Oh yes, we have covered up to John chapter 20 verse 19. So we will be resuming from John chapter 20 verse 20 onwards. But before that, we have a couple of persons who have raised their hand. So yes, you can go ahead please. You are here. Hello pastor. Yeah, I can hear you. Go ahead. Yes, yes, sorry. I was going to ask if there were actually two ascensions. I usually want ascension. I was being was recorded in the Bible. But anyway, I've actually heard some preachers state that Jesus actually showed himself and the blood, the sacrifice. He basically the work of redemption on the cross. He lie here that appeared unto God in heaven. And sometimes they refer to the scripture and psalm that said lift up your gates, lift up your heads, O ye gates and be lifted up here. But last thing don't let the king of glory come in. Who is the king of glory? The Lord who is strong and mighty. Some people attach that scripture to Christ showing up in heaven. You know, as having conquered the enemy, having gotten the key to the authority, the key of authority from the enemy, you know, won the battle basically and retrieved all that the enemy has stolen from us. So I just want clarity that was Jesus appearing unto the Father. Only after the 40 days on earth, after appearing to all the disciples and all the different people who protestified of in first Corinthians that saw him, you know, for that period of 40 days. Was it after that that he went to heaven to appear to the Father? Or was there something that happened in the realm of the spirit, you know, before he showed up physically, physically as per his resurrection basically in a new body, in an immortal body. That's just my clarification I would like to make. Yeah, I am not sure because there are, I mean, doctrinal facts involved here. And so how do we interpret this whole thing? Let's just look at these 102 verses, you know, which are here and then we'll try to grapple with this issue. But I do not have a clear answer. But first let us just look at these, you know, these two, three verses over here and then in the light of these two, three verses.  But let us see what we can get out of these two, three verses. So if someone could actually read out John chapter 20, 20 to 23. Yeah. As he spoke, he showed them the words in his hand and his sight. They're filled with joy when they saw the Lord. Again, he said, peace be with you as the Father has sent me. So I am sending you. Then he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they're forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they're not forgiven. Okay. So it starts off by saying that, you know, he, you know, because they have not yet believed after different people. Mary Magdalene and the ladies reported and then the two men on the road to Emmaus reported and they refused to believe. So now Jesus is personally giving them assurance. He shows them his hands and his side. And now after having seen that, now they are willing to believe that the same man who was hanging on the cross is this person because they can see the piercings in his hands. They can see the piercings in his side. And so now they are willing to believe that this person is the same as the one whom they had seen on the cross, even though it looks as though his face seems to be different because they don't seem to be able to recognize him immediately. So his face seems to have changed, but the body still bears the wounds which were, you know, wounds of the crucifixion which he bore on the cross. And so coming to this important portion, 22, 23, and with that, yeah, in fact, 21, 21, 22, 23. Again, Jesus said, peace be with you. And then he gives them their great commission. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. And then he goes on to say, if you forgive anyone since their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. So one very important thing which Jesus had told them earlier is that it is very good for you that I go away because only when I go away, can I send you the Holy Spirit. And so over here, they are being given the Holy Spirit, which seems to indicate that they was going away. Because he again seems to say the same wording to her, to Mary Magdalene. He says, do not cling to me because I have not yet ascended. So, you know, let me do that. Let me ascend to the Father.  That seems to be the kind of indication. So we get the impression that there seems to have been some kind of going to the Father which has happened. And now he is coming and now he is able to release the Holy Spirit to them, which could not have been done earlier. So it is only now that he is doing this. And he had told earlier that he can only give them the Holy Spirit after he has gone. And so we would have to probably read Hebrews chapter 9 verses 11 to 15 in that light where it talks about the High Priest actually entering into the Holy of Holies, you know, with his own blood. And so maybe, I mean, again, I do not know, this is just a pure assumption. Maybe in spirit, though not bodily, in spirit, he does go to the Father and he does present the blood over there on our behalf so that we can be redeemed. And so once we have been redeemed, once he has gone over there, placed the blood in front of the Father and once that work is done, then he is able to come back and breathe upon the disciples and impart the Holy Spirit to them. Why? Because now they have been made unrighteous. The Holy Spirit cannot be given to someone who is still unclean in their sinfulness. It's impossible. The Holy Spirit can only be given to those who have been made righteous. So if we can, you know, just read out Hebrews chapter 9 verses 11 to 15. And then, you know, we can maybe talk about this a bit further if someone could read out for us Hebrews 9 11 to 15. Hebrews 9 11 to 15 says, But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a hypha, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Since her death has occurred, that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. So we could say that after Jesus finishes speaking to Mary Magdalene and telling her, don't cling on to me because there's something more that needs to be done. I have to ascend to the Father. Maybe we could say that Hebrews 9, 11 to 15 happens at that time, where in spirit, though not bodily, in spirit he goes. He actually goes to the Father to complete this whole redemption process and he enters into a tabernacle not made with human hands. Because here on earth once a year the high priest would enter into the human tabernacle made by human hands. And once a year he would go inside the holy of holies and he would sprinkle the blood. But here you have Jesus going into the actual tabernacle which is in heaven and he goes over there into God's presence by his own blood. He's not going over there with the blood of animals but he's going with his own blood. Why it says in verse 12, it says to secure eternal redemption. Is he securing the internal redemption for himself? No, because in the very next verse it says, the blood of goats and bulls could not really do much sanctifying. There could be no redemption got through that. But now he has secured eternal redemption which means over here the eternal redemption is referring to the redemption which he has won for us. Earlier we were depending on bulls and goats but now he has secured for us an eternal redemption. And what has happened because of that? It says in verse 14, now our consciences are cleansed from the acts that lead to death. All the sinful acts which we have done as a result of which we should in fact end up in hell. Now we have been cleansed by this blood of these evil acts which we have done. Why so that we may serve the living God? And that is what he's urging the disciples to do. He's saying now I'm sending you out to do the work of God to serve the Lord. And it goes on to say in verse 15, for this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. So now he has created a new covenant which he is now offering us. And this is the promised eternal inheritance. And why is this possible? Because he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. So the disciples had committed a lot of sins under the first covenant. They had broken the laws of Moses which they were supposed to keep. And so they were held in bondage because of the crime which they had committed in breaking all of the laws of Moses. And so they were under a judgment of death. But now Jesus who has now obtained a new covenant, he sets them free by offering his blood as a ransom so that they can be set free from the punishment which they are under in the old covenant. Because now he is offering them a new covenant. And in this new covenant they are being set free so that they may serve the living God. And so now he comes to the disciples and he says to them, As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And he breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. And immediately after that in the next verse he says, If you forgive any sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. So now he is saying, you have the Holy Spirit in you. And now because you have God living in you, you have the authority of God now to take decisions in sync with God, led by his leading. Now you can declare certain people innocent and you can declare some people as being condemned for judgment based on whether they accept Jesus and based on whether they reject Jesus. So now because they have the Holy Spirit in them, they now have the divine authority of God to be able to do these things. So when we look at the doctrinal side of this passage, it does seem to indicate that there was some kind of ascension which did take place immediately after the encounter with Mary Magdalene where he has gone to the Father. He has finished the work which needs to be done and now he returns back. But bodily it's true. He only ascends 40 days later after having spoken to a whole number of people. It's all I can say. Am I 100% correct in saying this? No, I have absolutely no idea. All I'm trying to do is figure out exactly when Hebrews 9, 11 to 15 happened. And I'm also kind of looking at this fact that the Holy Spirit was breathed on them. Very clearly when Jesus said earlier it can only happen after I have ascended to the Father. So just based on those few facts, I'm presenting this assumption. But the entire truth and all of the facts I think we'll really know only when we get to heaven. So I just hope that helps. Yeah, I do not have a clear explanation beyond that. Thank you, Pastor. Yeah. So yes, like it says over there in that last verse which we read out. Now it becomes the duty of all of us the church to declare to those who are living in sin that they are under judgment and that they need to take care, that they need to repent. Otherwise they're in great danger. It is our duty now to inform them of that. So we are the ones who now have the right to declare who has been forgiven. And we have the right to declare who is now under judgment. So why are we able to do all of this? Because we have the Holy Spirit in us. And again, this is a reminder of what Jesus had already told earlier. John chapter 16 verses 7 to 11. And maybe we can read that passage to kind of wrap up this whole thing. John chapter 16 verses 7 to 11. Okay, so over here, Jesus is talking about a time when he will go away permanently. Okay, so that has not happened at this moment in this particular narrative. But earlier when John chapter 16, he was talking about a time when he would be going away permanently. And at that time he says, don't worry because the advocate will be with you. The Holy Spirit will be with you. And he is the one who will help the world to understand whether they are on the side of righteousness or whether they're on the side of sin and judgment. Because he's the one who will convict of sin, righteousness and judgment. So now after having breathed upon them the Holy Spirit, he says to them, you will now do this. If you forgive anyone sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven because you see now the Holy Spirit is in them. And now they can actually go ahead and speak to people about sin, righteousness and judgment. And the Holy Spirit who is backing them up will convict the people even as they speak out those words. But of course, he says in another place, do not start this entire process now itself because it's just the breathing upon them of the Holy Spirit alone is not enough. They still need to wait for another step of the Holy Spirit which will take place and then they will be fully ready to start off the commission. But right now he's just giving the initial instructions regarding that. Moving on to verses 24 to 29 where we basically have the account of Thomas. We are very familiar with this but let's just read it again. Carefully observing the reactions and responses of the disciples and Thomas and Jesus who says what, whose reaction is what and whose response is what. Let's just know if one person can read out for us. Let's observe what is being read out. Verses 24 to 29. One of the 12 disciples, Thomas, nicknamed the twin was not with the others. When Jesus came, he told him, we have seen the road. But he replied, I wouldn't believe it unless I see the meal points in his hands. Put my fingers into them and place my hand into the word in his sight. Eight days later, the disciples were together again and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked but suddenly as before Jesus was standing among them. Peace be with you, he said. