The World and Everything in It: December 21, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today, we recap and analyze some of the top political stories of the year.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, WORLD Tour.

Plus meet the man behind a stunning neighborhood Christmas-lights show.

And WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the power of one.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, December 21st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Title 42 » As border towns continue to brace for an even greater flood of migrants across the southern border, the Biden administration says it still wants to pull the plug on the Title 42 rule.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby…

KIRBY: We have been planning for the expiration, as you might expect we would. Now, that expiration has been put on hold by the Supreme Court. We have to obey the law of the land.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep the rule in place for the moment. The administration Tuesday asked the court to lift the rule, but to delay the move until after Christmas.

Title 42 is a pandemic-era rule that allows the government to more easily expel some migrants who cross the border.

Despite record high traffic across the border, the rule has helped to mitigate traffic to some extent. Oscar Leeser is mayor of the Texas border town of El Paso.

LEESER: The shelters in Juarez are completely full today. And they believe there’s about 20,000 people ready to come into El Paso.

Homeland Security estimates that as many as 14,000 migrants could attempt to cross the border every day once the rule is lifted.

Govt funding bill » On Capitol Hill, lawmakers in the Senate Tuesday unveiled a $1.7 trillion dollar spending bill that would fund the government through next September.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER: This package represents an aggressive and essential investment in American families, American workers, and in our national defense.

The package includes another large round of aid to Ukraine and a nearly 10% boost in defense spending to more than $850 billion. It also includes nearly another $800 billion for non-defense and discretionary programs.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

MCCONNELL: I’m proud of the fact that with a Democratic president, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate, we were able to achieve essentially all of our priorities.

Lawmakers worked to stuff as many priorities as they could into the sprawling 4,000-page bill. Critics say it’s loaded with billions of dollars in pork and pet projects, adding to a spiraling national debt.

Trump responds to Jan 6 committee » Former president Donald Trump says the House select Jan. 6th committee just gave his 2024 campaign a boost. WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Trump, on his Truth Social platform said that the more Democrats come after him, the more supporters rally around him. He said, “It strengthens me.”

He also called the committee illegitimate and said its proceedings are just “a partisan attempt to sideline” him.

The panel announced on Monday that it’s recommending to the Justice Dept. four criminal charges against Trump tied to the Capitol riot.

For WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Zelenskyy to DC » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reportedly set to visit Washington D.C. tonight. That according to the Associated Press, citing several sources.

ZELENSKYY: [Ukrainian]

Zelenskyy did not announce the visit on Tuesday. But he’s heard here telling Ukrainian troops on the front lines that a flag they autographed will be passed on to President Biden and Congress.

If Zelenskyy delivers that flag in person, it will be his first trip outside of Ukraine since Russia invaded in February.

U.S. raids in Syria » American forces conducted three raids in eastern Syria and arrested six ISIS militants. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: U.S. Central Command said Tuesday that the raids took place over 48 hours.

Officials identified one of the detained militants as “al-Zubaydi.” They say he is a senior ISIS leader.

U.S. Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla said “The capture of these ISIS operatives will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out destabilizing attacks.”

There are some 900 U.S. troops in Syria supporting Kurdish-led forces in the continued fight against ISIS.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Colorado wildfire » In Colorado, authorities have ordered thousands of people to evacuate their homes in the foothills west of Boulder. That after a building caught fire and the flames quickly spread.

Jason Oehlkers with the Boulder County Sheriff’s office said there is some snow on the ground in the area. But…

OEHLKERS: The wind is howling up there, really strong gusts, and I think that’s just making it really complicated.

The fire threatens hundreds of homes and other buildings.

The Red Cross has set up a shelter for local residents and their pets.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the top political stories of the year.

Plus, behind the scenes of a drive-by Christmas display.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s the 21st of December, 2022. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Just a week and a half, that’s all that’s left of our December Grassroots Giving Drive. We’re more than three-quarters of the way there—closing in, getting so close—but if you haven’t taken the time to give yet, I hope you’ll do it today.

EICHER: WNG.org/donate is the place to go. Before you do, take a moment and think about what it means to have this program available to you each weekday. Then put a dollar value on that. That’s what we’re doing in this December Grassroots Giving Drive.

You rely on us, and we rely on you. That’s how it works.

