from Carnegie Studios in Long Rock, Colorado. It's Puppet News. Good evening. I'm Herman Hansen, and I just don't wanna talk about it. And I'm Aranda Lerwer, and this is Puppet News. It's not unusual for rocks and other debris to crash through a windshield and injure a passenger or driver, but a turtle? A 71-year-old woman riding with her daughter on Florida's Interstate 95 suffered a gashed forehead Wednesday when a turtle smashed through the windshield of their car, striking her the day-tone of Beach News Journal reports. The daughter pulled over and got help from another motorist. According to a 911 recording, both were surprised by what they found. There is a turtle in there. The man can be overheard saying, a turtle, the daughter exclaimed. An actual turtle? The gash drew a lot of blood, but the woman was not seriously hurt. The turtle was likely crossing the interstate and got knocked into the air by another vehicle. I swear to God, this lady has the worst luck of anything. The daughter told the 911 operator as she tended to her injured mother. The turtle, on the other hand, had the best luck of anything. It had just a few scratches on its shell and was released back into the nearby woods, Port Orange police officer Andre Fleming said. Laumont will once again levy a $1 per hour fee at the city's five electric vehicle charging stations on August 1st, which is on par with what other communities impose. Laumont City Council members were told Tuesday night. The $1 fee is the same amount Laumont charged electric vehicle owners in 2019 until the city replaced for existing charging stations with more advanced technology, according to a city staff report. In explaining the return for the $1 fee, the city report states that as customers embrace and use the EV stations, the stations can become self-sustaining. Self-sustaining programs then free up resources to focus on additional beneficial programs supporting city initiatives. Based on the use of EV stations in 2020, reinstating a $1 per hour fee will generate about $12,000 a year. This funding covers the cost of owning and operating the existing EV stations and will allow the city to incrementally invest in additional public stations or other EV infrastructure over time. A Southern California man is recovering after he was bitten by a rattlesnake when he tried to pick up the poisonous reptile using barbecue tongs, authorities said. The man spotted the snake Saturday evening near his home in the Sycamore Creek community of Corona and was worried about it coming into contact with children, according to a statement from Riverside County Animal Services. When he tried to remove the rattler using the tongs, the snake struck and bit him on the hand, Animal Services spokesman John Walsh said. The man who was not identified was treated at a hospital and later released. He told me that he was feeling remarkably well, Walsh said Tuesday. He said he definitely felt that he had dodged a bullet. Rattlesnake bites are painful and in rare cases can be fatal. After the man was taken away by ambulance, a crowd gathered as Animal Services officer Mike McGee removed the snake. Some of the children were saying, bye, Mr. Snake, McGee said. The reptile was later euthanized. We tried to release rattlesnakes within one mile of where we remove it from, but it was highly likely this snake might end up in one of the adjacent homes again, McGee said. I didn't believe a routine release would be safe this time. Officials said the number of rattlesnake sightings has gone up as the weather has gotten hotter in the area, about 50 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Walsh advised residents who spot a snake to call Animal Services instead of trying to remove it themselves. And especially with barbecue tongs. Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm writhing in plastic-wrapped lettuce he'd just brought home from a Sydney Australia supermarket until a snake tongue flicked. I coined off completely freaked out when I saw this little tongue come out of its mouth and stopped flicking around and realized it was a snake because whams don't have tongs, White said on Thursday. I definitely kind of panicked a bit, he added. It was a venomous, pale-headed snake that authorities say made an 870 kilometer, that's 500 faulty miles for you Americans because Journey to Sydney from a packing plant in the Australian Sydney of Toowoomba, wrapped in plastic with two heads of cost lettuce, that's two heads of lettuce, not a two-headed snake or Aussie, that would be nightmarish. The refrigerated supermarket supply chain likely lulled the cold-blooded juvenile into a stupor until White bought the lettuce at an ALDI supermarket on Monday evening and rode his bicycle home with salad and snake in his backpack. White and his partner Amelia Neate spotted the snake moving as soon as the lettuce was unpacked onto the kitchen table. They also noticed the plastic wrapping was torn and that the snake could escape so they quickly stuffed the reptile with the lettuce into a plastic food storage container. White phoned the Wires Rescue Organization and a snake handler took the snake away that night. Before the handler arrived, White said Wires had explained to him, if you get bitten, you've got to get hospital like really quickly. ALDI is investigating how a snake could have found its way into a supermarket. They have worked closely with the customer and the team advised to identify the snake's natural habitat, which is certainly not an ALDI store. The German-based supermarket chain said in a statement, Wires Reptile Coordinator, Gary Pattinson said, the snake was less than 20 centimeters, that's eight inches for your mannequins, because long it was as many as it ever will be. Pattinson is caring for the snake until it is returned to Queensland State next week, following the Wires policy of returning rescued wildlife to where it comes from. It's the first snake we've ever heard in sealed-picked produce Pattinson said, we get frogs in them all the time. Neati, a German immigrant, said her brush with a venomous snake in a Sydney kitchen was a setback in her efforts to assure relatives in Europe that Australia's notoriously deadly outback wildlife was nothing to worry about. For the last 10 years or so, I've told my family at home that Australia's a really safe country, Neati said. I've always said, I'm trust in the city, it's totally fine here, she added. Movie lovers will once again be able to see the latest blockbusters on the big screen at the Regal Cinemas at Longmont's village at the peaks beginning May 7th. The National Theatre chain suspended operations nationwide in October 2020 amidst concern about the spread of COVID-19. The theatre has instituted safety precautions to prevent the spread of the virus in the theatre. These precautions are part of the cinema safe program that was commissioned by the National Association of Theatre Owners in August 2020. Guests of the theatre will be required to wear appropriate face coverings while inside the theatre unless eating or drinking while seated inside the auditorium. Regal encourages moviegoers to purchase their tickets via Regal mobile app and have additional functionality to allow patrons to order concessions via mobile app to reduce contact between guests and employees. An upstate New York couple may have finally solved the mystery of who's been tossing used coffee cups in their front yard for nearly three years. Edward and Cheryl Patton told the Buffalo News they tried mounting a camera in a tree in front of their home in Lakeview to catch the phantom litterer. But it wasn't until some neighbors got involved recently and followed a minivan and jotted down its license plate number that there was a break in the case. After Edward Patton called police, they waited and pulled over a vehicle driven by a 76-year-old Larry Pope who Cheryl Patton said had once worked with her and had had disagreements with her over union issues. Pope was charged with harassment and ticketed for throwing refuse onto a roadway. I found it very hard to believe that someone I knew would do something like that, especially at his age, Cheryl Patton told the news. The Patton said littering has stopped since Pope was pulled over. A message was left at a phone number listed for Pope on Sunday. A Canadian parliament member was caught stark naked in a virtual meeting of the House of Commons. William Amos, who has represented the Quebec District of Pontiac since 2015, appeared on the screens of his fellow lawmakers completely naked Wednesday. The pandemic has meant many Canadian lawmakers participate in sessions via video conference instead of in person. A screenshot obtained by the Canadian press shows Amos standing behind a desk between the Quebec and Canadian flags, his private parts hidden by what appears to be a mobile phone in one hand. This was an unfortunate error, Amos said, in a statement sent by email. My video was accidentally turned on as I was changing into my work clothes after going for a jog. I sincerely apologize to my colleagues in the House of Commons for this unintentional distraction. Obviously, it was an honest mistake and it won't happen again. Claude de Belfoy, a legislator for the opposition bloc québécois party, raised the incident in a point of order after a question period, suggesting that parliamentary decorum requires male parliament members to wear a jacket and a tie, and a shirt, underwear, and trousers. Speaker Anthony Rota later thanked de Belfoy for her observations and clarified that while he had not seen anything, he checked with technicians and confirmed that they saw something. He reminded lawmakers to always be vigilant when they are near a camera and a microphone. Amos, the parliamentary secretary to industry minister Francois Philippe Champagne, was visible only to parliament members and staffers on an internal video conference feed. Because he was not speaking, his image did not show up on the public feed. Liberal party colleague Mark Holland said Amos was utterly mortified. Holland said he was satisfied with the explanation from his colleague. I don't think there was any ill intent. It's certainly an unfortunate circumstance, Holland said. This is a warning to everybody, Holland added. You've got to really always assume that camera is on and be very careful any time you wander anywhere near that camera that you're dressed appropriately.  Breast cancer patients in the Lamont area now have access to cutting edge technology that could cut off serious post-surgery complications. At the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers located at 2030 Mountain View Avenue, Dr. Jolinda Tynan uses the Sozo device to treat lymphedema and breast cancer patients. Lymphedema is swelling caused by fluid building up in the lymphatic system. Dr. Tynan said, many breast cancer treatments whether surgery or radiation disrupt the lymph nodes. A side effect of disrupting the lymph nodes is the fluids which remove fluid through the lymphatic system build up in the limbs causing swelling. In addition to swelling, the build up of fluids increases the patient's risk of infection. The machine detects fluid that would build up in a body before a physician or a physical therapist could detect it. It catches it at a stage that is readily reversible. Dr. Tynan said, it prevents lymphedema from occurring. Vermont's largest city is banning the use of loud gas powered leaf blowers. The city council passed a phased in ban this week the Burlington Free Press reported. It mandates moving to quieter electric powered leaf blowers which will be required for all municipal departments in August. All businesses and Burlington residents will be required to comply by the end of May, 2022. Gas powered blowers operate at 90 decibel which can cause hearing damage after two hours of exposure according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And gas engines contribute to air pollution in residential neighborhoods. The ordinance restricts the noise of electric leaf blowers to 65 decibel which according to the CDC is about as loud as a typical washing machine the newspaper reported. The restrictions for businesses or landowners that service 10 or more city properties go into effect on September 6th. The rules take effect on December 31 for smaller businesses. The 2020-2021 school year has been full of change, stress and anxiety. The Lamont Community Foundation will reward 25 as VBSD preschool through third grade teachers with a cash award. The catch, teachers are required to spend the money to rejuvenate themselves. The Lamont Community Foundation and Alchemy Fund are accepting nominations for teachers in grades preschool through third grade for the rejuvenation award. A committee of community volunteers will review the application, selecting 25 teachers to receive a $1,000 cash award. The teachers must agree to use the money for personal use and not by supplies for the classroom. Applications and a short video explaining why the teacher deserves the award are due by midnight, April 30th. Recipients will be ch- And that's all we have time for. For Puppet News, I'm Schmankberst, Kick Puppet, guys. And I'm Aranda Lerwer. Good night.