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and look at my hands. Put your hand into the word in my sight. Don't be faithless any longer. Believe. My Lord and my God and Thomas exclaimed. And Jesus told him, you believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me. Okay, so everyone says a lot of bad things about Thomas. They criticize him because the man refused to believe. But then he was in the same boat as all the other disciples. They also behaved in the very same way. You have Mary Magdalene and the ladies coming and giving the report. And these are the wordings that you have over there. And there was that Mark 16. It says when they heard that Jesus, okay, Mark 16, 11, when they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it. Then verse 12, okay, verse 13, it says, these returned the two, you know, these are the two men from Emmaus. These returned and reported it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. And then in verse 14, it says, later Jesus appeared to the 11 as they were eating. He rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.  And you're still stubbornly holding on to your disbelief. And so he rebukes them for their lack of faith and he says that they have been stubborn in their refusal to believe. So the same thing which the other disciples did, you see Thomas also doing. So in no way is Thomas more rotten than the rest. They're all equally bad in their, you know, low level of faith.  But then I think if I see with my own eyes, he says, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, then I will believe I don't, you know, really care for your eyewitness reports. And he has to wait. So he continues waiting for another entire week. And then after one week, then Jesus comes to him and Jesus says, put your finger here. See my hands, reach out your hand and put it into my side.  He says, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. So none of us have, you know, inserted our hand into his side and looked at the spear wound over there. None of us have actually physically seen his resurrected hands, which still bear the marks of the crucifixion. None of us have seen that none of us have touched it. And still we believe we believe just on the basis of those eyewitness reports which have been recorded in the scriptures. And God says people who are willing to believe this eyewitness reports without actually having seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. Such people are indeed blessed. And so we have a special blessing resting upon us because even though we didn't get the privilege which they did of actually putting their hand over there and touching and seeing. We still have chosen to believe that he did die and that he indeed did rise. And because of that, there is a special blessing that rests upon all of us, you know, who are putting our faith in him. And yeah, then we come to verses 30 and 31. If someone could read out those two verses please. The disciples saw Jesus do many other miracle signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that he will continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  Yeah, so immediately after talking about, you know, how blessed are the people who believe even though they have not seen. Then John goes on to say Jesus performed many other signs, but those are not recorded here. But these particular incidents have been recorded here. Why? Because that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And that by believing you may have life in his name. So even though we have not personally seen these things with our eyes, we are choosing to believe the eyewitness reports which have been placed in the Bible. And so if we do that, it says we will have life in his name. So these records have been placed in the four Gospels, you know, the record of the events which took place have been collected and placed in the Gospels. So that all of us who read can choose to believe and we will choose not to be like Thomas and the other disciples who only believed after they got to touch and see with their own hands and eyes. So we are not like that. We have chosen to believe the eyewitness reports which have been given. So let's move on to John chapter 21 and if possible we can cover the entire thing. Let's see how it goes. So John chapter 21 versus 1, 2 and 3 if someone could read out. So in some of the versions it will say Sea of Tiberius rather than Sea of Galilee, but they both are basically talking about the same place. The Greek name for the Sea of Galilee is Sea of Tiberius and this is basically the place where you had the 5000 being fed. And why is that significant? Because now Jesus again feeds the disciples with fish.  Now over here on the beach you have the disciples also being fed by Jesus with bread and fish. So that's just the basic connection that you see and it talks about Nathaniel being from Canna in Galilee. So he had said what good can come out of Nazareth. So maybe the people of Canna were better off financially education wise and so maybe they felt that Canna was a better place to be in rather than Nazareth because Nazareth probably was a more poorer place where they would not have had much education and nor would they have much finances. So let's get into this story which is given here. We can maybe just look at verses 4 to 6 first if someone could read out verses 4 to 6. So here in Asha's version verse 5 she says fellows do you have any food? But actually the word over there is literally children. Paidia is the Greek word that is used over there which literally means children. Do you have any food? And of course they say no and then he says cast the net on the right side of the boat. Now the way they did fishing back then the net it seems was always cast on the left side. I'm not sure why but maybe that's just the procedure which they followed. So here Jesus is asking them to do something different. So rather than just casting the net on the left side the way they generally do he says do it on the opposite side and they're actually able to get a lot of fish. And when that happens immediately Peter realizes that this person who is standing there even though he does not look the way Jesus looked earlier because now he is different in appearance he immediately realizes that this is the Lord. And so he takes off his coat and he gets into the water and then the rest of them they follow by boat and they come to the land. And it's written over there in verse 11 they caught 153 fish and although there were so many the net was not broken. So in the earlier miracle that had taken place that would be in Luke chapter 5. When the fish are caught there are so many fish that the nets begin to break. But over here there's an additional miracle not only do they catch a lot of fish but the net does not even get damaged. So we see an additional miracle being performed over here. And so they realize that this is indeed Jesus who is doing this. Now it's interesting because when Jesus actually addresses them and he says children do you have any food? They do not recognize him. So which means when he appeared to them in the room when they were all together on those two three occasions when he appears to them he must have looked different. And now he looks different again. So I mean I don't know what this means. I have no clue what this means regarding resurrected bodies. Whether a person can choose to look different on different occasions and why would a person want to do that? I mean I have no ideas. But it looks like he seems to be looking different every time he meets. So even if they meet him a second time they don't recognize him because he seems to be different from the way he looked the first time. It's what comes through over here. So here and we see the same thing mentioned even in Mark chapter 16 verse 12 where it says afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them. So maybe a resurrected body is one where you can change your appearance. So yeah if you look throughout the book of John there are many many many occasions where you have Jesus eating with people. And there's a lot of eating going on. Not just in the book of John but even in the other gospels. And you know we who are from the modern world may wonder why there is so much emphasis on all this eating. But for them you see in their culture the main way you express fellowship togetherness, friendship and love is through eating. Where people get together they share their food with one another and that is how fellowship is expressed. That is how friendship is expressed. So if someone invites you to their home it means that they're extending a hand of fellowship. They're saying from now on you're one of us. We consider you as part of our community. So in their culture eating had a lot of significance. And so we see Jesus very happily mingling with different kinds of people and eating with them because he's making a point. He's saying you see I'm identifying with you. I'm willing to be part of your community. I'm not considering myself superior to you and keeping myself apart from you.  So on different occasions Jesus does that even with the people who have been labelled as sinners. The ones who are not following all the pharisec rituals and all of that ceremonial purity rituals. He even eats with them to show that he is willing to have fellowship with them and is willing to consider himself part of their community.  He does not hold that against them and he is re-establishing his friendship with them. And so we see all of them sitting over here eating together. And then of course we come to this very significant passage where you have the conversation taking place between Jesus and Peter. So if maybe we could read out, okay we still have time. We can do this. If someone could read out just verse 15, let's look at that one verse and then we'll look at the next two verses. So if someone could just read out 15 alone please. Yeah, so here Jesus asks the question, do you love me more than these? And so it most probably refers to the whole phishing and the career which Simon Peter had chosen for himself. It just basically means I mean do you love me more than your work, the things which occupy your time, the material things that you pursue on a day to day basis. Do you love me more than all of these? Now when these disciples went fishing that day, I don't think they were doing anything sinful because that's basically how they earned their living and supported themselves. And it was always a godly thing to earn one's living and not just depending on other people for charity. So I think whenever possible these disciples would go fishing, they would earn money and so I don't think they were doing anything evil by going fishing because that's basically how they earned their livelihood. They did not believe in living like lazy people who just depended on others for money and provision. So here Jesus is asking, it's true that you would be doing all of these things, you have to sustain yourself but do you love me more than all of these? Because we see that even with Paul, right? Paul was a tent maker. He had learnt the skill of making tents which I think must have involved a lot of processes because you would have to dye the material, you should know how to put the material together and then afterwards you would stitch it and a lot of things involved. So that's a skill which he had learnt and on the side he had taught himself the scriptures, he had trained under Gamalyal. So all of that was there, the entire spiritual side of his life was going on. But to earn his livelihood on a day to day basis, he had learnt tent making. In the same way these guys, they didn't really know much about tent making but they were fishermen and so they too had a profession of their own and they were supporting themselves and were working hard, not being lazy, not being dependent on others. So all Jesus is saying is, do you love me more than these things? Because priorities matter. We must sustain ourselves, we must do the work which has been given to us. Depending on the skills that God has given us, we will either work in the secular field or maybe we would work in ministry but when it comes to spiritual things, we are all supposed to be involved in ministry work to some extent or the other. It's just that we may not be in full-time work.  