REICHARD: Alright. It’s time now for Washington Wednesday. Today, a look back at some of the top political stories of the year from the “Twitter files” to the midterm elections and more.

But we’ll start with the most recent news.

The Jan. 6th House committee this week recommended to the Justice Department criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.

EICHER: But in truth, the Justice Department doesn’t need any help from Congress. It conducts its own investigations. And as committee chairman Bennie Thompson admitted, there isn’t really much lawmakers can do here.

So this really has been a trial in the court of public opinion, with televised proceedings, some of them strategically scheduled during primetime viewing hours.

Here to talk about that and much more is Matt Klink. He is a political strategist and president of Klink Campaigns.

REICHARD: Matt, good morning!

MATT KLINK, GUEST: Hi Mary. Good morning.

REICHARD: Well, Donald Trump just responded to the Jan. 6th committee’s criminal referral and said he thinks this will help him for 2024, that his supporters will rally around him.

Some have suggested that Democrats are okay with that if Trump is right because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that Trump would be the easiest Republican to beat in 2024. What are your thoughts on the effect of the committee’s announcement and what is the Democrats’ political strategy in all of this?

KLINK: Chairman Thompson’s comments are spot on. This whole charade that the Democratic House with two Republicans to give it the patina of bipartisanship of the January 6 committee has been a singular assault on Donald Trump and those surrounding him on January 6. It was a foregone conclusion that they were going to recommend some type of criminal charges against him. There was no pretense of balance to it. That being said, look, the people that support Donald Trump will continue to rally to his side, although I will say after 2022, that number appears to be smaller, and those that don't like Donald Trump, Republicans, Democrats, and particularly independents alike, they're going to continue to use this as another reason to vote against him. Donald Trump is unquestionably the most polarizing figure in American politics.

REICHARD: Another major political event was Donald Trump’s presidential campaign announcement right after the midterms. Why do you think he chose to announce so early and was that a smart move in your view?

KLINK: I don't think it was a smart move. I mean, what his early declaration does is it scares people out of the race. And the only conceivable way that Donald Trump could get the Republican nomination for president is by getting as many people to enter the presidential contest as possible, because Donald Trump knows that he brings a set group of people to the table. And by entering early, he scares off some of those people and he makes a smaller field. And head-to-head or Donald Trump running against two or three other Republicans, it creates some real problems for Donald Trump. Again, I have questioned his political decision making for quite some time. And he has been right sometimes and he has been catastrophically wrong others. I just don't see the logic behind him declaring early other than the fact that he missed being in the news and wanted to get some press coverage about himself after the disaster that was the 2022 elections.

REICHARD: Well, we’re not trying to make the whole conversation about Trump. But in truth, Democrats really tried to make the midterm elections about two things: Donald Trump and abortion.

Several Trump-endorsed candidates lost, particularly in big Senate races. Do you think that the midterm outcome damaged Trump’s standing within the party?

KLINK: The midterms unquestionably damaged Donald Trump. I mean, if you look at exit polling from across the United States, people voted in the midterms and they voted to cast the vote in opposition to Donald Trump. Meaning that they looked at Trump-endorsed candidates, particularly in three states that were infinitely winnable for Republicans—Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona—and Republicans lost all three. And it was directly related to poor candidate quality. And I know the Trump supporters said oh, he won more seats than he lost. Trump won seats where Republicans were going to win whether or not Trump got involved. The places where Trump was vocal and played a significant role in selecting the candidate, we lost. And that bodes very, very poorly for Donald Trump. I mean, look, the reality is, Donald Trump got more Republican votes than any Republican presidential candidate in history. But he also helped the Democratic candidate get more votes ever in history. And again, he's so polarizing that people will vote against the Republicans simply because they think that Donald Trump is close to them. And that is not a recipe for success for a political party.

REICHARD: But in practicalities of life, quality of life- under Trump, the economy was humming along, food prices were good, gas prices were good. It seems we allow media narratives that we know are biased, case in point the Twitter files. What happened?