Hey everybody, today we're making ziti pasta, a nice casserole for you. It's sort of like lasagna if you haven't had it before. Nice and cheesy and creamy and just delicious. I'm also going to be doing a healthy twist with it, of course. I'm gonna be using some really quality ingredients, which we're gonna go over in a little bit. So I'm Rockin' Robin and I'm gonna show you how to do it right after this. We're gonna start off with our chef joke and don't forget there'll be another one a little bit later in the video, so stay tuned. What do you call something that tastes like pasta, looks like pasta, but it is in pasta? And in pasta, like I said, we are making this as healthy as we can and I love to read labels. So if you're like me, you're gonna love this recipe because I've read all the labels and I know that there's only good quality ingredients in this recipe. So first up, I'm using Bonsa Pasta. Now this is supposed to be a zita pasta recipe, right? But Bonsa doesn't make zita type noodles that I've seen. So I'm using the shells here and you can use any pasta you want really. I chose the shells because they kind of hold the sauce really nicely in it. Now you can see in the ingredients on this, you can compare the Bonsa Pasta with average regular pasta and you can see how much protein there is in each one, the fiber and the net carbs. Now I'm using ground beef. You could use sausage or a combination thereof. If you want to, I'm using some ground beef here but it is 100% grass-fed and finished. Next up is my sauce. I'm using a spaghetti sauce that I think is really clean, really good quality and you can get it at Costco. So check this out. This is Rayo sauce that Costco has the best deal ever and that's where I buy it. So check out these ingredients. You can read every single one of them. We've got Italian whole peeled tomatoes, olive oil, onion, salt, garlic, basil, black pepper and oregano. Love it. We'll also be using one finely diced yellow onion. I have some super fine diced here on some commini mushrooms that I really diced up small. If you want to leave them larger, you can. I've got some rosemary fresh out of my garden. Now for my herbs, I'm using fresh basil and fresh parsley and I tell you, it really makes a difference. I put this in my sauce and it just really makes that sauce so much better so don't miss that step. We'll need some salt. I'm going to use garlic powder today. We'll need some olive oil and for our cheeses, I'm using some grated mozzarella. I'm using some sour cream which by the way, if you read the ingredient list here, I'll show it to you and you can see what's in there. It's just nice and clean. And I'm also using some cottage cheese. Again, the ingredients are very clean. And the last thing is some Parmesan cheese that's been grated. Here's our setup. I've got a pot of water back here that I'm starting to boil so that that's for my pasta and it will be ready when I need to cook it. Over here, this is going to be my pan for my sauce and we can go ahead and just pour that in now.  In our frying pan over here, I'm going to saute the onions and the mushrooms. And we'll do that for, I'm going to do it for 10 minutes. So you want to get some olive oil in there, toss in your onions. Here goes our mushrooms. Got my temperature on medium high and once this gets hot, then we'll lower it and just, like I said, just saute it until it gets nice and soft and a good 10 minutes should do it. Once the onions get going, I'm going to put in a little bit of salt and you're going to want to stir these periodically. All right, next up we're going to take our rosemary and I'm going to peel off the little petals. And you can always use a little bit more of the fresh rosemary than you would if you were using dried. Okay, and then we'll just, I want to chop this up nice and fine. So you want to measure about a teaspoon of the rosemary. Okay, if it's a little over, that's not a problem. And I'm going to place that in my sauce. Now I'm turning the temperature on this to low to start getting it hot. Next is our basil. I'm just going to take the leaves, pile them up. That's what you do. Get rid of that stem there. So you stack up a few like this.  And then you're just going to slice just like this.  I like to cut them just the other way, just one time or two, just so they're not real long. I'm going to continue cutting up the basil until I get it all in the sauce. We're going to do the same kind of thing with our fresh parsley. So I'm just going to take some and just kind of shave it off so I don't get too many stems. All right, have a look at our onions. It's been about 10 minutes. They are nice and soft and they are ready to go into the sauce. And we'll give that a nice stir. Look at this sauce, nice and rich. Look at that. In the same pan that we cooked the onions, I'm going to place the ground beef in the pan now. I'll add some salt to the ground beef and some garlic powder. Cook this until it's no longer pink. The ground beef is done. You can see there's a fair amount of grease in there. So we're going to strain it and place it into our sauce. Stir that in. All right, once I get that mixed in there, we're going to turn, keep the temperature. It's on low and we're going to simmer this for at least 10 minutes. Longer is always better so the flavors can mingle. And I'm going to cover it so that it doesn't reduce. It's time to cook the pasta. We have our water boiling here and we're going to put a little salt, and toss in a little salt into our water. The pasta says it cooks for nine to 11 minutes. We want to under-cook it by a minute or so just because it's going to go, the whole dish is going to go back in the oven for another half hour. So you just want to under-cook it just a bit. While the noodles are cooking, we are going to take our bowl here and we are going to add all of our cheeses together. So I have the cottage cheese here. I'm going to place it in a bowl. I'm going to combine everything. Cottage cheese, sour cream. I'm going to toss in the Parmesan cheese and the mozzarella. And I'm also going to add a little bit of parsley to this. I'm going to shave off some and just chop up a little bit and toss it in. Sprinkle that in and give it a stir. It's time to drain the pasta. All right, here's Chef Joke number two. Did you hear about the pasta and its cooking water? The relationship was strained. All right, I'm going to take the pasta and I'm actually going to just pour it right into my sauce. I like to have my noodles totally coated in sauce. Give that a great stir. So I have a large baking dish here. This is something like 10 by 16 approximately. So I'm going to layer half of the pasta sauce in the dish first. Now we're going to place all of our cheese sauce in the middle. Now spread this out the best you can using a spatula and a knife.  So we'll finish this off with some more grated mozzarella cheese and then some grated Parmesan cheese. In the oven we go. This goes in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 25 minutes. Take a look at this casserole after about 25 minutes. You want that cheese to be really melted and everything's piping hot. Here's our ziv pasta right out of the oven. It is beautiful. Smells wonderful. Let me scoop some of this up. You don't even really have to cut it because the noodles are little. So look at this. Oh my goodness. Dig in. Mamma mia, that is delicious. You gotta try it. I have a wonderful recipe for you to compliment this pasta dish that you're gonna love. Guess what it is? My ultimate garlic bread. I'm gonna leave a link for you right over here. You must try that. It's made with roasted garlic. Thanks so much for watching today. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, smash that like button for me and leave me a comment. All right, we'll see you next time.