What are our priorities? Do the kingdom matters come first or do other things come first? We see that even in the Old Testament where Nehemiah was a secular officer. He worked as a cup bearer in Persia and then later when he comes to Jerusalem, he works as a governor. So he had secular responsibilities. He was not in full-time ministry but where was his heart? When he hears about Jerusalem, he just sits down and he cries. He doesn't just cry. He begins to fast and pray. He doesn't just begin to fast and pray. He says, I need to personally do something about this and he approaches the king about it. So a secular man, where does his heart lie? Nehemiah's heart. He is completely devoted to the things of God and so over here we need to take this verse in that sense where Jesus is asking, do you love me more than these, all of these other things which are necessary for life? But what are your priorities? Will you be willing to place me first? Because if you are willing to do that, there are some things that I want you to do and Jesus goes on to say, you know, feed my lambs. So that's the point that Jesus makes over here and like many commentaries will point out, when Jesus asks the question, do you love me? He uses the word agape. So do you agapao me is what he asks and Peter replies and he says, Lord, you know that I love you. You know that I filayo you. So the word which Peter uses is the word filayo. Agape is one form of love and generally people say that it's the unconditional love where you love a person just for themselves irrespective of whether they're achieving something or not, whether they have status or not, whether they are pleasing you or not. You just love them because you love them because they are worth loving. You just care about them and so you love them. So it's a kind of unconditional love, agape. Filayo on the other hand is expressed more in the sense of friendship. It is closeness to someone where you share things with them where you consider them like family. So it's a family friendship kind of love. And so here when Jesus says, do you love me more than the all of these other things, you know, you're fishing and your material needs and all of that. He says, Lord, you know that I filayo you. So he is saying, Lord, you know I am your friend. So obviously Lord, you come first. You're my friend. I love you.  And Jesus is pleased with that answer and Jesus says to him, feed my lambs. We look further into this, of course. I will not just leave it at this because a lot of discussion goes on regarding these phrases. But just to touch upon something else before we move on. You know, in Ezekiel chapter 34 is where Jesus talks about all these unfaithful shepherds who don't care about the sheep. And there are some very, very specific things that he says. So, you know, if you and I are serious about putting God first and we really want to please the Lord and he's asking us, do you love me more than all of these other things which you have going on in your life? And if we are really serious about that, we need to know in what way we should be serving God and serving God's people. Doesn't matter whether we're in full-time ministry or whether we're in the secular field. We are all expected to serve the Lord and serve the church. By church I mean literally the people, the people of God. Because, you know, we are supposed to be servants, right? That's what Jesus says. He says, you know, if I, your master, am willing to serve, then you must be willing to serve each other. So this is not a verse which applies only to full-time ministers. It applies to all believers. If we consider Jesus our master, automatically we are servants and we are meant to serve each other. Now Ezekiel 34 talks very beautifully about these false shepherds and what a true shepherd should be like. So because in one sense, all of us are meant to be serving each other. So what kind of shepherds are we supposed to be? You know, so if we can very quickly go to Ezekiel 34 and if someone could read out verses 1 to 4, we will learn some very important things about how exactly do you go about feeding lambs and sheep.  There's a lot more involved in this commandment, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. There's a whole bunch of stuff involved. So let's just look at that and then we'll get back to the rest of the passage and look at all the things which are there. Okay, yeah, we are kind of running out of time. But yes, if someone could read out Ezekiel 34, 1 to 4. And the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, prophecy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophecy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds. Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves. Should not the shepherds feed the flocks.  You slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you are not strengthened. No, have you healed those who were sick. No bound up the broken. No brought back what is driven away. No sought what was lost. But with forge and cruelty, you have ruled them. Okay, so here, you know, Yahweh is talking about the false shepherds who are very, very busy feeding themselves. It says, woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves. Rather than feeding themselves, you know, he says, should not the shepherds feed the flocks. You see, the whole point is you should be feeding the flocks, not too busy feeding yourself.  And he says at the end of verse 3, but you do not feed the flock. So in what way are these flocks to be fed? The weak you have not strengthened. So those who are weak, we are meant to reach out to them and strengthen them. It may be weakness in the sense that they have gone through terrible times and they need someone to comfort them to, you know, help them get back on their feet. Or it could mean spiritual weakness where someone has fallen and, you know, which is why, where is it? Can't remember in one of the epistels where it says, you know, when you see someone who has fallen away, you know, reach out to them, help them to come back to the Lord. But be careful that you are not tempted in the same way that they have been tempted, you know, and so we are meant to strengthen those who are weak. That is one way in which we feed the lambs. Second, those who are sick, have you healed them? Now, of course, this can refer to physical healing where you are supposed to pray over people and, you know, bring deliverance for them. It could also refer to people who are spiritually sick and who would need, you know, words of advice and counsel so that they can come out of whatever spiritual weaknesses which are holding them back.  So those who are broken, you're meant to restore them nor brought back what was driven away. There are some who have been driven away from the church, from the fold because of unpleasant things which have been done to them. And so it becomes our duty to bring them back into the fold and then it says, nor sought what was lost. So have we gone after those who are lost? Are we bringing them to the Lord? Are we, you know, giving them information about what Jesus can do for them in their lives? So all of these things we are meant to be doing. If we are serious, if we love Jesus more than all of the other things in our lives. Yes, we have Brother Christopher, please go ahead. Yes, my question, Pastor, is about John 21, 15. So Jesus is asking Peter, you know, do you love me? And he's referring to Agape Love. And Peter responds back, as you mentioned, yes, you know, I love you and that, but he's actually coming from a filial type of love, which is, you know, the brotherly love. So I just wanted to ask a question with regards to Agape Love. I mean, as human beings, are we capable of Agape Love? Just really a Godly love. That's the question I had. Yeah, there are verses where we are commanded to love with an Agape Love, love God with an Agape Love. So yes, that command was given to us because we are capable of loving with an Agape Love. And Filio Love is not a failure kind of love because that's the love with which the father loves the son in some verses where it very clearly says that the father filio the son. And so it is most definitely not, and it's a very, very wrong categorization of love. So we would be looking at that entire aspect, which is why I was not very sure whether I could deal with that. So I just dealt with the first verse, verse 15, where we just looked at the missional aspect of what Jesus is trying to say. Okay, and I just wanted to leave it at that because our next class, we can get into the rest of the passage and really look at what Jesus is saying.  You're my friend. And so you are my first priority. And Jesus says to him, yes, yes, feed my lambs. And then the second time also Jesus says something similar, but he uses a different phrase at the end. The commandment that is given is slightly different over there. And then the third time when he says it, that is when Peter gets hurt. So by that time, Peter kind of understands what is being said. And there's a whole lot of stuff going on over there. And I did not want to touch upon that simply because we would not have the time to get into the details. So we will look at all of this in great detail in next class. So just to kind of, you know, conclude, yes, there are verses which we will be looking at next week where we are very clearly told to Agapao. That's the verb that is used to Agapao the Lord. So we are capable of loving God with an Agape love. And there are places where Phileo is used about the relationship of the father with the son and his relationship with us. So Phileo is in no way an inferior form of love. It's just another form, another type of love. So we will look at all of these verses and we will also understand why Peter felt hurt and because you see when they were speaking all of this in their language, they would have caught the words that are being used so easily. Here in our English, everything gets wrapped up in just common words and the actual translation doesn't come out. So if we had been sitting over there with Jesus, I know in that group and when he used those specific words, we would have caught what was being said, but we could not do that now simply because we are not familiar with their culture. So we will look at what exactly was said, what were the words which were used, what was the significance behind the words which were used and finally ultimately what was Jesus trying to say. So all of that we will look into next class and we will also get into an intro of the epistels. 1st John, 2nd John, 3rd John or at least maybe an intro of 1st John alone and then maybe later on we can do an intro of the 2nd and 3rd epistels of John. So those are the things that we would be covering next week. So for now, let's just close with a word of prayer. Lord, we just thank you so much for all the things that we could learn from your scripture today. Thank you, Lord, that we have a chance to prove our friendship to you just like Peter and really put your priorities first. What concerns your heart first? Lord, after you breathed upon the disciples and imparted the Holy Spirit to them, the very first thing that you said to them was that they should do the work of the Father. You wanted them to serve the Father and so, Lord, we pray that we would have hearts like Peter which are willing to say, Lord, you are our friend. You are our first priority and we want to love you. We want to serve you and we want to place your things first in our lives. Help us a lot to have that same attitude which these early disciples did. And Lord, we thank you for all the other learnings. We thank you a lot for Mary Magdalene who would not just walk away but stood over there weeping because she was so broken and because of that brokenness, Lord, most probably you chose to appear to her first. Lord, you look at our hearts more than anything. Help us a lot to have right heart attitudes so that you will be drawn to us so that you will want to do things for us so that, Lord, we can enjoy you more and more. Help us a lot in all of our thoughts, in all of our attitudes, in all of our words and all of our deeds. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you so much for participating in the class and, of course, we'll meet again next class.


