mass tourism that have these large hotel infrastructures. And our hotel infrastructure is diversified too because we have Haseko which is building out in the Kapolei area. But we all need to be able to help each other because even though they may be at a large hotel that doesn't mean they don't want to engage in an ecotour experience. So we do concierge outreach. We try to educate the concierge to understand so they can explain to the visitor why this certification program is important and it's not expensive so it's not adding to the cost of the actual tour in any kind of significant sense. If you can imagine $200 in a two-year period. Well that's not so bad. No it's not so bad. The challenge of course so many things that are done by the state is they start off with well-intentioned but then they can blow up. But Hawaii ecotourism is a 501c3. So we're an educational organization. We are here to educate residents and visitors and businesses. The business sector on how to do a job that will protect the resources cultural and natural resources of the state of Hawaii. So can you give us maybe a quick example of some of the guidelines that are in place for a particular type of tour? We have regulations about their marketing. Marketing. Yes. We actually have some minimum requirements that they have to have all their permits. They have to give back to the community. They have to give back to the environment. That's our minimum requirement. We have about five of them. Then we have different areas. One of them is their marketing. They can't put up pictures like if it's a dolphin swim with thing. You have got to be very careful what you're putting on your website. Oh. You've got to present an authentic replication of what's actually going to happen. A real experience. Yes. You can't be just be posting pictures of people swimming with dolphins. That's just not what you do. Right. So we don't allow that. And we ask that you get feedback from guests. Okay. I mean there's just certain requirements we have. Then you have to behave in a certain way. For example, if you're swimming with dolphins, there's all kinds of regulations about what has to be done. All these wildlife interactions. There's many, many regulations or just strong, strong best management practices that you have to engage in. So we have five different areas and we evaluate all those five different areas. You can't be showing pictures of people rubbing sharks tummy because they like tummy rubbing and telling people you can swim with them. Right. And you're buying local food. You're using, you're not using disposable water bottles.  But you're using LED lighting for example. Yeah. So we have a very extensive checklist which has been adapted from an international certification program. So we just didn't just launch off on this thing. I spent a lot of time checking out other things. We looked in similar areas. We looked at what was going on in Costa Rica, which is very similar to our environment. That's true actually. We have a lot of income. And Costa Rica got millions of millions of dollars from the state. From our state? No, from their state. Oh, from their government. To do their program. And we got very little. So we have worked very hard with a team of dedicated volunteers. We have no paid staff. No paid staff. That's like my job. Yeah. So and I help out a lot. I'm at work with Cooperative Extension Service like 4-H and those things. So this is one of the groups that I felt was very important to help. Like I help farmers. Like I help young people. I help a lot of groups as part of the land grant university. It's my job to do informal education. And so that's why I got involved in them. That's amazing. Well, you know, how would people find out more if people were interested in getting more information about the certification program? How would they reach out to you? And all they have to do is Google the Hawaii Ecotourism Association. Okay. And our website will come up. We're launching a new one in a couple of weeks. And there shouldn't be a blip. We're going to try and go with a smooth rollover. Okay. But it has all kinds of contact information. You can also Google me, Dr. Linda Cox. And my website will come up with all my information. All right. Very good. So between the two of them should be able to get a good response. Should be able to get all the data. Oh, we're on the phone or talking every day myself and the people on the board of directors of Hawaii Ecotourism Association to really try and do the best job we can to help to protect the resources natural and cultural of this state. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. This is, of course, one of those areas where, you know, it's hard to get the information. Sometimes you have to do a lot of outreach work, it would seem. Yes, I do a lot of that. Yeah, you have to do a lot of Saturdays. We spend talking to people about this. And for tourists, the benefit for them at the end of the day is that they get to come and continue to experience the all the wonderful things that we have to offer here in Hawaii. Yes, they have a lot of loha for the state. And this allows them to express it by supporting businesses that act in a responsible manner. Now, are you how is there any kind of a logo or anything that you look for in their documentation or their paperwork that do you have an insignia for them? Yes, on the website, we have an HEA. We also have a new tagline. Okay. Travel Pono. Travel Pono. Okay. That's awesome. Well, thank you again, Dr. Linda Cox for coming on the show. Thank you, my pleasure to be here, Chris. The Economy and You with Think Tech Hawaii. And I'm Chris Letham. I hope you'll stick around. And all of you out there, perhaps you should look for this. And remember, we have to keep Hawaii Pono. And we have to keep Travel Pono. Travel Pono. We'll see you again next week here on The Economy and You. And have a great day. Aloha.