All right, so our first afternoon session at Big Talk from Small Libraries 2021 is The Lone Librarian. As I'm sure many of you out there are, there's lots of you there. And Laura Hinman is from our Midland University here in Fremont, Nebraska, is going to talk about her experiences being a lone academic librarian. Yeah, so thank you for that introduction. My name is Laura Hinman. My presentation is, yes, The Lone Librarian, Programming, Creations, and Cultivating Connections. So just a little bit about me. I'm originally from South Dakota. I got my Bachelor of Science in English for New Media from Dakota State University, and that university is in Madison, South Dakota, small town. I then went on to get my Masters in Library and Information Science and a Grad Certificate in Archives and Special Collections from the University of Southern Mississippi. And coincidentally, my library career, like job-wise, began in Mississippi as well. I had started school first, and then I just ended up having a job. I got hired down in Mississippi too. So I started as a cataloging metadata librarian and moved up to Head of CERC and then Collection Development Coordinator. And now I'm back in the Midwest as head librarian at Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska. And that's just a picture of my family. And then in about four weeks' time, we're gonna be expecting a little boy coming in. Congratulations. Thank you. So pretty exciting and crazy that it's happening so quickly. But so this is my presentation description that was also on the website. But just to give you another idea of what I'm gonna talk about. So I started my position at Midland University as the only librarian. And just that in and of itself, I think is kind of makes us unique because a lot of our kind of sister schools, I guess in the G-PAC division has more than one librarian. So here is just me, I'm all by myself. And before I came in, there were limited engagement opportunities between myself and the campus community. So before I came, there just wasn't, there wasn't a lot of communication. There wasn't any outreach. There wasn't any education on library resources where you can find those resources, how to navigate them. There really just wasn't anything like that. And so when I came in, I made it my goal to establish the programming, that strong communication and trustworthy relationships between myself, the faculty, staff and students. So I'm just gonna talk about how I created those pass-on event programs, what assessments that I used to track attendance, feedback and suggestions, and how I built communication and trust across campus that was non-existent before I came in all while being all by myself.  Our FTE is 1388. We actually got record enrollment this year, which was a surprise because of COVID. We didn't know what was gonna happen. So we ended up getting record enrollment this year. We have 44 majors, 20 minors and 19 endorsements. And then we also have an Omaha location for our grad program. So we have eight of those and then 12 pre-professional programs as well. And a little bit about Luther Library, where I work. This is a picture of what our library looks like. According to OCLC, we have about 280,000 holdings. I don't know how much I believe that number, but according to them, that's how much we have. Before I came, they did do a very large weeding project. Our library used to be wall-to-wall shelving, wall-to-wall stacks. We didn't really have any study tables or computers around for people to use. And so before I came in, they knocked out about half the stacks. So now there's more room for study tables and stuff like that. And then I'm currently doing a weeding project myself to kind of weed some of that older stuff that nobody's, that's not circulating. Nobody's checking anything out just to make more room for those study spaces. And we're hoping to get some more study rooms in as well. And then our physical collection is the typical, fiction, non-fiction, DVDs, closed reserve and music scores. And then our electronic collection is those journals and ebooks as well. So what did Luther Library have or in this case didn't have before I started? And so the four things that I listed were the big ones. There were, there are several others, but these are kind of the big ones that I wanted to fix. And one of them is no programming involving students, faculty and staff. So, you know, as a library, we did have, you know, we're a pretty high traffic building on campus just cause we have that quiet space for the students to study and do their homework. But there was nothing, you know, really outreach. There was no getting the students in for something other than just their studies and having them engage with each other. And I wanted to change that. That was a big one, especially involving the faculty as well and not just the students. So to give them a way to interact with each other outside of the classroom. There was no library displays, it was just the stacks and that was it. And so I highlighted a few things that I've done in the last two years that I've been here. So recently I did a fiction book donation among the campus community to see if people would donate books and we actually had a really good response. And so I do book displays. We have a lot of really cool archives at the university that a lot of people never knew about cause nobody ever went in the archive rooms. And so I made it my plan to do that. And now we have, I do archive spotlights every once in a while, we have glass cases in the library to do that. And then just different displays for library holidays, not just, you know, calendar holidays like Christmas and Halloween and stuff, but also library related holidays like, you know, Band Book Week, you know, National Library Week. So I highlight those as well. And again, no library resources outreach to the students, faculty and staff. So when I came in, you know, there was no class presentations on how to navigate the databases. There was no real knowledge of how to use them. You know, we had them listed on our website but nobody knew how to get there or how to use them properly. And no library related communication to the staff, faculty, students and staff. So just nobody knew what was going on in the library. If there was changes, nothing was really communicated to anybody out in the campus community. So my solution to that, the first thing I did when I started is I met with all the deans. And then when I met with the deans of each of the colleges, I extended that to bigger groups with other faculty members. And then I also reached out to the students because, you know, even though it's, you know, Midlands Library and I work there and I, you know, put on things in the library, it's the students that are utilizing this information and these resources. So I wanted to know what the students wanted and what they expected out of the library to make sure that they're successful in their college career. And I also created a line of communication to faculty, staff and students. And by doing that, I send out a pretty much bi-weekly e-newsletter through an email. I called it, check it out, just kind of a library pun. And I send that out usually just to faculty and staff but sometimes I involve students if it relates to something that they should know about like database stuff. And I just talk about anything I do, any changes, any displays, tips and tricks of researching and databases. And I created displays that interest the campus community. So again, those archive spotlights, people had no idea what we had in the archives. And so I kind of broke that out and put them on display. And then just like I said with that fiction book donation, I made a display for that. I didn't think it was going to be super popular but we actually, I just put it up maybe a few weeks ago and there's already been about half the books already been checked out and circulated. So I was really excited to see that people were actually taking them and reading them and creating outreach to the community. I wanted to do that because people live in Fremont. There's 26,000 people in this town but not a lot of people know that there's a university here and not a lot of people know there's even a library on campus. They just think there's a public library in town and that's it. So I wanted to make sure people knew that, hey, we're here and we're doing things and being able to include them in some of the stuff going on in the library as well. And then I also created a library resources canvas course. So we're not lucky enough to have like live guides and research guides that a lot of people have. So to fix that, I decided to make a canvas course since that's what we use on campus. And so in that course is a lot of tutorials on how to search the databases, do proper research and stuff like that. I split up the databases by major. So an education major decides to look in the databases but it has no idea where to start. I have all the relevant databases listed on there for them, the best periodicals that we have and any open source information that they can find to. And then just citation and plagiarism information. So it's kind of a one-stop shop for them to find all of this information and library resources. So now I'm gonna talk about some of the programs that I've done and highlight the ones that kind of really started to get things going for my programming here on campus. So my first program was book club and that included faculty, staff and students. So what I did is I sent out a Google form to faculty, staff and students and it included 10 titles of various genres. And the biggest help with all of this is at the Nebraska Library Commission, they have book club kits. Because at first when I thought about this book club idea, I was like, okay, if this program takes off and I have to buy 20 books of the same title, what am I gonna do with 20 of the same book? So when I found out that they do book club kits at the library commission, I was super excited. And so we utilized that to get a bulk title of books. And so I pick out different titles of different genres, usually bestsellers. And then I have them vote on which one they wanna read. And then I compile that and I announce the winner. And I'm gonna show you in a second on how I announced the winner. But in our first meeting, what was really fun is we voted on a book club name, which ended up being the perfectionist book club. And then one of our students in the book club actually created our logo and there's an arrow pointing to the logo. But so that was really fun too. And then the great thing about this program is it costs it absolutely nothing. Cause I know with budgets being tight, especially on our small campus, we don't have a lot of money to work with. So the fact that it was basically a free program is that's the greatest thing. And then on the right, I have an example of what my flyer looked like for that particular book. And with this next slide, this is what I use to reveal our book club, the book that we're gonna read for book club. And I actually saw this being done at another conference I went to. And it's really cool. It's a lot of fun to make. I don't know if any of you have ever made it like this before, but it's in iMovie on the iPad. It's the green screen effect. So what you do is you take a picture of in this case, a cover of the book and then you overlay that with the green screen effect on iMovie and I used green Play-Doh for the green screen. And then it's a short video, but basically all you do is what I just did is spread it out and so people can kind of see it. Unfortunately, it's close above my hands, but whatever. And then you kind of move it around so everyone can see what the book looks like and that was my big reveal for what books we were gonna read for that month. And I put it out on Facebook. Very cool. I liked that. Yeah, I was super excited to find that out at a conference. I was like, oh my gosh, I have to try this. So that would then be posted on our Facebook page and I sent it out on that newsletter that I sent out to faculty, students and staff. So what did this program accomplish? It created an opportunity for students to engage with faculty outside of the classroom. A lot of times, I mean, it's probably not all students, but like when I was a student in college, you see faculty and they're intimidating and you're sometimes afraid to go up to them, ask questions and kind of sit in the back of the room and not say anything. So it was fun to see students and faculty discuss, debate, play off each other and be able to do that outside of the classroom in a more relaxed environment. It allowed for leisure reading instead of the assigned texts for those students because as a librarian, I hear a lot of, oh yeah, I like reading, but I hate reading what I have to read, what I'm forced to read. So like textbooks or if you're in an English class, like those old classic texts. So it allowed for people to read something that they may be interested in or maybe have never read from before. And that's what that next bullet point is. It made them read material outside of their usual genre. So like for me, I'm a huge fantasy nut and that's all I read, but the bulk, it seems like the bulk of the readers in the book club are historical fiction readers. I've never read that genre before. I thought it was gonna be super boring, but then one of our first books was The Night in Gale and I was like blown away by how great it was. So now it's one of my favorite genres to read. So it allows people to read outside of what they normally read. I also thought it was a safe first step to introduce programming to campus because I mean, it doesn't, you know, there's not a lot that goes into it. It's a free program, so it's not costing you anything. There's not a lot of work put into it.  