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What's up, YouTube? This is a video right up for the challenge Garfield from the cryptography category of ICTF. Sorry, this video is a little bit late. I have admittedly been kind of behind in some of these video recordings here. And unfortunately, the platform infrastructure for the CTF is still offline. So I'm just going to showcase what we have actually to work with that you would have downloaded from the problem. So it's this Garfeld, Seinfeld and Garfield picture. At the very bottom, you can see what looks like the flag format, ICTF curly braces and some text in there. However, it's not actually the flag. Obviously, that doesn't say ICTF it's jumbled up a little bit. So at the very top, we see a little bit of numbers. And that is kind of the sticking point for this challenge. And is that the numbers are essentially what will guide you to the solution in the end flag here. So what I did and unfortunately, you may have to do on your own is just translating out what that message was at the very, very end or the bottom of the picture. And then we can work with it. So I'm going to just create a script where I can, oh, that's the solution. Well, just edit that out in your mind, pretend you didn't see that, whatever. We've got a little shebang line script, so we can work with it just fine. And I'm going to use a context manager to open this file, because people tell me that I should do that. So with open message dot text as handle, we can say message can equal handle dot read. And then we could go ahead and print out the message that we're working with. So there's just that ICTF string. Let's go ahead and grab the numbers as well. So I'm going to have to display that Garfeld and then it's 07271978. Okay, great. What we actually are going to find is that if we were to loop through this bit of numbers or try it for the starting segment of the message, this essentially shows a difference in the alphabet as to what letter could come next. So obviously here, I'll try and write this out in some comments here. I plus or minus zero is going to equal I, if you consider zero, some offset in the alphabet. So J being the next letter here, plus or minus, but I'll let the cat out of the bag and just say it's minus. J minus seven is going to go ahead and equal C. And then G, again, minus two is going equal E. And you'll see that as we as we code it. So what I'm going to do is actually loop through the letters in the message and then actually determine whether or not it's in the alphabet. So we're going to need the alphabet to work with. There's enough uppercase in here that I'm just going to actually from string import uppercase. How about that? And then we'll just consider everything as uppercase. And then we'll actually keep track of a counter variable that works as a number and we'll use the modulus to loop through the set of numbers. So I'll do that right now. Let's say for character in message, we could print out the character if you wanted to. And you can see some of these underscores and curly braces are going to get in the way, but that's all right. And we do want to actually, again, test for those things that aren't in the uppercase. So let's just set character equal to character dot upper. That's just fine. And we'd want to have that numeric counter to keep track of where we are in the numbers. If you wanted to, you could use iter tools and use like a cyclic generator to go ahead and like loop that. But we'll just use a modulus. And again, you'll see that in the code if you don't entirely know what I'm getting at just now. So we'll look through the characters and we'll test if character is in uppercase. If it is, we can process it and then do that subtraction like modify that offset. If it's not, let's go ahead and add it to what we're going to try and build out here. So let's just say the flag, which again, if you're trying to do this challenge going in cold, you may not know that's actually the flag. You could just say, okay, maybe that's some text that I want to read out while you're while you're working while you're processing. Let's just say flag dot append character and let's go ahead and process this if it is actually in the uppercase. Let's get the index as to where it is in the alphabet. So index can equal uppercase dot index of that character. So we'll get the numeric position of J in the alphabet and then let's grab the offset, which will be the numbers indexed at the counter that we're going to go ahead and iterate. So if we actually have a character that we're going to be changing here, again, that doesn't happen if it's not in the uppercase letters, if it's not in the alphabet. So those special characters like the curly braces and the underscores won't change. It's kind of essentially like a veneer cipher. If you were to change this to like letters in the alphabet, I would be willing to bet that this code would just pump out if you use a veneer cipher. Maybe I'll try that at the end of the video. I don't know. All right, once we have that offset, we want to subtract the, we'll convert it to an integer, by the way. And again, we'll want to modulus it by the length of the numbers so we wrap around. Let's go ahead and make that an integer. So then we can just go ahead and have the new character equal the uppercase. So anywhere in the alphabet with the index to begin with, minus the offset. And then we can go ahead and add that new character to our flag. At the very, very end of our loop, we can join the flag all together. And let's go ahead and display that out. And you can see ICTF, I don't think Gronsfield likes Mondays. So you could lowercase that, it's like CTF format, get that flag format, just find the way you wanted to. But it should go ahead and work for you. So that's how we can build it. Again, just taking the numbers as kind of an offset, shifting the alphabet around. And we're going to keep track of that in the loop. And then we'll use a modulus operator for every single character. Try that position again in those numbers. Hope I didn't make that more confusing by trying to put that carrot on top. Let's go ahead and see if we can get this flag with the veneer cipher. So what I'm going to do is actually going to locate veneer. See if I've got some code for this here already, which I think I do. And I think I've covered this in the TJCTF video vinegar. So if you haven't seen that before, go check that video out. Let's get veneer cipher.  We'll change the message dot text in this case. And then we'll use the key. So the way we can get the key is just taking the numbers here. And we will use, we are getting strings. So string dot uppercase indexed at numbers. Accept that. So for X in numbers, really just I or the character that we're looking at in numbers, we'll change that to a C. We'll convert it to a number. So key can equal an empty string to begin with or an empty array. And then we can say key dot append this stuff. And then we will say key can equal the key all put together. Let's print out the key and then just stop the script. So there is essentially our key. Now let's try and run message and decrypt the message and key ICTF. I don't think Ron's field likes Monday. So again, essentially veneer cipher. However, it doesn't have support with this rendition of the code to display those different special characters. So quick shout out to the people that support me on Patreon. Thank you guys so much. I cannot say it enough $1 a month or more on Patreon will give you a special shout out just like this. At the end of every video $5 or more on Patreon will give you early access to everything that released on YouTube before it goes live. That's not so far been the best thing because I am admittedly a little bit behind on some of my recording. I'm sorry. I'm human, whatever. It's cool. Anyway, you guys are the best. Thank you so much. It's incredible that you're willing to donate and support. If you like this video, please you like comment and subscribe. Please do join our discord server link in description cool community full of CTO players, programmers and hackers. You can hang out with me and other people that love this stuff. Hope to see you guys on Patreon. Hope to see you in the next video. Love ya. Bye.