And with the new ship and the new member of the crew and Usopp back, we are off on a brand new adventure. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this channel. My name is Jack the Boss for Ice, you know, B. We have such 337 and 338 of our one piece watch today, and I believe we are starting this brand new saga called Thriller Bark. I don't know if it's Arc Saga, I don't know. But I believe it runs to, it says on Crunchyroll like 383 or 384. So not that long, at least in comparison to like Water 7 and Ennise Lobby, that was a mountain decline to say the least. But I'm super excited to get into it, mostly to see if we can get any details on the new ship and all the features that Frankie packed into this bad boy. If you're new to the channel, drop us up and hit that big wood bell and let's get started. I don't know what occurred in the little filler arc in between this and Ennise Lobby. I imagine some details of the ship were shown. God, it's like three stories, bro. I like Luffy's fit, though. This little vest, absolutely no entry. Bro's hard at work.  Nami's fit's kind of fire, too. Why is she like trembling? I'm guessing some might have to do with the episodes before this. Oh my gosh, he changed the waiver. Oh, he like altered it. Oh. Wait, does it still work the same? It doesn't look like it. A white hobby horse. Yeah, it has like a wheel now. It's like training wheels. I mean, maybe it'll be more suited for the sea. Oh, his trump card. Here we go. Surely this goes well. I didn't know that the swing would be just the first thing I see them use. What is this? Bro, that kitchen looks so nice. Yeah, can I see the aquarium? They already brought up the aquarium. That sounds nuts. They're living the life now, man. And a lock on the fridge. He can accommodate now that he has like the space and the resources and the storage.  This is like, this is beyond upgrades. Oh, the little octopus. I can only think of the cow go now singing octopus. They put you in the water. You'll die. Captain Usof. What is that fit? Oh my God, they're going to see him. What? Yeah, they're all just they have so many. Oh my gosh. They weren't kidding when they said a hundred. They look so scared. Oh, there's one. Oh, these four little octopies. Octopi. Hey, who's not actually kind of put in the work? They're fighting back. They fit a drowned Usof, bro, where they actually are. Oh, somebody's going to have to go in after him. Oh, Sanji, just like, just please don't destroy my my fancy new play. Oh, is this where Zoro is? I would not be shocked if he just took fat naps up in that crow's nest. Frankie and all of them absolutely popped off on the ship. He had a barrel. Oh, he's got like a whole couch type thing. Yeah, this is perfect for naps there, offering of treasure to the seagod. Oh, perfect. Free stuff, actually free stuff. The ship looks so fire on the water. Hey, this is sort of similar to how we met Luffy. Is it like a tradition thing that Nami knows about? Yeah. Thank goodness she's here to explain things to them, man. I mean, yeah, you could take out of it. Is it like a bad omen if you take from it? Oh, these rules seem very specific. It's aged a little bit. I mean, it sounds like they have plenty of offerings that they can make. Robin's leggings. OK, this might be a better one, Zoro. Why should it actually be money? I look, you feel like it. Oh, or a flare. All right. I was like, why should it be money because they they lost a lot of it from Luffy spending it all on the party, leading water seven. I feel like that's like a tract something. I don't think that was booze chopper. It seems like a trap, a simple prank on the high seas in the grand line, surely. I'm glad we haven't left the very animated ships behind with Mary and Thousand Sunny keeps right up with the tradition.  