That's it. There's no, you know, activities that you're afraid that people won't like. There's no worry that people will come in and look at what you have and then walk away because they don't like it or something. So I thought it was a safe first step. And with students being involved in it, because that's the hardest part about being on campus is getting those students involved in these programs. Is since students were involved, they could then, you know, possibly hope that they thought the program was successful. So then they would think that maybe future programs that I put on would be successful. And then also with that, that allowed the program to grow because of word of mouth. So students were, you know, telling their peers to join other faculty members, told other faculty members to join. And so it has grown pretty big in the last several months, even with COVID because we've been having to meet virtually. So I was really excited about that, how much it has grown. My first holiday program that I wanted to talk about is my Halloween program. This poster is from this year, not last year because we did things a little bit differently this year because of COVID. But the big thing that I wanted to make sure of with these programs is to know what the students wanted because I could put on activities and spend money on stuff and it wouldn't interest them. And so I wanted to make sure what was going on at this program they would actually want to be a part of. So I asked the students what they wanted. So the first year I had this, I set up a whiteboard out in the lobby and I had them write down programs or activities that they wanted to see. And then if it was already listed, they would vote on which one they wanted. We didn't do that this year because obviously COVID, I didn't want a bunch of people touching the marker and that. So what I did is the activities we did last year, we just did this year. But this year, at the end of the night, we usually watch a Halloween themed movie. And last year, they were able to vote for it on the whiteboard, but this year we got more technical and used the QR code. So then they just voted for what movie they wanted to see. And then I had different stations for activities. I had the escape room in the back of the library so people could spread out and not be confined to a small space. And then the nice thing about this program is even if students weren't there for the program specifically, but they were still in the library studying or doing homework or something, they were able to take a break from what they were doing and just do whatever they wanted in the program or during the program. So I knew that was gonna happen a lot with the pumpkin painting, just because it's kind of like relaxing. It's like an adult coloring book. You wanna take a break from five hours of studying and do something else for a little bit. So I made sure I had a lot of supplies for the pumpkin painting because I knew that was gonna be a more popular thing. And I did not use full-size huge pumpkins. I used the small ones because I knew if I used the big ones it would just be a crazy mess. And this one, this cost just around $50 the first year. The second, this year it was a little bit more expensive. I think it was around $70 only because I had a photo booth this year. So I added a couple more new things. But still pretty cheap in my opinion for a program for campus. So that's always nice for my supervisor to see that I'm not spending a large amount of money. And then the big thing is, is I work with a lot of help desk students because our CERC desk and help desk are one in the same. So those work-study students that work at the help desk do the daily library tasks as well like checking books in and out and stuff. So I have a lot of communication with the students. So I asked them, how can I make sure that you guys come to this program? And the most popular answer they said was have food. If you have food there, anyone will come. The students will get out of their dorm and come for free food. So I made sure that I have food at my programs. And these are just a few pictures of what it kind of looked like this year. So what did this program accomplish? It created an opportunity for students to engage with one another outside of the classroom. So whether it was your friends or somebody you've never even met before on campus, it gave them control of what activities were being done. So like I said, it's one thing for me to put on a program and hope they show up. It's another when they know that they're having a little bit of control and have a voice in what they wanna see. So you know that you're doing activities that they're gonna be interested in. It got students out of their comfort zone. So again, it let them engage with people they may have never engaged with before with the escape room. They may have never done one before. So it got them out doing that. And it allowed the program to grow again because of word of mouth. There were several students this year that came up to me around like September, early October and asked me, when is a Halloween program gonna happen? So it was fun to hear that knowing that that's my first year here with that first program, it was successful that they wanted to have it again this year. And again, we could still have fun even with the pandemic going on. It was just obviously more spaced out, distant. So everyone could be safe and still have fun with it. The other program that I put on, I did with the community. So I had people out in Fremont coming into the library. And what I did is I did pictures with Santa.  So I was like, how can I ensure that the community would actually wanna come and do this? And I thought, well, having the parents bring their own camera, take as many pictures that they want and they don't have to pay for anything. So I had, that's how I marketed it. I let parents and students bring their own camera. There was also some story time sections in there for the kids and Santa. And then it was fun because students actually volunteered to be Santa and his elves. So that was a lot of fun for them to be able to do. And then there were other picture opportunities around the library for them. And again, this program was costed absolutely nothing. I was able to borrow the Santa suit from the Performing Arts Department. So this was also a free program. And these are some of the pictures of what it looked like. So we had Santa's throne there by the Christmas tree and then we used paper reams for a paper snowman. And then we did a booktree as well. So what did this program accomplish? We were able to, again, outreach with the community. Again, saying, hey, we're here, we're doing things. It allowed students to engage with the community as well because a lot of times you're in college and you're just in this little bubble of the campus community and don't really look out beyond that. So they were able to engage with the community and also engage with faculty members who came in and brought their young kids outside the classroom. And it promoted the university. So again, it said, hey, we're here. And if you have soon to be college-aged kids, you can think about applying to Midland. So I was able to promote the university. And I was able to inform the community about this program and other activities being done on campus. And to do that, I was able to partner with our business development manager who promoted the program for me over the radio, social media, and newspaper. And I was actually blown away by how many community members came because the program was kind of last minute because I didn't think I would actually get, I would actually be allowed to do this, but I was and it was about a week that I had to prepare for it. And we actually had a really good turnout from the community. So it was a lot of fun and probably my favorite program. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it this year, but I have really big dreams for next year. So hopefully that'll work out. And these are just pictures of other programs that I've done. Game Night is a really popular one. The one on the left is actually a book cover that I helped make with the student Alexander law that's written there. I actually found out that this student has written several books and short stories on his own time. And so I was like, hey, why don't we read one of these for book club? So it was cool to actually read a student written book in our book club. And then that's also another student posing for the cover as well. So that was a really cool thing to do. And he was really excited about that to be able to show off his work to other students, faculty and staff. And then I've also, I do new book features. And then one thing that I'm currently working on is the Warriors and Friends. So again, with our community members and students that write books, we actually have a lot of alumni and faculty members and even community members who are published authors. And so my goal was to get those books from them and have a whole display about it. And I've had a lot of donations of works for that. So it's slowly getting built up, but that was the big goal for that one. And then the poster in the middle is just to talk about new students that come in who may not know about us or know what we have for resources. They're able to scan those QR codes and learn more about what's all in the library and all of the resources. And then these are some of my displays. I have a diversity display on the right. Just, I made a scrapbook of all the diversity things that Midland has done in the past. Like we had an MLK march several years in a row. Our Black Student Union did a lot of programs and outreach too. So I made a scrapbook highlighting of everything that we've done in the past because we've been doing a lot of that presently. So I wanted to highlight what we've done before. And then the middle one is a glass archive case of stuff that we had in the archives. And the one on the left is, I wanted to make a display of all the countries that our students are from because we do have a lot of exchange students come here. And this one, I don't know how many people have ever done this before or have seen one of these before but since a lot of libraries had to shut down, a lot of people have been creating virtual libraries. So basically everything on this page is clickable and it'll take you to a certain website or profile or something. I'm gonna see if I can do this. Hopefully it doesn't screw my stuff up. But just to show what it looks like. Can you see this? Yes. Yep, yep, yep. We've seen this, the desktop, yep. So if you have never made one of these before, they're actually really easy. You make them in Google Slides and you just, everything is clickable. All of us at the top here are all faculty members in the library and so you click on our profile, you get our contact information where we're located in the library. You click on the bookshelf that takes you to our catalog. You click on the calendar that takes you to our hours and any updated programs that we're having. And then the sign over here, you click on the databases it takes you to our database site and information about the help desk and academic resource center and the iPad, we're an iPad, one-to-one iPad initiative school. So this will take you to all your iPad rules and paperwork you have to fill out. So even though, you know, we were closed down for a while because of COVID in March, starting in March. And so even though, you know, we weren't open, I created this virtual library for people to still utilize and find information that would help them for resources, for the library help desk, anything like that. And I promoted this over Facebook or my check it out e-newsletter. And I'm working on getting it on our website but we're getting a new website right now. So I wanna wait till that's done before I put this on there. But I highly recommend making one of these. They're super fun. Yeah, one of our previous presenters had a version of this too. I do have to ask though because I'm sure other people may be wondering too, what does clicking on the cat get you? No, it's just there. I actually got that question a lot when I first presented this to faculty. It makes me nervous too, the cat and the teak up there. I'm like, I don't wanna see the follow up of that, but. Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't take you anywhere. Hopefully this will get me back. Okay, are we good? Yeah, okay. Yep, you are. We do a question actually. It was just from a previous screen but I think I might jump in with it now if you don't mind. Someone wants to know, how did you create a QR code? You had QR code on the previous. Oh yeah, I don't know if this is the right way to do it but they have the QR code generator.  