Greetings and welcome to Math Help for Science Courses. In this video, we are going to be talking about how and why we go about rounding numbers. So we're going to look a little bit about why we do that, and then talk about how we go about rounding numbers when we are doing calculations. So let's get started here. First of all, why do we round numbers? Well, we can do it for a couple of different reasons. We can approximate a number. We may just need a rough idea of a number and not need to know the exact value, and maybe we don't have a calculator available, we want to do something in our head. So we can make the calculation simpler by rounding the numbers. For example, if we were to multiply 1,987 by 195, we could do that. You could write it out and do long multiplication, you could plug it into a calculator, and find out the answer is 387,465. However, if you just need to do a quick approximation, we know that 1,987 is approximately 2,000. We know that 195 is approximately 200, and we can multiply those together and find out that the answer is about 400,000. If we don't need an exact value but just a rough calculation, we can see that 400,000 is not all that far off from 387,465. Now, we also round numbers to present it in the correct number of significant figures. So we might go through a calculation, and we might end up with our calculator giving us all sorts of decimal places that we know are not significant. So if we go through, for example, a calculation, and we get an answer of 34.6978, and we find that that is only supposed to have three significant figures, then we can use rounding and that we only want to cut it off here at three significant figures, but because the figure to the right of that where we're rounding is five or greater, we would then round that up. So we would round this up to 34.7. So we can do it in those cases, and we can also look at things like measurement inaccuracies. We can only measure so accurately, so we may just round our numbers based on that. So we may be only able to measure something, say, to the nearest millimeter with a ruler. We might not be able to get it to a tenth of a millimeter. It'd be very difficult to measure it accurately to a tenth of our millimeter. So therefore we round the numbers as well. So let's look at the rules for rounding numbers, what we need to do here, and first of all we have to determine what is the rounding digit. So where are we rounding to? Then we look to the digit to the right of the rounding digit. So if we were going to round 387 to the tens place, the eight would be the rounding digit, and the number to the right of the rounding digit would be a seven. If that number is zero, one, two, three, or four, we just drop all numbers to the right, put in placeholder zeros as needed, and that would be the end of it. However in this case it is a five, six, seven, eight, or nine, and in those cases we increased the rounding digit by one, so we would increase the eight to a nine, and we would need to add in a place holding zero to not change the number, because we certainly don't want to change 387 to 39. There is a big difference there. When rounding it it would be 390. So it just depends on what the number is to the right of your rounding digit. If it's four, three, two, one, or zero, then you just drop the numbers, add in a zero placeholder if needed, and you're done. If it's a five, six, seven, eight, or nine, you increase your rounding digit by one, and then drop the remaining numbers to the right. Now if your rounding digit is to the right of a decimal point, then you just drop the numbers completely. So if we were rounding 0.3862, and we wanted to round that to the hundredths place here, again we look at our digit, we would say we would increase that by one, which would make it 0.39, and we're done. We don't have to add any zeros, and in fact adding zeros would be a bad thing, because we would be counting them as significant figures, because they are to the right of the decimal point. If your rounding digit is to the left of a decimal point, then you need to replace the drop numbers with a zero as a placeholder, as we did in the example here. And we're going to do a couple more examples to show you this. So let's look at a few examples here. And our first example, we want to round 3521 to the tens place. So a 2 is our rounding digit. The number to the right of that is a 1, and since that is in the small range, then we just drop it, and this would become 352, but we need to put the zero in, because the numbers are to the left of the decimal place. So we have to have that placeholder zero, so we do not change the actual number. So if we rounded 3521 to the tens place, we would get 3520. What if we were to round 0.3521 to the hundredths place? Well, that would be rounding it to here, and that would mean we would then round it. We look at the number to the right, which is a 2, which means we can just drop the numbers, because this is all to the right of the decimal. We just drop the numbers and get 0.35. So we don't add any zeros when it is to the right of the decimal point. Now let's look at the next couple. The next one is we want to round 1,582,804 to the thousands place, which is right here. We look at the number to the right, that is an 8, because that is greater than 4, then we need to up this number a little bit. So we need to do 1, 5, 8. We up the 2 by 1 to a 3, and then because these are to the left of the decimal point, we have to add in placeholder zeros for each of these numbers. Meaning that if we round 1,582,804 to the thousands place, we get 1,583,000. Let's look at a couple more examples here. If we have 0.89578, and we want to round it to the tens place, again we look at the number to the right, which is a 9, because that is a 5 or greater than we up this number by 1, so that becomes 0.9, and because we're to the right of the decimal place, again we drop everything. So we can just drop the rest of those numbers, we've rounded it up, and our answer to the tens place would be 0.9. And our last example here, 25.9854, and we want to round it to the ones place. Again look at the number right to the right, that's a 9, since that is 5 or greater, then we up this by 1, that becomes 26, and now that we are still all to the left of, all of our digits are to the left of the decimal point, we are done, we just drop all of those decimals, and our answer rounded, rounding 25.9854 to the ones place would be just 26. So let's finish up with our summary here, and what we find is that numbers can be rounded for various reasons, because of approximation, to simplify calculations, or perhaps to present the number in the correct number of significant figures. There are specific rules that we went over to determine how to go about rounding a number. You always look at the number, you determine your rounding number, then look at the number to the right of it. If it is 5 or greater, then you increase the rounding digit by 1. If it is 4 or less, then you simply ignore the numbers to the right of the rounding digit, and you always have to add placeholders if the number is to the right of the decimal point, I'm sorry, to the left of the decimal point. If it is to the left of the decimal point, you add placeholders, if it is to the right of the decimal point, you do not. So it is the key is always looking at the number to the right of that rounding digit. So that concludes our lecture on rounding numbers. We'll be back again next time for another math topic for science courses. So until then, have a great day everyone, and I will see you in class.


Iranians verbal diarrhea coming out of their mouth but it's so dystopian and it's so far removed from reality you can see that a genocide is happening how many more dead kids with missing limbs their shredded bodies do we need to see and all these people care about is increased inflation and shipping times and shipping cause I'm like these are saying that they are attacking these ships because there is a genocide happening once the genocide stops once we get a ceasefire they'll stop doing this so like it's a simple solution we want the genocide to stop a ceasefire


This study examined the experiences of front-line nurses caring for patients during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six key themes emerged from the data, including emotional experiences, physical symptoms, ethical and moral challenges, professional impact, risk factors for negative emotional experiences, and protective factors for future pandemics. The findings suggest that front-line nurses are facing significant challenges during the pandemic, and that providing them with adequate resources and support can help ensure they remain in their chosen professions. This article was authored by Megan R. Jackson, Joanne Porter, and Christopher Masanio.