KLINK: You’re right. I mean, look, you have history, the Republicans had history working on their side, that the party in power, particularly with an unpopular president, they tend to lose seats in the midterm elections. The Republican gains in the House were proportionately smaller than normal and the Senate, they actually lost ground, they lost a seat. And from the research that I've done, just from obviously reading, but then talking to friends that were actively involved in races across the United States, that people, they didn't particularly care for Joe Biden's "solution" or lack thereof. In fact, they're deeply troubled by it. But they were also worried and they just couldn't pull the lever or fill in the bubble for some Republican candidates that were considered outside of the mainstream. And, look, candidate quality is hugely important. And Republicans will not vote just because someone has an R behind their name. And they have now demonstrated that. And they prove that again in 2022. I mean, we should have picked up a seat in Arizona. We should have picked up a seat in Georgia. And we should have picked up a seat in Pennsylvania. And we were 0-for-three in those seats, largely because we had bad candidates. And that goes directly into how our candidates are selected. In this case, that rests with Donald Trump. So, look, the media narrative is always powerful. But there's always been a counter-narrative that Republican and advertising executives and gurus have been able to get across to the electorate. The voters just couldn't get past the fact that these candidates were not of the quality that one would expect.

REICHARD: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His profile had been growing for some time, but it really took off after the elections. The “red wave” did in fact happen, but just in Florida.

Recent polls now suggest that he might be the new frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. What does Matt Klink think?

KLINK: Ron DeSantis's stock rose considerably after 2022. I mean, even prior to election day, Governor DeSantis, and to a lesser extent Governor Abbott in Texas, they lead the counter programming to the extreme left on any number of issues, whether it's the response to COVID, wokeness in the public school systems, immigration, et cetera. And look, Ron DeSantis comes out of this stronger. He comes out with a forceful message. I know that he's feared by Democrats across the board because he doesn't carry the baggage that Donald Trump has. He's much quicker on his feet. And he obviously won in an very, very large, large state that was a swing state. Although Florida at this point, I think you can pretty safely say that it's in the red column. But no, Ron DeSantis looks very, very strong heading into 2024. But there's a lot of time between now and the actual official campaigning, so he needs to govern his state and continue to differentiate himself from states like California and New York and Washington state and Oregon and Massachusetts.

REICHARD: Another big political story this year was Elon Musk’s release of the so-called “Twitter files.” They revealed political bias within big tech and that shadow banning of conservatives on Twitter really was real. Matt, your reaction to those revelations?

KLINK: It was highly, highly disturbing and a number of us had suspected that the government was putting its finger on the scale. And the reality I think is even worse than what we suspected. There's direct links from the FBI to Twitter. And mind you, that's only Twitter we haven't even gotten to look at Meta, formerly known as Facebook, or Google. But you know, they had millions of dollars devoted to pulling down content that they found just tasteful. I mean, look, the classic example of the New York Post, the nation's oldest newspaper, getting pulled down for weeks for trying to publicize an article about Hunter Biden's laptop that 50 intelligence representative said was classic Russian disinformation, that now they've also come out, you know, the newspapers have all come out to say, well, the stories were actually accurate. I mean, it's undoubted that they influenced the 2020 election. And I do think that, look, the fact of one party rule in Washington DC means that the Democrats have been focused on one thing and one thing only, and that's January 6 and Donald Trump. I think that you're going to see the House be much more aggressive, and really needling down on the COVID-19 issue, as well as some of this big tech stuff. Because they're just too close. The former chief legal counsel for the FBI is the same person that then is at Twitter, and his screening emails that are being made public, even with Elon Musk in control until he's finally fired. I mean, that's how third world puppet dictatorships operate. It's not how the greatest democracy in the world is supposed to work. So we clearly need a housecleaning at FBI. And no government entity should be able to put its finger on the scale and influence a presidential election, much less news coverage.

REICHARD: Lastly, let’s talk about the border. This is a humanitarian crisis and a huge political fight, too. We saw Republican governors take a new approach this year, busing or flying a relatively small number of migrants from the border to sanctuary cities. What do you think of the Republican messaging on this issue?