And I just use the website that it came up. I think it's qrcogenerator.com or something like that. Okay. That's what I do. I don't know if it's right, but. Yeah, I don't know if you can get ones that are good or bad. I just know that, yeah, they're out there that you can use, yeah. Yeah, they've worked for me so far. So hopefully it's okay. So creating trust on campus. So meeting with the faculty members that was, again I said earlier if that was the first thing I met with the deans first. And then we broke out in bigger groups. I met with faculty members in each college. We discussed what was missing from previous years and what they expected moving forward. So the biggest problem on this campus is since there was no knowledge of any library resources, there was no presentations about them. That was where they needed that to be done in the classroom and for their students and faculty to understand because they weren't able to really assign proper scholarly research papers to their students because the students didn't know how to use them or use the databases. So a lot of those research papers they get back are from Google and unfortunately Wikipedia. And they didn't want that to happen anymore. They were getting frustrated with that. So after I met with them, we kind of started setting up my first classroom presentations. And obviously it started with just, I think just speech and the regular comp classes. But they ended up being a success. I proved myself that I knew what I was talking about and it helped the students. So it led to those faculty members telling other faculty members for me to come into the classroom. So what did that accomplish? My classroom presentations grew from zero to 60 visits in the first year I was there. So I by myself went to 60 classrooms, talked about all of our library resources, how to navigate the databases. And that has not slowed down. Even with us turning virtual, I was still going into Zoom classrooms and I'm still going strong today. I get repeat faculty members all the time asking for presentations. What I've been doing on our Fremont campus has reached our Omaha campus, where our master's programs are. So now I'm getting invited to the Omaha campus to talk to the MBA and MUD programs. Obviously because of that, our database usage skyrocketed. And then the faculty were able to start assigning database only research papers. And then some faculty, specifically the nursing faculty were requiring their students to meet with me to approve the articles that they were looking at before they even began writing their papers. And then I also created faculty workshops to teach them how to use library resources because if for some reason they didn't want me to come to the classroom, at least they were knowledgeable of what was going on and they could show the student as well. And then again, that bi-weekly newsletter to keep the campus community informed. And what was also really cool about what these meetings accomplished and how that trust between me and the faculty members really grew was not only was I putting on my own programs in the library, but I was also partnering with faculty for me to host their programs in the library. So recently we started an archive display in the art gallery. The professor who's in charge of the literary magazine on campus has started coming to our library for the poetry readings. We have weekly readings from our English Honor Society members and we're also getting career studio pop-ups. So to tell students about jobs on and off campus. So being able to build that partnership between me and the faculty members and showing them and proving to them that I know my stuff, you can trust me with your students and with this knowledge to present to them, it has my amount of presentations and my face time with the students the faculty members has grown because of that. So creating trust with the students, having those programs allowed me to have more face to face time with the students. So they're not only seeing me in the classroom, but they're seeing me out and about in during these activities and programs. So it kind of takes away that intimidating faculty barrier that some students are afraid to go up to the faculty members and talk to them. And that kind of broke that barrier. And obviously presenting to the classroom made students more familiar with who I was, especially if they're freshmen, they probably see me a lot more than the upperclassmen. And then I was able to compile feedback from students about changing my programming and presentations accordingly. And I'm gonna show you how I did that in a second. But again, making the students voice heard and have them kind of have control of things that's going on in the library and in the presentations. And then emailing and meeting with the students, like I said, broke that intimidating faculty mindset. So now they're just, they know where my desk is, they come up to me all the time for questions any time. They feel I'm approachable and so now there's, I get, like I said, students come up to me all the time, even outside, even if I'm not even at my desk and I'm in another class, they see me in the hallway, they stop me, they ask me questions. So the trust with the students alone has grown a lot as well. So assessment, what do I do to measure the data that I've just been talking about? So how do I know that I'm building that trust with the faculty and how is that reflecting, my presentations and how am I compiling that feedback and changing things accordingly to that feedback? And the first thing I do is library presentation surveys. So I made a Google form survey and after every one of my presentations, I have the students fill out my survey and it just has them tell me something new that they learned from their presentation, what they wanna learn more about and how they'll apply it outside of the classroom. And then I'm able to read that feedback and tailor my presentations accordingly to make sure that everybody understands what I'm talking about and with that feedback, it also tells me that if there's some students that it just completely went over their head and maybe we need to sit down one-on-one and talk about it in more depth. Another big thing that I use to measure is analytics, obviously, so I look at database usage. Again, that has skyrocketed since the faculty members have allowed me to come into their classroom and talk to their students about how to use the databases. My Canvas course usage, I'm able to look at that. So I know that these students are accessing my Canvas course. After I leave them from my presentation, it tells me how long they've been logged in on it. So I know that a lot of the students are using it all the time. I track my student meetings, so how many students I meet with to show that these students are trusting me and so I'm getting a lot of, I meet with a lot of students. And again, I track my presentations, so I know how many I do every semester so that, again, shows these faculty members are trusting me to come in and talk about all this information. And again, in that first year that I was here, I had 60 presentations. And then I also track my archive requests. I get a lot of alumni or even people who find out that, oh, I have a distant family member that came to school here and I want to learn more about them. So I track a lot of this information. A lot of the meetings and presentations, I just track in Google Sheets, but it allows me to show, especially to my supervisor and in my performance reviews, like, this is how much this is happening and before I came here, it wasn't happening at all. And so it's been a huge change for the campus for that to be able to happen for their students. So they know how to properly use library resources. And another one is voting. Like I said, with that, the one on the right-hand side, I had that whiteboard out there. They told me what activities they wanted done and then people voted on it. Same thing with the left-hand side, I picked three programs and I told them, which one do you want to see in September? And then that Halloween program, again, that QR code, they were able to vote that way as well. And so that kind of helps me keep track of how many students have voted versus how many show up. And again, let's them kind of take the wheel on what they want to see. So that's all I have. Thank you for listening to my presentation and was there any questions? Excuse me, I have some things, Laura. Yeah, we have some questions and comments. I was gonna say that was great being, you know, having, coming into a situation where there was nothing and have to create something from nothing that was a lots of great tips and resources and hints for other people to borrow from you, I think, definitely. Yes, anybody has any questions or comments, anything you want to share? Type into the questions section of your GoToWebinar interface. Just some comments, of course, and I thought about this too, and from when I was in college, when you were talking about offering the food on a college campus, yes, free food is always the answer. That works in public libraries and school libraries too, as long as you can have a way to allow the food in the building, try and make it happen. And then we know someone said that there's also a QR code option in Canva and other similar apps, so there is other places you can get ways to do that as well. Really, just, yeah, as Laura said, Google it and you'll find many ways to do it, not really a wrong way. And we do have a question, and you showed there in your virtual library there, you said other faculty that are, I guess, work out of the library, but someone has a question though, do you have any student assistants who help you with like circulation or is it truly just you alone most of the time? What other, do you have any other? Yeah, so our circulation desk and the help desk are one and the same. Yeah, you said that you're gonna share with, yeah. And they kind of do like, yeah, they check books in and out, you know, they'll shelf books if they understand how to read the Dewey Decimal System, some of the students don't, which I totally understand. And I myself, I do have a one work study student who helps me like with projects that I'm working on or like if I'm doing a program, she helps me prepare that.  Sounds very common, yeah. We have the same thing in public libraries, they'll be one official employee and then lots of volunteer help or sometimes part-time interns or things just here and there as, yeah. Yep. Okay. And somebody has a question about Canvas. They're not sure exactly what that is. Is that, what is, can you explain quickly what Canvas is that you're using? Yeah, so that's our classroom or learning management software, is that what it's called? Or system?  Blackboard and it's got all their courses on it that they take and then it's got, you know, all their assignments that they do and whatever the professor puts in their different courses that they have. Yeah, I don't know, that's, they just have all their information on there for their other courses and everything. And so I made a course because I don't have access to LibGuides or I think that's by SpringShare, I think. I think, so I don't have access to that. So I tried to play with Canvas and use that to my advantage since I didn't have LibGuides. Yeah, yeah, that's the way even, it does have online courses you can create in there, but even before all the needing of just online it was just a way for the universities to organize on where the students can go to get information about their classes and updates and syllabus and just, you know, interact with their professors. Yep. I'm just reading through these here. Okay, so if you can get a little bit specific about using the QR codes once you had them, how do you tell the QR code where to go for voting on the program choices? How does that work behind the scenes? I mean, creating a QR code is one thing but then telling it where you tell it to go. Can you explain just quickly how that process works? Yeah, so when we did voting for the movies specifically for my Halloween program, what I did is I made like a Google form and put the list of movies on there and then I copied or I shared the link for anyone to access and I copied and pasted that link into the QR code generator and then it generated that QR code. So then anytime somebody scanned the QR code it brought them to that Google form to vote for the movies. Awesome, very slick, yeah. So it's a quicker and easier way than giving out this long URL or something and saying it's, you know, www.whatever, whatever. It's just take your picture, use your phone, scan this code and poof, you'll be there. Yes, yeah, awesome. And now someone has a question, it's more than what we're doing here. I want to know about creating one of those virtual libraries. I actually just did, because I was curious to do Google and if you just search virtual library Google slides you'll find, I found a school library journal article with instructions on how to do it and also a website for teachers where someone actually used canva, not canvas, canva to actually do the same thing. So there's a lot of resources out there you can grab that might be something for a future webinar that we'll have to think about. Well, yeah, there's so much fun. Yeah, yeah, you're very creative with them. So we're almost wrapped up. I think we'll wrap up. We just have one little comment. So it says they're blown away by your capacity in Tennessee to get all this work done. Huge congratulations. Yes, I agree, good job on a work job, well done. So I'm glad you're there at Midland for us and in the library and the university and in the community. That's awesome too. All right.