So I am back. It's been a while. I know since I've done a hair tutorial, my hair looks a mess girl. But I wanted to do something with my hair because it's still straightened. I don't know what it looks like because it literally has been up in this style for like two weeks. Don't judge me. Almost two weeks. About 12 days. So I purchased some of these sponge rollers. I remember these. Your granny, your mama probably one of these. And so I have done some testing with this and I think I'm going to go ahead and do a sponge roller set. Hear me out. I'm going to be using the Lottabody products. I have the Lottie body. I don't know if this is going to be enough. If not, I have some more mousse in there. Ratme, foamy mousse along with the Lottabody Moisture Me Curl and Style Milk. And I also have some Eco Styler Gel for my ends and then some hair oil to make it sleek. Let's go ahead and take this hair down, girl. I got bobby pins in random places. Don't judge me, y'all. It feels really good. It feels hella soft. It feels really, really good still. I have not been adding any products to my hair. Let me get a bigger comb. So this is what we're going to do, y'all. We're going to leave it. Pump. Gel on the ends. Oil. That's what we're going to do. So let's start off with this section and I'm going to do leaving for the entire section and depending on how it's going, I'll use more. Okay? All right, you guys. So that is what I'm going to do for each section. And honestly, this section is way too large. But anyway, I'm going to go in with one pump of the Lottabody Styling Moose or Foaming Moose. Let me back up. I go in with the Leaven Conditioner, the Style Milk, and then I go in with the Moose. Then I use just the Eco Styler Gel towards the ends of my hair that right there, I'm rolling up. I'm sorry, you guys. I didn't realize the gel was right in front of the camera. But anyway, taking my time to roll it up. This footage is fast forwarded it. Sometimes I'm combing up my ends, but since my hair is fairly straight and not that tangled, not really. I'm using some hair oil along the ends and just taking my time. So you know what I decided to do is I went back and decided to two strand my hair at the root, which I'm glad I did. And then I stopped midsection. And then I used the roller. So you see here, two strand twisting using the roller to roll it up. I don't go all the way up just right where I started to twist. And this is going to create just a very pretty look towards the end when I start to take down the roller. So I'm going to hush up and let you guys enjoy the rest of the video. Going to unwrap all my hair oil here to prevent frizz. Girl, there's a hair ball at the bottom of this and it has some hair spray. So let's get into this. This is fairly easy to sleep on. Nothing was hard. It was really soft. See what the first one looks like. Look at that. This basically means that this style is not going to last one day and that's it. I could probably get two days if I go in with like a flexi rod the night before and large sections and roll them up. But I'm really not concerned about it. We were just going out for this night and I just wanted it a little cute spring style. So again, this is the other side taking my time. Honestly, I probably could have separated once or twice. Some sections I'm doing about four times because I'm looking for a lot of volume, girl, a lot of volume. Taking a pic again going in at the root and then grandma put that pic down and use my hands and basically kind of stretch it out at the root. And then yeah, I'm going to use some hairspray towards the end. That didn't really do anything child, but a little bit of hairspray to try to get some hold. And that is it for this hairstyle. That was a bobby pin to keep that hair out of my face. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Take care. We expect especially this is cute. This is cute. It's not gonna last. It's very bouncy, very soft. Yeah, look at that. I can hide imperfections. I can literally take a bobby pin or there you go and curl me back up and I'm like that. So girl, the bag. So that is it everyone. Thank you so much for watching. Take care. Bye.


With a continued thrust towards increasing the food security and sustainability of the nation, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development, in collaboration with the Taiwan Technical Mission, recently held a mango festival at Constitution Park to promote the use of local mango. The event featured a wide variety of mangoes, with 24 participants given a platform to promote their mango products, which included mango powder, mango syrup, mango pops and mango body butters. A component of the festival also included a mango culinary competition for students enrolled in the Women Empowerment Programme at the Sir Afaloos Community College, of which the winners were given an opportunity to display their dishes at the festival. Ambassador of the Republic of China Taiwan to St. Lucia, His Excellency Peter Chai and Chen offered the Government of Taiwan support for continued collaboration to ensure food security remains a priority. With climate change affecting the world at a fast growing pace, we must learn to appreciate the value of what nature gives us, including the food, and we must learn to appreciate the value of turning wastage into creative business ideas. Through the festival, the harvested mangoes and other local fruits can be used more creatively and appreciated more. And I wish to thank the Ministry of Agriculture for consistently partnering with the Taiwan Technical Mission to create programs that promote agricultural diversity and food security. The joint collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Taiwan Technical Mission also saw the launch of a redesigned mango recipe book featuring dishes from chefs around the island as well as Taiwanese cuisine. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development, Honourable Alfred Prosper, notes that in addition to promoting the consumption of local products, the Ministry is working to improve the production processes through the development of processing plants. The Ministry has paired the Food Security Drive by undertaking initiative such as this one where we promote the use of local products and their use as viable alternatives and substitutes. Mango is a very versatile fruit and can be used in the green form, ripe or dried, and can be used in many other ways such as smoothies, juices, salads, purées, ice creams and for garnishing etc. During the mango season we often hear the lamentation of our people as to why there are so many mangoes wasting away at the side of our roads. Definitely we are unable to consume all of those fruits during the ripening window. This therefore calls for more processing facilities, more storage and of course reiterates the need for sale and export strategy. Minister Prosper encouraged the public to discover innovative ways to include mango in their diet as we work to strengthen the country's food security and sustainability. From the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.


You know Dr. Brick one question I would have for you is You do have a clear and I would say a pure view of how life would be better But you know you sort of wonder how you can you can get there We talked about it a little bit earlier, but we do have this very polarized country We have a lot of different perspectives. How would we ever get everybody on board to take out all the regulation? We have so many winners and losers in the existing system It cannot be done unless there are fundamental changes in the way Americans think about the world I mean I'm under no illusion that we could cut some kind of deal and and and start moving the country in my direction And again, I believe the right has lost every Significant battle about government intervention since probably 1913 since the Woodrow Wilson administration I can't remember a victory that the right has had other than deregulation during the Carter administration and then under Reagan There's almost been no victories on the right because I think the right is not staked out a position So they were against they were against the New Deal and they folded They were against the Great Society and they folded They were against everything that the Democrats put in that the left put in and they folded on it And and and loaded up on it like part D of Medicare under George Bush They doubled up on it. They they grew it or saw Bains-Oxley under Bush, you know bigger regulatory state with no real with no huge cost So I think the way to move the country in that direction is to question fundamental beliefs and again I think part of that is this notion that today we see both on a Trump campaign and on the Sanders campaign and on the Clinton campaign is is a general view of collectivism both right and left I was horrified for example when McCain came out of the Republican National Convention eight years ago with the slogan country first now to me country first is a fascist slogan America's not fascist America's not about country first America's about in its original intent about the individual first Individual rights the government is there to serve us. It's our servant. It's there to protect us. It's there to eliminate Wealth that is created by fraud suddenly the inequality if you want to call it that created by Bernie Madoff shouldn't have been allowed to occur Right. He should he went to jail as a consequence and probably should be in a caught a lot lot earlier than he was So that's the job of the government. That's what the government is there to do It's to protect us and Until Americans are willing to accept that much more limited role of government and and this goes back I mean this goes to a much more fundamental issue which is a moral issue, right? That the that the center of morality that the focal point of morality is not the collective good. It's not the good of others It's not Society's well-being the common good the public interest all these terms which in my view mean very little other than the pressure group Politics that are behind them and at the end of the day This country was founded on a new vision of the good for the individual and that the good for the individual Fundamentally is to be left alone is to be free free to pursue his happiness in the way He chooses to pursue it and sometimes that leads to great wealth and sometimes it doesn't but it's not the government's Society's job to then come in and and rejigger that


Hi everybody, Dr. O. In this video I want to cover two more historical figures. So we have Anton or Anthony Van Luenhoek who just quickly is credited with creating the microscope that was first able to visualize microbes. And then we have Robert Hook and you'll see that he's kind of the father of the origin of the cell theory. So we'll dive in a little more detail there, but that's kind of the basics of these two. So this here is Anthony Van Luenhoek and let me go ahead and show you his microscope. That's more important. So this looks like nothing, but you have to understand this guy. He was not a scientist. He was not educated. I believe he was a janitor and ran a dry good store. I think they called it a haberdashery, but he was a master at grinding lenses. So this is an example of a simple microscope. There's just a single ball-like lens in the center of that. But we don't know exactly for sure, but the magnification on his microscopes was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 270 to 400x, which 400x is as far as we can get on our compound microscopes today without using immersion oil. So pretty amazing. So he was not... I want to make sure it's very clear. He was not the first person to create microscopes. There were scientists and quote-unquote experts that were designing microscopes, but no one could reproduce what he did. So I find it kind of interesting. So we'll compare him to Robert Hook and he was actually these national countries and scientific organizations sent him the task to create microscopes. And he did create very good microscopes, but he couldn't reproduce what Anthony Van Luenhoek was doing. So this guy, again, it's also kind of interesting that he wasn't a scientist because scientists of the day were doing some strange things, right? They were doing tests on ground unicorn horn and things like that. So sometimes it's better to kind of look at things from the outside. So he was a different character. When he used one of these microscopes, he would leave the specimen on it and he would just make another one. So he made hundreds of these microscopes. He never let anyone touch them. He never let anyone use his favorites. So he would basically use them and then make a new one and these kind of things. But imagine being this man that every time he looked through his microscope, he was the first human being to see it. We had no idea what was going on around us until he showed up. As far as he first saw things like animals or what he called animal cules or wretched beasts in rainwater. He loved looking at tooth scrapings. He was the first person to ever see a human capillary or at least capillary beds. He discovered human sperm. So anytime he looked through his microscope, he was probably the first human being to ever see it. And that's pretty amazing. So that's Anthony Van Luenhoek and his simple microscopes. Just remember, he did not invent the microscope. He invented the first microscope that could actually see the microbial world. All right. And then we do have Robert Hook. So here's Robert Hook's microscope, much more complicated. This is a compound microscope like the ones that we use in lab. Remember compound microscopes have multiple lenses in them. And he could see amazing things, but nowhere near what Anthony Van Luenhoek. Let me show you an example of what he saw. So this would be some cork cells that he was looking at. So he is giving credit for being the father of the cell theories. Let me tell you the two parts of the cell theory. The cell theory says, number one, all living things are composed of cells. And number two, all cells come from preexisting cells. So this might not sound like a very big deal, but you have to understand the time they were in. They didn't believe this. Well, I'll do a separate video about this. But they believed that life came from nothing, came from a life force, not from preexisting life. So he's given credit for being the father of the cell theory. But I also have to make it clear that the cell theory was not proven by him. He discovered cells. He called themselves, these little boxes. This is cork, actually. So he discovered the cell or named the cell. But the cell theory itself was proven much later. But I still want you to know that he's the father of the cell theory. So that's Anthony Van Luenhoek, the creator of the first microscope that could see the microbial world, and Robert Hook, the father or originator of the beginning, at least, of the cell theory. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.


