Listener Feedback: December 2025

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Finally today, we end the week with your Listener Feedback.

We start today with a clarification and a correction.

On December 15th, we covered the historic flooding across the Northwest. We quoted Washington Governor Bob Ferguson saying the state had not faced flooding like this before. True, from a meteorological standpoint—several major rivers did set new records this month.

NICK EICHER, HOST: But listener John Kirk wrote to add some important local context. In parts of Whatcom County, residents faced very similar flooding just four years ago—and some are still waiting for repairs from that disaster. Our listener says many locals are frustrated, feeling that when floods keep coming, the question is not just how severe they are, but whether enough has been done to prepare.

MAST: A quick correction from our December 17th program. While celebrating the 405th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival, we inadvertently bent the space-time continuum. We mistakenly said a quote from President Calvin Coolidge came from the 100th anniversary of the landing.

EICHER: If that were true, “Silent Cal” would have been delivering speeches in 1720—roughly 150 years before he was born. What we meant to say was that his comments were from 100 years ago. So we regret the 200-year bend in the time-space continuum, but we're happy to report that the president was a mere 48 years old at the time, not a centuries-old time traveler.

And now, on to some listener feedback from the present. We begin with this voicemail from Monty Ledford who lives in Aberdeen, Idaho:

MONTY LEDFORD: Your story about the German Village, Ohio, and the pressure on Germans in that first world war was not uncommon in our small farm community. The German speaking Mennonite Pastor was pressured into leaving town in 1920 in spite of the fact that Mennonites were pacifist and the war was over. In wartime passions run high and can incite people to make neighbors into enemies and to do things they may later regret. Thanks for the story and the reminder.

MAST: Next, farmer Carl Palmberg sent us this message after Todd Vician’s story about the latest bailout program for American farmers:

CARL PALMBERG: I live in northwest Iowa and I listen to The World and Everything in It usually while I’m checking my cows or grinding feed for my cows. … And I just wanted to make the comment that I feel like government intervention in our agricultural system has created kind of a false economy. … I think the government support—direct support—for our large commodities … has taken away the ingenuity and creativity of farmers to come up with other crops other than the big commodities. Anyway I enjoy listening to WORLD. Thank you for everything that you do and I look forward to the next episode.

Nick, Matt Brown from Tucson, Arizona, called and left us this message, expressing his gratitude for your recent conversation with Os Guinness.

MATT BROWN: Just such words of profound wisdom and what we need to hear. Letting God be God. And its just its a sobering reminder to me when I get panicked and think “oh my goodness, we have Putin, and China, and we have Ukraine, we have Israel, we have Palestinians, and we have persecution. God is still God. And I so appreciate profound words of wisdom. Thank for those kinds of interviews so much.

EICHER: Last week we put a call out for listeners to leave feedback on their favorite segments of the year, and we have a few of those to highlight today. First, this voicemail from Brittany who lives in Loveland, Colorado.

BRITTANY: I’m just thinking about the segment that George Grant did on J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle Earth. I just love that piece. He’s so clever with his his WordPlay and its so fun to hear him reviewing some of Tolkiens brilliant language. You’ve also done a couple other segments of bookrelated or bookish things that I really enjoyed. You had an interview with Jefferson Fisher, the Next Conversation author. And yeah, I read his book and he just has a lot of really helpful simple tools to help with effective communication that I’ve already used…Your review of the Redeemed Reader publication that Janie B Cheaney and a couple other gals published recently. I look at the beginning to look at book reviews before I have my kids read them and I would never have known that they had published a book unless I heard it from you guys. So Im so appreciative of that. … I also really appreciated just your full coverage of the Israeli conflict and … even I think recently you interviewed a Palestinian Christian. So I just feel like it's a very balanced view of the conflict and gives a lot of perspectives that I don't think I would have gotten anywhere else. So grateful for all you do.

Marvin Fisher from Millersburg, Pennsylvania has a few segments he’s particularly fond of as well…

MARVIN FISHER: I just wanted to give a special shout out to Onize Oduah for the work she does on the weekly segment World Tour. Definitely one of my favorite segments of the weekly cycle. … and pray that her and her family stay safe with all the unrest and violence against Christians that is currently going on in Nigeria. And also wanted to say great job on the musical interludes between segments. I really enjoy those. Keep up the great work you all are doing. I just pray that God can bless each one that hears every daily podcast and just wanted to say thanks again for all that you're doing.

MAST: One more piece of feedback today. This time from Jason Woodard from Southwest Michigan.

JASON WOODARD: I’ve been listening since the podcast was once a week, so for many years it’s my daily routine. I wanted to call and just say thank you for even doing these shows on the holidays. I don’t think that’s something I’ve ever heard anybody show appreciation for, but I know many listeners do appreciate that the fact that you guys still produce the shows on the holidays, and we get to have that as our daily routine even on those days we get to have the day off. So thank you for all your hard work. Thank you for the show. God bless.

Thanks Jason for your kind words. We have a dedicated team to make this program happen, and we’ve shared your gratitude with them all.

EICHER: That’s Listener Feedback for the month of December. Thanks to everyone who called in. If you’d like to comment on a recent segment, send us an email or a recorded message to: editor@wng.org. You can also phone it in: 202-709-9595.

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