Don't mistake not being ready for not being prepared as a public speaker and a communicator. Not knowing the difference between those two things has often caused me unnecessary anxiety and apprehension. Because being ready is to do with having sufficient resources in the bank to deal with any reasonable contingency thrown at you. Being prepared is having what's necessary for a specific occasion or opportunity that you have been given. They are different and if you don't know the difference you'll get them confused because they both can feel like the same thing. And the apprehension that you feel is reduced when you realize it's more to do with a lack of preparation. So you prepare more and reduce that anxiety and apprehension. Then it is to do with you not being ready because you are always more ready than you think you are. For instance, if you threw me now into a room of leaders to do Q&A on leadership, I'm good to go. But if you ask me to speak to a group of leaders about leadership, I'm going to need to prepare for that. And so it's not about removing all discomfort when it comes to a public speaking opportunity. It's about knowing what is the nature of this discomfort. And you're going to find it's more to do with a sense of lacking preparation than it is to do with you are not ready. So more preparation reduces your apprehension and removes the question of am I ready or not because you are. This and more things I am teaching you guys in my Communication Masterclass, which is available for one more week only from today at a massive discounted rate. And so I want you to know is one more week, grab it while you can if that's of interest to you. I hope this thought has been helpful to you. Love you guys. Cheers. Talk to you soon.


Let's begin with the word of prayer. I would like to request someone to please lead us in prayer, please. Yes, good morning, Mangi. Mangi, would you like to lead us in prayer? Good morning, Pastor. Yes, I'll gladly do it. Yeah, please go ahead. Thank you. Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning. Thank you for giving us the opportunity and love. So to meet Lord for your glory and for the glory of your name, Lord. Although we pray as we learn about the local church, empower us, open our mind, open our hearts, Lord, to receive whatever knowledge and wisdom that you instructing us through personality in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Mangi. So trust that you're all doing fine and the assignments, how are the assignments going? Are there any questions with regard to the assignments? Okay. I'm not sure if you've started doing it. Yeah. Okay, no questions, no questions. That's all right. So if you do come across something, please let me know. You can post it on the stream page and I will answer that for us. Basically, this is a simple format, the first one for the online batch. It's more like a quiz. So as long as you answer the questions there, some are multiple choice, some are short answers, some are long answers, you can answer it right there and that should be it. Only when you're done, please hit the submit button because after you hit the submit button, you can't make any changes. So that's the only thing. So kind of keep that in mind and this is the first assignment. There'll be one more assignment. Hopefully, I'll post it by next week is what I'm thinking.  I think it'll be due sometime by 19th of November or earlier. So you'll have enough time to do both the assignments and will be through with the evaluation part. So far we have learned about the different pictures that we have in the Bible about the local church and this gives us a better understanding of what the church is meant to be. Otherwise, when we look at church, the gathering, things that we are used to, we may miss out on the deeper meaning of what this gathering is all about, what the relationships that we have with people and the way God has set the church with the leaders and with the elders and the congregation. We might miss out on the deeper meaning of things and that is why we are studying this course and I trust that it will help us no matter which capacity we are serving God at capacity we are serving God with. So I truly believe that we all will contribute towards the building up of the church, the way Jesus is doing it right now. Okay, so in the last class we talked about the church, the local church being the temple of God and we saw the purpose of a temple. The purpose of a temple is to host the presence of God. Without that, the temple is just a building, the temple is just a structure. But we saw the importance of us inviting God's presence and being a people where God is happy to come and dwell. And I don't know if any of you noticed this, but at APCE, the service that we had last Sunday, Pastor touched on us hosting the presence of God from Sam 132, the same section that we had studied in class. So it was a refresher personally for me and I was really blessed by that. So that's what we looked at. And today we are going to touch on a couple of other aspects of the local church. The next topic here, this is on page number 107, is the local church as Zion God's people. Now, when we look at scripture, Hebrews 12 points to Mount Zion, it points to the city, God's people and tells us that we are those people, we are God's people, we are God's city. So as we look at the term that is used for God's people, it is Mount Zion. And Mount Zion, we are aware that it has its own significance in scripture. It was known as the city of David. Now it's not exactly Jerusalem, but it's close by, but the significance of Mount Zion is what we are going to, like that is important. It's not really the place where it is positioned. It's not in Jerusalem, but Mount Zion has an importance. And what does that imply for us as believers? We look at that. We're told that as God's people, as Zion, that God calls us His chosen people. He calls us His chosen people. So there are a couple of scriptures which I think if we read, we will have a better understanding. Let's go through Hebrews 12, Hebrews 12 versus 22 to 24. It's already there in our notes. So could somebody please read that? The first scripture portion there, Hebrews 12, 22 to 24. May I marry? Ah, yes, yes, please. Hebrews 12, chapter 22 to 24. But you have come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first one, which are written in heaven and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Susan. So now you see here that there is a mention of Mount Zion, and we're told that we have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels. Whenever we study things like this, the tendency is to think that it's literal, okay? We know that God generally fulfills all his promises in the spiritual first and then in the literal. So when we talk about Mount Zion here, the reference is to the spiritual Mount Zion, which would be the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we're told that, you know, with the church of the first one registered in heaven, and that the Lord Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant that we all partake in. And this Zion or this people, these people are God's chosen people. So again, there is a reference in the book of Peter, first Peter chapter two, where we are told that, you know, we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and we are God's special people. So Zion is meant to refer to God's people, not necessarily, you know, the literal Zion. Will God fulfill his promises for literal Zion? He will, but the fulfillment generally happens in the spiritual first. So we are the spiritual Zion. We are the ones who have been bought with the blood of Jesus, and we are the ones who are partakers of the new covenant. So the church is that Zion that we are talking about, okay, in whom God is going to fulfill his promises. And when we look at the description that is given for God's people, as Peter wrote, you know, we are a chosen generation.  We are God's own special people. So these are all the descriptions for God's people. And what is the responsibility of God's people? We are called to proclaim his praises. So what is the spiritual Zion and also the natural Zion supposed to do? Our responsibility is to fulfill the promises regarding, I mean, we will walk into those promises that God has made over us. And as we've seen, we are here to proclaim the praises of God who called us. Okay, I noticed that Charles, you have a question. Yes. Yes, yes, Charles. Thank you so much, Pastor. I'm asking about the replacement theology about the church and Zion. How is it related when you are talking about this? When does it come in? How does it affect? Oh, how can we avoid it in this that the church is now part of Zion? Thank you. Yes, thank you. Charles, that's a very important question. And that's why I am saying that the promises of God for his people Israel or, you know, other ways in which he might refer to his people, Jerusalem, Zion, it's not that God is going to forget about his people. He will not. And we very, very clearly know that even if God's people have turned away from him, we know that God is zealous to fulfill his promises towards Israel, the literal Israel, okay? I think Romans 11 is a good chapter to go through where we understand that, you know, God is still passionate. There is a scripture, Romans 11, 29, where God says that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable, meaning the promises that he is made over Abraham and his descendants, he is not going to take it back. He's not going to change those things. So God is very clear that in the natural Israel, Israel, he is going to fulfill his promises. Now we have to wait for the unfolding of events. And, you know, as we study even the book of Revelation, we see how God is, his primary, is one of the main things that he's going to do is bring his own people back to himself. So while many people get saved on the earth, even during tribulation and all of that, the focus is Israel, the focus is his own people. So God is zealous to keep his promises and fulfill his promises towards Abraham's descendants. And that does not change. Even when we study, you know, about the end times and we see the progression of how world events are, you know, beginning to take place, how there is a return of the Jews back to their land. And, you know, there are many things. There are lots of things. So we can look at Bible prophecy and see how all those things are actually coming to pass one by one. So having said that, what we are saying is, yes, little things will happen. And therefore, we cannot, what you talked about, you know, replacement theology, where there are a lot of people who believe that the church is that Zion, okay? And the natural Zion or God's people Israel because of their disobedience and waveredness, God has forgotten his promises, you know, that he has made to the natural, natural people, like the Jews and the nation of Israel. So there are a lot of people who believe that and that's what we refer to as replacement, okay? But we know that, you know, that is not biblical. God is not trying to replace the church. He's not trying to replace Israel with the church, but there is a way in which God works. And that way is that whatever promises have been made over Israel, the church now is the spiritual chosen people of God, okay? We are part of the kingdom. We are born again. We are the family of God. We are the household of God. So we are that spiritual set of people whom God has chosen. Now the promises of God, even with regard to Israel, they will be fulfilled in us first and later on in Jerusalem. So that's how we look at it, Charles, okay? So both exist, the church exists and the natural Israel exists. One cannot replace the other. God will fulfill his promises. Usually it is done spiritually first. Like I will fill my house with the glory. We are the temple. We are filled my temple with glory. So we can expect as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can expect God to do