The Government of St. Lucia omits increasing cases of COVID-19 in country as implemented stricter measures to prevent and control the spread of the virus. These measures include a state of emergency which came into effect on Wednesday 3rd February 2021, for an initial period of 7 days, allowing for the further restriction of movement with a curfew from 7pm to 5am from Wednesday 3rd February as well. Additionally, only essential services will be allowed to operate during this period. The St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture has thrown its support behind the Government of St. Lucia. Karen Peter is the President of the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce. Based on our consultation and information at our disposal, the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture wishes to indicate that we support the implementation by Government of additional and more stringent restrictions on movement of citizens for a stated period to control and minimize the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The Chamber supports the extension and further limiting of non-essential commercial activity during that period aimed at limiting non-essential movement of people. We also look forward to more assertive police enforcement of all law related to the COVID-19 virus. We are equally convinced that if proper implemented and recommended protocols faithfully followed, this will be in the best long-term interests of business, citizens and the economy. The President notes that despite the negative impact on the business community, the health and well-being of the public remain paramount. Our members recognize the invaluable contribution of their team members to the success of their businesses. Our members also understand that the safety and well-being of team members and customers must remain in the forefront. Thus, we wish to say that we support the steps being taken by the Government to address the backlog in testing and provision of results to persons. We note the efforts to procure a technician from Trinidad and Tobago to make additional equipment functional. The hiring of additional administrative staff to support the work of the lab and the decision to divert testing for tourists to private labs, thus easing pressure on the public facilities, and we must continue to look for ways to improve this even further wherever possible. President of the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture Karen Peter.


Welcome to the Sports Playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I'm your host, Angela Hazelett, and today I'm joined by my co-host, Beth Piles. Today's guest is Winky Day, a former Dragon Boat Racer and now a coach of Blind Paradragon Boat Racing Team. Today we're going to discuss Dragon Boat Racing paddling the way. Welcome Winky. Thank you. This is Winky. How are you today? We're doing great. We're doing great. I'm really excited to share with our guests a little bit more about Dragon Boat Racing and you have quite a bit of an experience in this sport. Tell me a little bit about Dragon Boat Racing and your experience as both a paddler and a coach. Okay. I began Dragon Boating after being introduced at a festival event through my work, part of the diversity program and it only took one race and I was hooked. It's part of a bit by the dragon, what we call, or I get addicted to paddling. It's either the adrenaline or it affected your neurological system to the point where you just can't stop. You want to tell us a little bit about what Dragon Boat Racing is? Okay. Dragon Boat Racing actually can be back to over 2000 years ago. It was originated in China and the Chinese politician or poet had taken his own life and there's a legend where the fishermen in the area quickly ran to the shore and began beating drums and splashing their paddles on the water to stop the fish and the evil spirits from consuming his body. They didn't want their beloved politician to be eaten by the fish and they continued the sport in honor of him and every festival they do an eye dotting ceremony in his honor. Now it is a race and it is sprint racing and where you, the Chinese, every lunar year they do this and race all the teams, it's a team building experience. It can be historically thought of for agricultural purposes where you could get the teams together and then they would do the planting season for the rice and it could also now be used as corporate incentives for businesses to build their teams to get programs done. It's interesting a lot of history that's kind of been revived into more of a modern day type of sport. That is very interesting indeed. Yes, it's very interesting to be part of it. So you specifically coach a blind or visually impaired group of athletes who do the Paradragon boat racing. Are there any athletes that are in the boat that are sighted? They have different levels or different variations of the team work or framework for the Paradragon division. They have what they call a PD-1 in which would be Paradragon-1 if all the members are in some way impaired. Now they don't have to have the same impairment, it can be anything from hearing loss or eyesight loss or a finger even or even PTSD, neurological problems. And then there is a PD-2 division and that describes where you have mixed, unimpaired and impaired paddlers and it's usually 10 and 10 in a standard boat. If it's a small boat it would be then 5 and 5 and then there is the PD-3 which would be all the same impairment. And so that's really the key difference between Paradragon and Dragon boat racing is the level of the kind of the point system and the combination of impairments that are occupying a particular boat. The communication is really important during races. So talk to me about how do you communicate particularly it's got to have a lot of wind and noise. A drum beat to kind of keep the boat moving and I'm sure there's a lot of shouting going on during these races. They talk to me about communication and how you are effective at communicating with people for both performance and for safety purposes. Well in the beginning when we begin training these folks or what we call newbies you have to I deal with just strictly the blind paddlers but we try to get them to do the same thing the same time and to do that we have to introduce them to the paddle how they feel they have to feel it and you have to explain the different parts of the paddle so that they understand that and then you have to put them in and vote and explain their seating arrangement that they have a sided steerer and a sided drummer and that they give the commands for them to participate in the race. We also train many many many times before we take them out on end to a race because they have to know the calls for movements and any kind of a racing situation you have different sections that you use in a race like we have start and and then we have the body of the race and then we have a finish and they get to learn all of those it takes several years to develop a very good a premier level paddler which we have successfully done with a few of our members but every year you get a changeover because new people come in so it's probably makes it probably makes it a little challenging when you have new people coming in and you're teaching them the sports maybe maybe some like you've gotten involved in the sport later in life and that communication piece is is really critical you mentioned doing a lot of training beforehand before they compete but even during training sessions are there other boats on the water that you're looking out for that may sort of complicate the training session a little bit I'm imagining it's not a closed course correct no no you have boat wake you have wind you have challenges with the with the 12 and you have to explain to them or they can even feel it that I mean they can feel a lot especially the more more often that they're out there they they understand what's happening but it's just to know that they're in a boat first of all they're where they have to have their feet planted and how they angle their blade into the water how they get to their hands wet you know knowing where the the blade and where the the spoon or the bill of the blade ends and where the shaft begins and and how they hold their hands at different sections of the of the training I usually we usually go through the catch and then we give them the pull position pull positions we run them through all of those and the exit because if they don't exit at the right time then they're going to throw the the entire boat off so it's it's very tactile are there different strategies when you're coaching a team with such a wide emotional and physical spectrum ranging between the ages of 12 and 80 I'm assuming there's got to be some challenges in there always um youth tend to be less less focused as the elder elder folks but um even even um getting them to to it's just more of a repetitive motion that you have to drill in it's a lot of drills but they'll they'll catch on and the more they do it they they grow into it are there any specific challenges or techniques associated when steering the actual dragon boat itself steering it there's challenges when when you have other boats um next to you or or if they they're coming towards you you have to avoid them but then you don't want to be out of your lane so you have to stay in your lane sorry in 2011 there were two dragon boats that capsized during a race and after they were trying to rescue the racers from the water the police boat also capsized due to all of the panicking racers trying to climb a board at once what are some safety measures that are in place to protect the athletes in case any accidents or capsizing happens well actually all of the paddlers must wear pfds especially when it comes to to the um impaired and pfds you're talking about personal flotation devices the the life jackets that they have to wear is part of the safety measures it's a safety measure yes personal flotation devices are required at any festival um it's just what happens is that somebody panics um usually there's other boat chase boats that come along but we teach them to stay with the boat these boats will stay afloat and and and we tell them they are to stay with the boat and not to and wait for the the crew to to rescue pull them out we actually do um some training within um local pools where we get them especially when people don't know how to swim or never been in water even some of them so we get them accustomed to floating in a pfd first of all and then we have where we have um people on the side of the side to pull them out by their pfds so they understand um how to react and we do a lot of where they they stay they huddle together so that they don't get float away they stay with the boat so that they can be rescued properly that's pretty incredible that someone who may not be comfortable in the water or even know how to swim is willing to get on a boat particularly if they're visually impaired or or does that make it easier if if they have an impairment maybe uh are they less frightened of the water at that point what has been your experience people who don't