What? What do you mean a storm? I guess the way the winds changed. Look, it's going to take a way longer to get all around the ship now, too, because of how large it is. But it'll be able to brave like strong seas a lot better for sure. What kind of storm is this? Oh, my God. I love who stops tying up the swing. That's his job. Oh, it's Sunny's first big test. Chopper, now Frankie's like, I know you're Bill Wright. I really do like his dynamic. I feel I feel very safe having Frankie here. I don't know why they're going to fight back. They're not going to succumb to the waves. Soldier doxes. Oh, those change numbers. Paddle ship. It has like different forms. Oh, my gosh. Wait, Sunny is cracked. Oh, my goodness. Sorry, I already love this ship so much. How many different forms does it have? Like the storm is absolutely nothing. A light fog. I guess I shouldn't really question whether on the grand line. That one, see? Oh, wait. Kokoro told them about this. Yeah. Oh, my Florian triangle. Yeah, she did warn them about this. You mean there's ghosts? It wasn't really time. Wait, is there like a ghost already on the ship? They weren't messing around about it being haunted. All their faces are so menacing, man. Oh, Mary would have gotten wrecked by this. Worst chopper. I feel like chopper would also be absolutely mortified. Anti... See, this looks similar to the ship that picked up Frankie. Whatever he fell in the ocean. They're saying yo-ho-ho like a pirate, but all spookily. On your guard. Wait, that ship is massive. Now in my perspective, Robin doesn't care. In my perspective, Sonny's massive now. That is insane. God, that voice actually is kind of spooky. I won't even lie. I want to see chopper. God. It is really creepy. Yeah. I was waiting for choppers. Thog, Russo, maybe you should take a little vacation to Water 7, brother.  Does he have like a temporary blade? He has threes. They're just one knot in the sheath. Oh, it's one skeleton with tea or coffee. Oh, that is creepy. Is that the blood leaving their face or the ship? Oh, it's just passing. Oh, what a kind ghost ship. Just delivering alcohol, I guess. Well, they do an underground line. He's so high, bro. They're drawing sticks. Shouldn't most of you just agree to go together? I like how they have Zoro's like, yeah, somebody needs to go make sure Luffy doesn't get himself into trouble. Oh, yeah, see, they're volunteers. I mean, he's wrong. Guys, it looks like one skeleton. Such babies, man.  Can't board a ghost ship. Oh, my gosh, they're so dramatic, man. Bornami. Is it smart to just board? They might get mad. What's your ship? What do ghosts need with money? They might just hold on to it. Oh, my God. I like the thieves already kind of playing with like kind of like spooky music. God, that is creepy, man. Oh, gosh. Rest in peace. Nothing's happened yet.  Bro seems eccentric. I like his voice. Has an app for what he's talking. W skeleton, Riz. Back off, buddy. Sanji's got that taken care of. What is this music? It's a very clean skeleton. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Bro just made Sanji look like a saint. Do you poop? Oh, Andy's back up. What an interesting fellow. Oh, OK. The dryness of him asking for panties, bro. Oh, my gosh. He's on a ghost ship. You ran into him. He has more questions about. You just met him. We just added someone to the payroll already. And also, what role does he fit? And he said, OK, so yeah, I guess. I guess I won't question it. Whatever. Episode three, 38. Let's get it. I'll put you here on your vessel. Dead and skeletonized brook. Skeletonized. His voice is crazy. His little laugh. Bro Chopper's got a cross. Oh, my gosh, bro. Stop harassment skeleton. Harassment Riz and garlic. Oh, my gosh. Bro, is that Ace's hat? Chopper looking back and forth with his little cross. Where did you guys get this stuff? Clearless. What is happening? Luffy, we just added someone to the payroll, brother. Is this in our budget? Is this in the company budget?  To keep him in control, yeah. I literally said last episode, it was the babysit. Oh, he's accommodating. Does he eat and drink like a person? I guess he poops. I'm saying, man, are you sure you want him to join Luffy? He seems a little screw loose. I guess everybody on the crew kind of does.  He said he hadn't seen a person in decades. Oh, oh, that's really depressing. It's a skull joke. Dude, Luffy loves him. Oh, my gosh. As a gentleman. Oh, no, he's matching Luffy's energy way too well. He's had milk for his bones. Crew buckle? Brooke, why did he go on Crew Buckle? Did he just make that up? It was like the second thing Luffy asked him. We can kick the skeleton out later. Oh, my gosh. Dude, it's like Sanji is unleashed now. Aw. Brooke was lonely on his ghost ship. He's very blunt, I guess. Dog odd. He seems like a lot. Revive, revive fruit. So he died as a human and came back? Oh. Brooke was cleaning his teeth.   Sounds like a blessing and a curse. Brooke paused the burp. Oh, my god.   