that in us first spiritually. And then literally, yes, we will see the rebuilding of the temple. We will see that temple being filled with glory, all of that in a literal sense, yeah. So any thing additional to that? Thank you, Pastor. Thank you so much. Yes, yes, thank you, Charles. So like we are not talking about replacement theology at all, okay? So we've seen how we are Zion and that our responsibility is to proclaim God's praises. Proclaim God's praises. So in that context, okay? We will look at the church. The church is God's chosen, God's chosen people. Their responsibility is to proclaim God's praises in this generation. So it's just as simple as that, okay? Now, when we look at scripture, there are promises made over Zion. So based on those promises, we'll just try to understand what we are supposed to be. For God. So Zion, many a time, it's used interchangeably with Jerusalem. We know that the places are different, but the meaning, the essence remains the same. And Zion was a stronghold, okay? It was a stronghold for David. It was a place where David set up his city, okay? And we find this Zion being used in various places. And what God wants is that he, the way he related to the natural Zion, he wants to relate with us the spiritual Zion. And he wants to reveal that we are his chosen people. So when we talk about ourselves as the chosen people, the understanding is that we are set apart for God, okay? Chosen usually has to do with things that are exclusive for something. So in the tabernacle, we know that things were chosen, methods of preparation for worship was set in a certain way and it was not meant to be used anywhere else. So these are all kind of set apart, chosen if you want to use the word holy, okay? Holy practices. So when we consider ourselves as God's chosen people, that would be the understanding that we are set apart for God. We are special for God. So as we raise up a body of believers, a community of believers, we impart this understanding and let them know that wherever we are, and no matter what the setup looks like, what the standards of the world look like, we are chosen people, okay? Or we are set apart for God and our lives have to be like that. So again, a good example will be Daniel and his friends who were in Babylon, who were part of that team that the king really wanted to raise up as ministers and they were together with other people. And we read about the various standards of worship, of lifestyle that people had during their times, but these four men, they lived that life of a chosen community or a chosen people. So it's about living differently with God's standards, being holy, being set apart for God. So we are God's chosen people. We are Zion. What else do we see about Zion in scripture? Now there are other passages, Zechariah 2.10, where God says, sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst. So what is God's promise to Zion? God said that he is going to dwell. He will live in our midst. That applies to us. God's spiritual Zion, we talked about us being the temple. Now we can expect to host God's presence. And that would be like a legitimate expectation and God is faithful to keep his promises. And we can always expect God's presence. We can always expect him to be one among us and be with us. So we can expect God to dwell in our midst. And also we see that scripture tell us that he says that he is going to rule out of Zion. There are other passages of scripture here. I'm not going through all of them. He's going to rule out of Zion. So looking at these passages, as God's people, we have to host God's presence. And the way we said, proclaim the praises, meaning when God is glorified, his rule and reign is first in us. His rule and reign can be seen through us. And that's the kind of people we ought to be and the kind of people that we need to raise up. So as the building the church, that is something that we can bear in mind. We also see in scripture that God promises to shine out of Zion. So Psalm 50 verses one and two, tell us that God declares out of Zion, a perfection of beauty, God will shine forth. Again, very similar to what we said, proclaim the praises of God. So as God's people, there must be something different about us. We are his chosen people. He dwells in us. And he rules in us. He rules through us and he shines through us. So we must not lack that glory that God has, that splendor that God is able to display through us. Now, how do we understand this? What we studied in the last class about what the glory of God is, how does that look in the Old Testament? It looked like the fire, it looked like the cloud, it looked like the heaviness, the heavy presence of God. It looked like all of those things. In the New Testament, can it look like all of these things? Yes, it can still seem like the cloud and the heat and so many different ways in which God's presence is manifested. But apart from that, God's glory is manifested in the works of God, the supernatural works of God. And we saw how Jesus, he carried his sonship glory and he revealed, he revealed God's nature, he revealed God's power through all the works of healing, deliverance and many other things that he did to bless people, to show his goodness to people around him. So similarly, today when we say that out of Zion, God shines, that can be a chapter in itself. How can God shine out of his community? So any community, any local church in a given place has to shine the glory of God. So when, let's say the people of the world look at the church, they must commend the church for the supernatural works that are taking place in the church. They must commend the church for the character that the people have. They must commend the church for the impact that the church is making on the society. So, you know, all these things because what's really happening?  And that is what God has promised for Zion. And we are spiritual Zion. We are God's chosen people. And we can expect that. Now, we can also talk about how, the influences on the seven mountains, the church can have that. The church can have people who are in full-time ministry and maybe others who are not called that they are in full-time ministry. But even as workplace ministers, we can shine the glory of God. And God is more than happy to reveal his light to the world around us. So in all these ways, in all these ways, supernatural works, our standards, our influence on the world, all these things will reveal God's glory and God has chosen us to reveal himself to the world. Okay, what else has he promised for Mount Zion? We see in Obadiah 1, verses 17 and 21, it says, but on Mount Zion, there shall be deliverance and there shall be holiness. The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. Then, saviours shall come to Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau and the kingdom shall be the lords. So God is promising that he will give deliverance on Mount Zion. So there will be deliverance on Mount Zion and holiness. So these are things that we can expect from God as God's people and it's really helpful, especially when we are praying. We pray God's promises over our lives. We pray God's promises over our churches. We pray God's promises over Christian communities in our city. We can hold on to these scriptures because God said, on my people, there shall be deliverance. There shall be holiness. And he's also promising and he's saying, Jacob shall possess their possessions. So what is rightfully ours? We can look at all the blessings that God has directed towards his people. We can begin with Abraham's blessings. We can then go on to the blessings of the cross, the blessings of the new covenant. And we can hold on to all of these blessings and say, God, you have promised in your word that Jacob, again, there are all these terms that are used in scripture. They refer in the spiritual sense to God's people now, the church. So Jacob, again, it refers to us. We can say that, God, you have directed all these blessings to us. So we will possess all our possessions. And we can engage in prayer. We can engage in spiritual warfare and trust God for these things to be seen in our midst. So in this section, we're saying that God will provide deliverance. In our midst, he will grant us that grace to be holy and that we, as God's people, will possess our possessions. Or we will walk in the blessings of God. And that's what it means. Satan can try his best to take them away from us. And yet, God's word says that you will possess all your possessions. So we have a claim on the blessings of God, the good things that God has released over our lives. So as God's people, we must be awakened to this truth and also speak it over people in our churches so that they are aware. It shouldn't be like people don't know what they have as God's chosen people. And sometimes our attitude is like, OK, we can beg God, thinking that, OK, God is not willing or God is not happy to bless us or make God is ashamed of us with thoughts like that. But we see very clearly in scripture that Zion was a city that God was proud of, God's chosen people. And that's God's attitude. The way he dealt with the natural Zion is the way he deals with us now. So he accepts us. He wants to live in our midst. And he wants to shine out of us. And he wants to grant us deliverance. He wants to give us holiness and also help us walk in all the blessings that he has given us. Now, there's another verse about Zion. This is in Joel 3.16, where we read that the Lord also will roar from Zion. So the Lord will roar from Zion, it says. What does that mean? I'll read the rest of the passage also, because it reveals the victory of God. It says, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, the heavens and the earth will shake, but the Lord will be a shelter for his people and the strength of the children of Israel. So we understand here that God is going to speak out of Zion. He will roar from Zion, and his voice will be released from Jerusalem. So God's voice or what God speaks should be in the church. If the church fails to hear God's voice in the now, then we are not living according to what he has already promised. He's saying, I'm going to roar from Zion, and I'm going to speak his voice from Jerusalem. So we, as God's people, should hear his voice in the now. And when we read the word roar, it's like when a lion roars, it's about victory. It's about strength and authority that is displayed through that roar. And similarly, when God roars, it's a display of his strength. It's a display of his power. And his roar is about overcoming his enemies. So in Zion, I know that we talk about spiritual warfare and how we are constantly in a place of battle on the earth. And we must apply the victory that the cross has already given us and overcome everything that the enemy is doing. This scripture adds to that, and it says that the Lord roars, which means that his victory is so great and so real that it's like proclaiming, declaring his victory. He roars out of Zion. So as God's chosen people, even while we are in battle, we can sing off his victory, we can proclaim his victory, we can shout his victory, and we can be firm in the fact that he has already overcome. And we will soon see that in our lives, in every situation, different aspects that concern us. So these are all promises over Zion. And what we're doing is we are personalizing them to the spiritual Zion. OK, yeah, Mangi, Mangi, you have a question? Yes, Pasta. Yeah, please go ahead. Thank you. Just I think it's similar to Charles's question because we have been made into a new temple. And the New Testament belief is not collective belief, but it's individual belief. So you believe, Charles' belief, the current belief, believe, and then we come together, we form a church. That's why, but first of all, it is a personal belief. So I'm battling to understand the whole concept of the New Zion because the New Testament belief is personal. It is a personal relationship with God. And God speaks through people. People are in a relationship with him. And then he said, through you, through your belly, the rivers of life would flow. I think that's what it says, the Holy Spirit flow through us. And then from individual, then spreads out. So I'm battling to understand the whole concept of the New Zion and the church being here.  