KLINK: The Republican messaging on this issue needs to get more crisp. It's, you know, I think that they've done what they can to highlight the fact that it is a massive problem. I mean, humanitarian, obviously, but national security. I mean, look, the Democrat plan is working. What they want to do is flood as many people into this country as possible. And then the solution will be akin to what happened in 1986 with the Immigration Reform and Control Act. They'll say, oh, we need to grant people amnesty, and it will stop people from coming across in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth. They've been saying we have 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country for the last 20 years. It's probably closer to 25 or 30 million people. And okay, that's only 10% of the US population. But we've let massive amounts of fentanyl come across. We've let convicted terrorists come across or named terrorists, convicted sex offenders, human trafficking is skyrocketing. So Republicans and border states have ramped up this rhetoric. We need the leadership to make this more of an issue and get it off of one news station and onto other more mainstream news stations. Amnesty should never be discussed until the border is secure. And I think that Republicans need to drive that point home. Because if we're a welfare state with open borders like California is, where we're giving education benefits and health benefits and housing benefits. Guess what? These people are desperate. They want what we have. And as much as we would like to help everybody, we can't be the we cannot be the only country doing our part. We do more than enough. We're already the most generous. And we have to do for the American citizen first before we do for people who want to enter this country illegally. And it should never be acceptable for people to come to this country illegally. There are legal ways of doing it. Stand in line, wait your time unless you're a refugee, but again, the people that are flocking at our border right now, they do not meet the criteria of refugees, and the Republican messaging needs to get much much more aggressive on this.

REICHARD: Matt Klink with Klink Campaigns has been our guest. Matt, thanks so much!

KLINK: Thank you very much.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: We begin today in the Democratic Republic of Congo where floods have killed at least 169 people.

AUDIO: [Women crying]

Floodwaters submerged major roads in the capital city of Kinshasa last week, and a landslide cut off a major supply route.

The country observed three days of national mourning.

AUDIO: [Speaking Lingala]

This affected resident said the rain destroyed her home and neighborhood, leaving families to sleep outdoors.

AUDIO: [Water rushing]

Kinshasa has seen a huge population influx in recent years. Some 12 million people now live in the city. Many residents have built shanty homes on flood-prone slopes. Kinshasa also lacks adequate drainage and sewage.

Peru protests — Next, to Peru, where political protests continue.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Protesters are still calling for the release of former president Pedro Castillo. Authorities detained him after his impeachment two weeks ago.

Recently appointed President Dina Boluarte pushed for earlier elections to quell the unrest, but Congress voted against it. Boluarte says she will not step down, and is asking lawmakers instead to reconsider.

The state human rights agency has reported at least 20 deaths and more than 560 injuries. Last week, soldiers protecting the terminal at the airport in Ayacucho opened fire on protesters.

AUDIO: [Speaking Spanish]

This 22-year-old said she came to downtown Lima to call for peace to return to her country.

Meanwhile, the simmering unrest halted transportation and stranded some 4,500 tourists in the country, including Americans. Many of them were in the ancient city of Machu Picchu.

Peter Cambler was among the stranded tourists.

CAMBLER: Then we got back to town, the news broke that the protests were causing trouble, our flights were canceled.

Authorities have coordinated evacuation plans for the tourists and insist the protests are diminishing in intensity.

Nicaragua bishop —— Next, to Nicaragua.

AUDIO: [Choir singing]

Christians there are praying for a Catholic bishop who is now facing charges of conspiracy and propagating false news.

Authorities detained Rolando Álvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa, back in August.

Álvarez heard the formal charges during an unannounced court date last week. The court statement also requested that Interpol issue an alert for the arrest of another priest facing similar accusations.

Leopoldo Brenes is the archbishop of Managua.

AUDIO: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here he has visited Alvarez, who told him about his tranquility and inner peace.

Tensions between President Daniel Ortega’s government and the Catholic Church have grown since 2018 when authorities clamped down on anti-government protests.

World Cup end — We wrap up today at the now concluded World Cup.

AUDIO: [Cheers and fireworks]

Cheers and fireworks rang through the night on Sunday after Argentina defeated France.

The tense game gripped audiences across the world before ending in a dramatic round of penalties.

As crowds of Argentines gathered back home in Buenos Aires to celebrate the victory…similar chants of joy rang out elsewhere.

AUDIO: [Cheering fans]

Venezuelan migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border crowded around a television to watch the final match. And in Shanghai, soccer fans gathered inside a bar to watch the game after authorities lifted COVID-19 restrictions in recent weeks.

This football fan said it was good to see a lot of people out.

AUDIO: There was a huge line outside so I was quite surprised to see that. We were standing in line for half an hour.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

EICHER: I’d like to let you know about Onize’s World Tour newsletter, so you can keep up on international news right in your inbox. Just head over to WNG.org/newsletters and there you can sign up for the weekly World Tour newsletter, among our many others. WNG.org/newsletters, good stuff and it’s free.