have a strong swimming background becoming a paddler they usually we don't have that many cap sizes or or problems with with um the in these races because as a professionalism there is involved um of course there there will be accidents especially if there's there's weather related incident um problems that happen like currents change um you can you can start out at flat in the morning and then the afternoon you've got swells so and letting them know to don't stop paddling is one of the keys is because that's when you become unstable um but if you keep everybody keeps their weight to their side of the boat it should stay out and they can put place their paddles and in such a way that that it will ballast the boat we call it brace the boat it puts their blades flat on top of the water there's a lot of terms that they have to learn and how to hold their paddles they need to know how to to draw or like to pull the boat one way or help out if you if somebody slipped if your steers slipped out at least you'd have somebody giving you a call how to get them to maneuver the boat to a shoreline or someplace where they that they could be um get someone else to help them I would imagine you probably have to consider weight on each side of the boat is that part a factor in how you strategize organizing the athletes and arranging them on the boat yes we do we do have to we must that's part of the safety also is is having the right ballast in the boat and we have certain sections that we we can't we um have to put put the weight adjustments for for the strongest paddlers and some of the um lighter weight people that so that that just keeps it even on both sides and front to back but when you're practicing do the athletes move around a different position and you do kind of try to audition them in different places and get them some experience they get auditioned throughout the season it's more um we don't usually and actually in a smaller boat you want the weight up front because there's more of a bow and and more of a standard boat you would probably you would um want it more towards more weight towards the center and um or the back of the boat slightly it's just um there's certain degrees and we have we have a calculator that we use to um adjust for that so there's math involved i'm hearing you say you have to do some math as part of your coaching expertise always i said i i get angry sometimes because when we set up a a practice i and they've signed up to to come out i know what their weights are general ideas and i put them in a seat and if they don't they don't show up i have to rearrange the uh the boat to to accommodate it quite literally the balancing act of of everything there and let's talk about that a little bit when people are they sign up to come and and to train but these are volunteers right they're doing it because they enjoy it and so you sort of have to be flexible and go with the flow as far as their schedules how how does that factor into how you're able to train and and prepare yourself adequately for competition well it's a it's a balancing act we yeah we have to um be be fluid because you have to to get them out on the water and make sure that they understand what they need to do and do their work um we we often they often have problems in earlier years because of transportation wasn't as easy as it is now now they have lists and and you have cell phones whereas before it wasn't always like that we had to use phone trees to make sure everybody was coming and calling them and and scheduling it um now it's it's done through apps where we have them sign up and and if they can notify us by a certain time we can either um say um rearrange the lineup or or give give um cancel out the whole whole practice because we don't have enough people to come even out so we have to have at least um eight people I think in a standard boat to take one out um and probably at least um four or five no six in the stand in the smaller boat because it's it's easier it's more more uh tendency to be a little more tippy I should say than a standard boat yeah and you would need your drummer and your steer so those would be kind of critical yeah we always I mean we always have those set those are set those are our sighted people those are our volunteers and um we we schedule it for the same usually the same day of the week or night evenings we do evenings and weekends usually on Saturdays and Sundays and at least one day during the week so paddle boats are pretty large how do you go about getting your boat to and from practices and races well um well most um festivals promoters they have the boats they're available for you so you don't have to take the boats but we do take the equipment um some of us some of our paddlers have their own paddles they've they've gotten accustomed to using different carbon fiber versus the old stout old wooden type they also have we have their own some of them buy their own um personal floatation devices because at these festivals you've got all of these clip-ons that aren't really the just the right size for you so they they go out and get their own you can use paddling gloves that helps um to to avoid getting blisters or calluses if you paddle a lot and they they um they get we arrange to either carpool some of our folks or at times we have to run a bus to go someplace and or arrange airfare which requires quite a bit of planning yeah even the transportation of those athletes to to practice can be challenging if they're they're visually impaired they won't be able to drive themselves to practice so is transportation to and from training an issue they um currently just having um like so they use public transportation we have to have a site that that's pretty much um accessible to a a um subway system or that they have metropolitan bus services that takes them to to a particular location and then we have volunteers that um go pick them up um currently a lot of them have been coming more self-sufficient and can find know how to count their steps or or um where to turn where they're located so that they can get down to where we're located to our um paddling dock that's great um I wonder do you ever have issues with the weather like how do the weather conditions affect the safety of your races and your practices do you guys have a special way of monitoring that well if it rains you're going to get wet as long as there's not um lightning and thunder now if there's any thunder or lightning while we're um it becomes like that we have to get off the water immediately and we usually will wait until you have to wait at least a half an hour between um thunder thunder or lightning that you have to wait until you you can get back out on the water but we don't like to miss we don't like to miss many many practices yeah do you guys have a special uh service that you use to monitor the weather or like for big races and things are there specific people there in case of any type of bad weather they they they monitor the radar systems coming across the um internet uh they use NOAA a lot of times and the marine forecast forecast with radar um you have to be careful have to watch the tide sometimes um if it gets too high you can't take them out because or there's a lot of current or something like that we don't it makes it difficult to steer so we unless we have an a established crew you don't want to take newbies out in that kind of situation so we um we have it set up we are in our app that if you sign up and there's there's a bad storm coming like that last week there was a tornado warning so we had to cancel or postpone it for the next night so um we let them know at least um by by an hour or two before the the practice begins because some of them have to start out an hour or two beforehand so we have to let them know in advance yeah it might be sufficient for for like a training exercise but what about in a competition where people have to be there early get on the water early maybe be staged and ready to go i would imagine it would be pretty complicated to call everybody back in off the water what are the protocols if weather kind of comes up and unexpectedly disrupts the the competition it is still the half hour rule that they go with um but they do um and nationals we were in Tampa which is the lightning capital of the world i think yes they that they would call you off the why if they they know i mean they're really hooked into the to the um that the um weather systems that come across there so they know if it's coming and that they'll stop the the races and then hold it until they know that it's clear because a lot of those those storms blow through and there's they don't stay there but it depends on it varies from area to area and it's just a um club ruling or a or like i said the festival um festival promoters they have to make these decisions um a lot of times they'll they'll take if it is a race and and they have to cancel after the second heat they'll take an average out what everybody's times were and award the winners from those they're they're their first couple heat not always cut and dry but it's the best you know if they know that they have a timeline they can't continue on the next day or something like that absolutely so winky i'm curious sport has a long history behind it but i'm curious what you see as the future for dragon boat racing para dragon racing what what do you see for the future any kind of emerging trends or developments in the sport that we should be aware of well they have um they have considered they have their own um championship races and then they have world championship races um and it really depends on if they did want to continue to to um try to bring groups larger groups like having a standard boat versus a small boat or having two clubs having uh boats teams or team members on boats a standard and a a small boat rather than just go to like a 12 man boat instead of trying to do 20 and or both 20 and a 10 man boat so if anything i think that they will probably um make a a a specific size and go with that if it gets really big fortunately it's not i mean it's all over the world but i don't think that um everybody's ready to give up you know their their specialty some people do better in small boats and some people do better in the large boat or maybe some efficiency or common ground and i mean imagine that'd be uh easier to coordinate in the long run well winky thank you so much for your insight into dragon boat racing paddling the way we thank you for your time today well you're most welcome and uh i wish i said i wish i had a specific answer for everything but it get i mean it's it's kind of um where you it's constantly changing um and and your team changes because your your your ages and and and uh backgrounds come come into effect um we have become a more competitive team whereas we start out just a accessible team in our club so it's really nice it makes it for an interesting sport when there is a lot of diversity of people participating so thank you for your time and and thanks to my co-host Beth Piles today thanks for being here and thank you to our viewers for joining us today we will see you next time on the sports playbook