Thank you, Pasta. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Mangi, thank you for that. I'm trying to understand. So you're saying that individually we have faith in God. And that makes us a recipient of the promises of God, His presence, and all those things. Now, that is settled. But are you saying that when people come together, everyone may not be on the same page. And therefore, how is it that God will fill that place with His presence? Is your question something like that? No, Pasta. OK, then sorry, please tell me. Yeah, I'm saying that we are, as an individual person, we are saved on our own. And then because we are saved, because we walk with Christ, because we've been born again, and we have been made into this temple, we come together as a community to worship Him collectively. I think that's what the church is. Or some get saved, come to the church to get saved, and then they get saved into the church, and then they can move to other churches or form other community. So I might be wrong, but I believe that the church is a community of believers who personally walk with God. So even if God drops me in Amazon today, because He is in me, I'll be able to preach and I'll be able to raise other community there, because I've got a relationship with Him. So is it out of this concept that we say we are new Zion, or is it the collective body of believer is the new Zion? OK, yeah, thank you, Mangi. I think I got your question. So you're asking whether this applies to individuals or to the body or the community. OK, so it applies to both, Mangi. So it applies to both. Just this one verse that we read about deliverance. There shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness. At the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. As an individual, the scripture from Obadiah 1, I can apply it to myself, and it would be correct. I can apply the same scripture for my church community. Some of us believers together, I can apply the same scripture and say, God, we want to see your deliverance in our midst. We want to walk in all the blessings of God. It would still be correct. So nearly all promises are like that. You can apply it to an individual, and it would be correct. You can apply it to a community, and it would still be correct. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, because as an individual, we are members individually.  Even as an individual, we can claim these scriptures and promises. And it is very much applicable to individuals as much as it is applicable to communities. So yeah, thanks, Mangi. Yeah, so we're saying that we as I in, and God's going to do all these things in us through us, and it should be like we must reveal God to the world around us. God's victory will be seen through our lives. His voice will be heard in our midst. So basically, look for these things in the local church. If anything is missing, we can pray and say, God, your word says that we are Zion. So we are praying. We are asking for your Reema word to be present in our midst, your deliverance to be here. So that's how we apply it. So that's how it is. Now, one more scripture about Zion. We see that God promises strength. Psalm 110, verses one and two, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. So God is sending forth his strength out of Zion. Similar to how he's going to give his presence, he's going to also give his strength. So we can look to God. We can look to God and how does strength help? Strength again helps us exercise our dominion. It helps us exercise our authority. It helps us overcome the enemy. It helps us stretch ourselves to full capacity and engage in everything that God has called us to do. So basically, we are not a fainting people. We are a people who can rise up and do things for God. We can overcome the works of the evil one and be victorious. So that is the understanding. And we can pray and we can ask God to make us and our community like that. So a couple of practical things that I mentioned here about us being Zion is to bring this understanding to the people that we are God's special people and therefore the culture that we have or the values that we carry. They must be in sync with kingdom culture. They must be in sync with kingdom values.  They could dare to be different in the usual world that they lived in. So we can also be those different people living with kingdom culture and kingdom values today, wherever God has positioned us. And we can also impart this truth in believers that we are chosen people, meaning we are holy, we are sanctified, we are a call to live transformed lives.  So to impart this truth and help people understand how they are God's own special people. And to encourage people to reveal who God is. So when we reveal God, what comes forth? The greatness of God. When people look at a believer or a Christian or a community of believers, they must see the goodness of God. They must see the greatness of God coming through out of these people. The virtues of God being revealed through that community or through those individuals. So that is what is expected when we say that God will show forth his praises from among his people who are Zion. So we can encourage and everyone from a little child to an elderly person, everyone in some way or the other. The way God is called each person. We can be that shining light. We can be salt. We can be an influence and proclaim the glory of God. Anyone who sees us, anyone who knows the way God is working in and through our lives will glorify God. They will rejoice and they will praise God. So that is what is expected out of Zion. And we must see a release of the kingdom because we just said that God speaks, God dwells, God roars, God releases his strength out of Zion. So we see his kingdom come in various ways and that is how the local church is supposed to be. So what can be some of the challenges that we face when we talk about the church being Zion? Like every other picture of the church, there can be people who find it challenging to accept this truth because accepting this truth that we are God's people and that we are here to reveal God would mean that certain changes have to come into our lives. That we must aim for maturity. We must look for progress. We must be ready to stretch ourselves. That means all of those things because without letting God work in us, there's no way we will be in a position to reveal God. So when we teach things like this, not everybody will be receptive. And in fact, some will, some could be upset that it's about making changes and it's just easier to come to church and do church and just listen to the word and go back home and that's about it. But when we are asking people to live a life where they know that they are the chosen people and God is going to reveal his glory in all these ways through their individual life or their family, it can rock the boat for some people who are comfortable with what we call as status quo Christianity. Okay, so that is an issue. But yeah, as we keep speaking the truth of God's word and I've said this earlier, when we proclaim the truth, that's the first step to take people on a journey along that truth. If people do not know what the word says, then they will never know how to make that journey. So speak the word, impart the word, teach from God's word and eventually, and hopefully people will respond and they will be ready to be that display of God's glory and splendor. So Zion, it's just that we are here to display God's glory and splendor. So I just leave this time open. If at all there are any comments from us. Yes, yes, Charles, please go ahead. Thank you, pastor. Shed more light on that is on the challenge that however as pastors and leaders, we have no choice but to preach and teach. Why is it that we don't have any choice? Your question, Charles, you're saying that we have to preach and teach. Okay, so yeah, that is fine. So what exactly is the question there? I am looking at the challenges to be prepared for. And there is this statement that says, however, okay, from the status quo, however, as pastors or leaders, we have no choice but to preach and to teach so that people will be transformed by the renewing of the mind. Why don't we have a choice? Why do we have no choice but to preach and teach? Okay, so yeah, Charles, thank you. See, that is the way in which the Lord Jesus sanctifies his body. In Ephesians five, we read that he sanctifies the church with the word. And even Jesus, you know, in John 17, he says that you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. So the word does a cleansing work in the hearts, in the lives of people. So unless we proclaim the word, that process will not be brought to completion, which is why there is no other choice. There's no other way. We could think of just motivating the people or giving them a comfortable environment where they can come and gather, where we encourage them to follow these principles. But at the end of the day, if the word is missing, then the work of sanctification will not take place. And similarly, we also understand that the Holy Spirit does His work in the life of every believer, spirit, soul, and body. And that, again, is a work of sanctification. So as a pastor or a leader, we are here to lead the way, but we are also catalysts. We must understand that we have to use what God has given us to bring about the change, which is the work of the word, the work of the spirit. Without the work of the word and the work of the spirit, people's hearts will not experience change. And yes, from their side, they have to be willing and they have to be open to the renewal of their own minds. So they make their journey. But our approach is always proclaim the word, declare the truth, make it clear. And then it begins to work in people's lives. So in that sense, yes, there is no alternative or as you put it, there is no choice. But to take this route, to see a change. Yeah. Did I answer your question, Charles? Thank you, pastor. I take longer to answer because I am in mute. When I'm on mute, but I'm thankful that... Oh, okay. We are following a command. We are following a command and the, when a command has been given and you do not need any other call, but you are already commanded. So there is no choice, it's a command. We are two calls who have been commanded by our master, our lead, our commander. So thank you so much, pastor. Okay, yeah, sure. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Charles. And I also think that we've touched 951. So let's go for a short break. We'll come back and we will continue on the subject of the local church. So thank you, everyone. See you in 10 minutes. A 10-01 is when we will come back and start again. Thank you.


In this presentation we're going to introduce the internal controls related specifically to cash. Cash internal control goals. Is it going to be the objectives of the internal control system over cash? We want to have the cash handling separate from the record keeping. So whoever is handling the cash we would like to have them not to be the same person doing the record keeping and therefore we have that separation of duties. We have the person that is entering the data not having as much of an incentive to steal the cash because they're not the ones handling the cash. The people handling the cash know that if they do steal it the record keeping should pick that up and they are a separate person. Cash receipts are deposited to the bank. We want to make sure that the cash receipts are going to the bank as soon as possible hopefully on a daily basis so that we're not accumulating cash. We don't want to cash to be piling up because if it is then we have a greater risk of theft to happen and