NICK EICHER, HOST: OK, this story will likely bring, well, some kind of reaction that you might mistake for emotion.

You be the judge.

First of all, no one was hurt. But a trailer caught fire on a Florida highway this week loaded with three tons of onions. 6,000 pounds.

That’s enough to bring tears to your eyes, right?

You may have wondered why onions produce such a reaction.

It’s because they emit a chemical irritant known as syn-Propanethial-S-oxide, which can irritate the nerves around your eyes.

Anyway, when fire crews arrived, the trailer was fully engulfed. Those onions were really caramelizing and the firefighters doused the flames. And the only person in tears had to be the driver—at a dollar a pound, do the math, yikes.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 21st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Christmas lights.

Not just any old Christmas lights. A multimedia presentation of Christmas lights. WORLD reporter Anna Johansen Brown takes us behind the scenes of a neighborhood drive by display.

WESLEY: What radio station is it supposed to be on?

ANNA: 97. No, 99.7.

BECKETT: Doodle doooo

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: It’s a cold December evening. Not late, but the sun is long set and the dark is well and truly settled. We’re driving through a quiet residential neighborhood: Me and Wesley and Beckett.

ANNA: Point two miles turning right on Venetian Way Circle.

We just got our first real snow of the season, a couple of inches lying thick on rooftops and lawns. Some houses have a wreath on the door, or candles in the window, or lights lining their eaves.

But the house we pull up to is on another level entirely.

ANNA: Hey Beckett! Can you see the lights? WESLEY: Woahhh, look at that.

It’s a two story brick house, bedazzled with twelve giant snowflakes. On the lawn: nine mini Christmas tree cones, two giant Christmas tree cones, two stars on posts, a nativity, and 20 little ground lights scattered through the snow. Each element ripples with colored patterns, all bouncing to a silent beat.

Then we turn on the radio to 99.7.

AUDIO: [RADIO STATIC, MUSIC]

When Mele Kalikimaka comes on, Beckett starts clapping, and the Christmas trees out front light up. Streams of pink, blue, and green swirl back and forth across them like grass skirts. The stars turn green and their posts turn brown, mimicking palm trees.

ANNA: Are you dancing, Beckett? BECKETT: Daaa!

Every year, synchronized light shows pop up in neighborhoods everywhere. This one in Wheaton, Illinois, isn’t the most extravagant display out there, but Brian Petrizak says he wanted it to have a purpose beyond just entertainment.

PIETRZAK: We also like to mix in like Christian Christmas songs that have a focus on Christ, His birth, what he brings to us and hope in his salvation.

Pietrzak is the mastermind behind this lights show. He’s a software developer, and he always thought the displays were intriguing.

PIETRZAK: And each year I would do a little bit more research until I got to the point where I finally was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do this.

He stocked up on lights and light controllers.

PIETRZAK: Basically, there's controller boxes out there with boards. And they control the pixels is what those lights are called. So each pixel has three little lights in it, it's red, green, and blue. And that you can basically, with ratios control whatever color you want for each individual pixel.

Pietrzak uses a software program to tell the pixels what to do. On his computer screen, he brings up a model of the house, then starts layering different effects over it. A blue-green wave of light ripples over the snowflakes and trees, each pixel lighting up in turn.

PIETRZAK: Now if I want to do that, only on the front of the house, I can basically do the group of snowflakes plus the wreath up there. There's different groups I can have with all snowflakes, only the left snowflakes, the right snowflakes…

The program also lets him sync the lights with individual songs. That’s how he can have certain light effects represent different lyrics.

PIETRZAK: I have note onsets in here when things come in, I track the vocals in different music points that I've set in here where I'd like to start different effects…

Pietrzak usually starts programming in October.

PIETRZAK: So go tell it on the mountain, which we added this year, was over 40 hours worth of programming time.

Once everything is programmed, the pixels are all hooked in, and the wiring is finished, it takes Pietrzak another 24 hours to set it all up in the yard. He has to make sure everything is wrapped and waterproofed so he doesn’t get any electrical shorts.

The brains of the operation are in the garage. Pietrzak points out a tiny computer.

PIETRZAK: It’s actually driving the show and telling all the stuff outside what exactly it’s supposed to do. Right? Here's an FM transmitter that allows you to actually send the audio coming from here out to the cars.