Brooke is just blunt. Oh. So that's when he died and I guess the fruit activated. Wonder who they ran into. Dang. The ship has just been floating? That sucks, man. It just, guys, come on. Put the crosses down.  But then when you die, it activates, I see. I wonder if he's happy that he was revived. Or like it seems he was very lonely. It's a decade since he's seen a human. Oh. Oh, did he go to heaven and came back down? Oh, so he's stuck here? Oh, I lost soul. Oh. He had already decomposed.  Yeah. Zoro's like, do not compare me to him. That's an insane devil fruit. Maybe he's able to swim since he died. Oh, no, I guess not because it's still the devil fruit, the devil fruit power. I think he looks great. Strong roots. What an explanation. Guys, stop. It's so rude. He hates ghosts. Oh. Oh, because he's died. Oh, I guess it is a vampire trope. Yeah. The garlic would have worked much better. It looks like it's flashing a shadow. Is there more to it that he hasn't explained? Give him a second. Oh. What? Are we at like the halfway point of the episode? To be continued. Stole his shadow? That's so sad. That doesn't even work. The world of light. That's why he's here. He's just stuck here. Bro, I don't think you can come with us. Just die, scramble. Oh, dang. OK, the question is, how does someone steal your shadow? And what benefit does that give them to take your shadow? Do they just have two shadows now? Is that even a benefit? I guess we'll find out. Oh. Oh. So he was on land at one point. That's so sad. He can't feel the sun on his, I guess, bones. Is there just some dude that just collects shadows? This guy doesn't have his either? Oh, my gosh. He's not getting what he means obliterated. So it just absorbs the light and kills him. Dang, bro's tragic life. Yeah, for real. No wonder he's so happy with how nice Luffy's being to him. He hasn't been treated like this in a while. Aw. And he's all alone, too, just remembering them. Damn, Sedge, poor Brooke. He's just a lonely skeleton, just drifting along.  Aw. No, I don't blame him. Luffy didn't even know the weight of him asking. Oh. Yeah, he wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Couldn't just hide inside all the time. Well, how do you get your shadow back?  Luffy's like, I'll go get him. Yeah. You don't know Luffy very well, Brooke. Yeah, name. Before my second life comes to an end. So it is just like another, what, like, however long he exists for? Like another human life? I don't think Luffy will take that for an answer, though. He's obviously quite sad, quite distressed. Oh. Oh, he's got a violin. We need one. Let's see how good he is, though. He's had a lot of time to practice. Stage fright?  OK. He was not lying about being scared. Chopper, use your cross. Oh my.  What is that? Is that a sea king? Wait, it's a mouth. I love how you can hear chopper's footsteps over everyone else's. They had robins? Oh, isn't that what kind of started the whole storm in the first place? It seemed like. Is that how they, like, got here? Oh, who's they? Oh. Wait, land. Oh my gosh, is that like a castle? Looks sick. Ghost Island that wanders the seas. Oh, this is Thoroughbark. OK. Thoroughbark's just the name of the island. Ghost Island. It's kind of cool, kind of mysterious.  All right, well, what an introduction to Thoroughbark We have a potential musician-grew member. I'm guessing a lot of what's going to go down is going to have to do with getting his shadow back with whatever happened, whoever took it, why whoever took it did take it.  It's just kind of how he is. And he seems obviously very enthralled with who Brooke is already. And it's just captivated by his presence. Fuck, I thought Frankie was sort of like a wildcard-esque hyper character. Brooke seems like Frankie times two. And I'm not going to lie, I kind of like him. I wouldn't really mind him being a member of the crew. I just didn't think we would get introduced to someone that could be so quickly after Frankie joined, and I guess Usam rejoined. It's just kind of like whiplash, especially just getting into this arc. But I appreciate how quickly they're just, like, kind of setting everything up. But guys, that has been it for episode 337, 338 of our one-piece watch through. Do drop us up on the channel if you are new. And with that being said, I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace, peace.