Radio regulations allow for hobby broadcasts, you just have to make sure no one else is using that frequency.

The lights show runs on a fifteen minute loop from five to ten PM, and people driving by stop to watch.

PIETRZAK: Thankfully, the neighbors have been very supportive. We didn't really talk to them before we started setting this up.

On week nights, it’s usually two or three cars at any given time. But closer to Christmas, traffic picks up.

PIETRZAK: As we hit this week, before Christmas, you're going to see six to 15 out there, depending upon the night, ​​there are a lot of people that still travel around looking at Christmas lights in neighborhoods.

Tonight, there are three cars, crunching over unplowed snow near the curb.

After a couple of Christmas classics, the show goes dark for a second. Then one of the two Christmas trees turns yellow, with a black zig-zag line around the middle.

WESLEY: Aw, it’s the Charlie Brown shirt.

The next track isn’t a bouncy song…it’s Linus from the 1965 TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas, quoting Luke chapter two. As the track runs, the snowflakes up on the house blaze with light, and the small Christmas trees on the lawn turn white.

ANNA: Oh those are the sheep!

LINUS: And the angel said unto them, Fear not. For behold, I mean the tidings of great joy shall be to all people. For unto you was born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord…That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

BECKETT (interrupting) Doodledoo

ANNA: That’s what Christmas is all about, Beckett.

MUSIC: [Joy to the World]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown in Wheaton, Illinois.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. You may have heard of Brother Andrew, founder of the oldest ministry for persecuted Christians, called Open Doors. Today, WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney reflects on the power of his life—and any life—to change the world for the better.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: As a boy growing up in the Netherlands, Andrew’s imagination brimmed with fantasies about heroic deeds and spy-novel adventures. Imagination propelled him into the army, where he hoped to live out some of his fantasies. Instead he lived out his nightmares, particularly after a massacre of local villagers in which the would-be hero was wounded in the ankle. During a painful and emotionally fraught convalescence, he picked up a Bible.

I was riveted by God’s Smuggler when I finally read it a few years ago. This is the memoir in which Andrew van der Bijl (better known as Brother Andrew) tells his own story of transgression and conversion. His coming to Christ led to heroic deeds with a spy-novel flair, as rich as any in his boyhood imagination, only much more significant. For not only did he smuggle Bibles into totalitarian countries at great personal risk; he also founded Open Doors, an international organization dedicated to serving persecuted Christians.

Last September 27, Brother Andrew passed into glory. I was reading through Romans that week, and I was struck by the repeated emphasis on “one man” in chapter 5. Paul is explaining how sin spread like a lethal virus throughout all humanity by the disobedience of one man (Adam), but the obedience of one man (Jesus Christ) provides the cure. Great evil through one, abundant goodness by another. Thus our souls were diseased, and thus they shall be not only cured, but eternally consequential.

“One man with God is a majority.” Brother Andrew said it, but he may have been consciously echoing John Knox: “A man with God is always the majority.” One Saul of Tarsus, one Amy Carmichael, one William Harvey, one Elizabeth Elliot. One me, one you.

The “Power of One” never operates alone. A believing couple gave Brother Andrew that Volkswagen Beetle in which he crossed the Iron Curtain again and again. A small army facilitated Operation Pearl, during which a million Bibles were ferried into China in one night. Even Jesus used his circles of three, twelve, and 120 to jump-start the church on Pentecost. But the vision often begins with one, whether it’s Adam’s disastrous dream of autonomy or the Father’s gracious plan of redemption.

When I was a young mother, my world felt small, limited by my children’s limitations. But I was still their One. You may feel restricted by small children, by weakness or sickness, by circumstances you can’t control. My world is shrinking again as my husband’s mental abilities decline, but I am his one. I still have power to reach out and affect someone else’s life, in words, in deeds, or in prayer.

Our culture locates both vision and virtue in groups. That’s not entirely wrong, as societies rise and fall together. But group virtue overlooks the potential built into each person. Positive action by one multiplies good for others. Likewise, the failure of one to do good—in the home or in the mayor’s office—often defaults to evil for others. The power is yours. How will you use it?

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: fusion, might it be the first step to limitless clean energy? We’ll talk about it.

And, we’ll bring you the story of this year’s special Capitol Christmas tree.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: When (the Wise Men) saw the child with Mary, his mother, … they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:10 and 11 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.