The World and Everything in It - December 28, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today, we’ll remember those in the field of religion who made a mark on this world and who left it in 2021.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Plus we’ll meet a sawyer preparing beams for the rebuilding of the Notre Dame cathedral.

And your prayers for the New Year.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, December 28th. 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: Time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: CDC recommends shorter COVID isolation, quarantine for all » The CDC now says that if you test positive for COVID-19, you no longer need to isolate for 10 days. Five will do just fine.

It similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine.

The agency says that because the evidence continues to show that people with the virus are most infectious in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the country is about to see a lot of omicron cases. She said “Not all of those cases are going to be severe. In fact many are going to be asymptomatic.” She added that we want to make sure “we can safely continue to keep society functioning while following the science.”

Last week, the agency shortened the time that healthcare workers who test positive must stay home from 10 days to 7 days. That is if they test negative and have no symptoms. And at facilities with staffing shortages, the isolation period could be five days, or even fewer.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Omicron, storms, disrupt air travel for 4th consecutive day » Many frustrated travelers found themselves stuck at airports once again on Monday as airlines continued to cancel flights for a fourth straight day.

Airlines have pulled the plug on thousands of flights during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. That as more and more employees call in sick with COVID-19.

Lucy Burke was awaiting a flight in Chicago on Monday…

BURKE: One of my best friends is stuck in Mexico right now and their family just tested positive, and they got kicked out of their hotel room, and it’s just a whole disaster.

According to tracking service FlightAware, airlines have canceled more than 4,000 flights to, from or inside the U.S. since Friday with more than 1,000 on Monday alone.

Winter weather wreaks havoc in parts of CA, NV » As if travelers need any more headaches, the weather also impacted many flights on Monday and wreaked havoc on roads in parts of California and Nevada.

A storm over the holiday weekend brought whiteouts to the mountains in Northern California and Nevada. And the winter weather shut down major highways and could snarl traffic in the area for several days.

A 20-car pileup on a highway south of Reno left three people injured on Sunday.

Dustin Norman with the National Weather Service…

NORMAM: Some places have gotten between 3 to 5 feet in total, so it’s been rather active. It’s definitely great for the snow pack. We need all the snow we can get. Sometimes receiving it all at once can cause issues.

Winter weather rolled along most of the U.S. West Coast. The northern end of Puget Sound in Washington reported more than a foot of snow, and other parts of the Pacific Northwest also saw snow over the weekend.

U.S. steps up probe into Hyundai-Kia engine failures and fires » The federal government has stepped up a series of investigations into engine fires that have plagued Hyundai and Kia vehicles for more than six years. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has more.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says a new probe of the engine issues covers more than 3 million vehicles from model years 2011 through 2016.

The vehicle models affected by the engine fires include Hyundai's Sonata, Santa Fe, and Elantra and as well as Kia's Sorento, Rio, Optima and Soul.

The agency has received more than 160 complaints of engine fires, some of which occurred in vehicles that had already been recalled.

Engine failures and fires have dogged the Korean automakers' vehicles since 2015 when the company issued an engine failure recall. Since then it has issued at least eight more recalls for a host of engine problems.

The federal agency says it's opening an engineering analysis that could lead to further recalls.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson dies » The Pulitzer Prize–winning author and evolutionist Edward O. Wilson has died.

Wilson closely studied the behaviors of social insects and animals like ants, termites, and monkeys and found that an individual animal will often die for its community.

From that, he developed a controversial theory of evolutionary altruism, a belief that natural selection could actually develop a sense of morality in a species.

Wilson grew up in the Southern Baptist church. In a 2007 interview, he said people of faith and science must work together to save the environment.

WILSON: Science and religion are the two most powerful social forces in the world. The so-called culture wars between them needlessly blocked full cooperation.

But he also once said—quote—“the best thing would be to eliminate religions, though not human spiritual yearning.”

Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for his books On Human Nature and The Ants. He was 92.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: men and women of faith who died in 2021.

Plus, a visit to a Swiss saw mill.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 28th of December, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: remembering those we lost in 2021.

Today, we’re focusing on men and women of faith. Several well-known religious figures died this year, including televangelist Marcus Lamb. He died in December from COVID-19. Christian dietician Gwen Shamblin, the leader of Remnant Church, died in a plane crash in May, along with several other church leaders.

REICHARD: Here now to remember some of those who didn’t receive as much recognition is WORLD’s Josh Schumacher.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Evangelist Stephen Lungu, sometimes called “the Billy Graham of Africa,” died from COVID-19 in January. He was 78 years old.

Lungu grew up in Zimbabwe suffering abuse first at the hands of his father, and later at the hands of strangers in an orphanage. As an adult, he turned to the drugs and violence of the gang life, and later to Marxism.

Lungu became a believer at an evangelistic tent meeting he and his band of Marxist fighters originally planned to attack.

LUNGU: So I said, “Guys, let’s surround the tent and at 7 o’clock I’ll blow the whistle, and I want you to throw the petrol bombs at one time and take your guns and shoot everybody.”

But then their plans changed.

LUNGU: And then suddenly we decided to go inside and listen for two minutes only.

The message that the preacher shared that night penetrated Lungu’s heart. He stumbled toward the front—weapons and all—and gave his life to Christ.

Lungu would go on to preach the gospel to thousands of people. He also led the African Enterprise in Malawi and internationally. He described his personal mission this way in 2011 …

LUNGU: But now my ministry is to proclaim Jesus with African Evangelistic Enterprise, to proclaim Jesus across Africa, to proclaim Jesus to many, many people.

Another Christian leader who spent quite some time serving in Africa also died this year.

Floyd McClung was 75 when he died in May. McClung served as a missionary with Youth With a Mission for 35 years—including eight years as international director. He also founded the missionary training organization All Nations and wrote the bestselling book, The Father Heart of God.

McClung trained church leaders at one of his training centers in Africa by helping them to establish a proper foundation for their hearts.

McCLUNG: But when you have a security in God, you know who you are, you know that God loves you. Then your leadership is a response to his love and not an attempt to get his love.

From missions in Africa, to missions in the Holy Land.

Evelyn Mangham was raised as the child of missionaries serving in the Middle East.

MANGHAM: My parents were missionaries to the Holy Land–we called it that. The children of all of the missionaries all lived in Bethlehem. Just six miles from Jerusalem. And we went to school in Jerusalem.

After returning to the United States for college, Mangham followed in her parents’ footsteps and became a missionary herself. In 1975, Mangham pushed evangelical churches to sponsor refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. She and her husband co-founded World Relief’s Refugee Resettlement program. When they left the organization in 1987, it was resettling refugees at a rate of about 6,000 per year.

MANGHAM: My life has proven so much of what I learned–over all that I’ve learned in the scriptures.

Mangham served as a missionary with Christian and Missionary Alliance as well as other organizations for about four decades. She died in October, just one day before her 99th birthday.

Two figures in religious-focused addiction recovery also died this year.

Abraham Twerski was on Orthodox rabbi and psychiatrist who melded ideas from Alcoholics Anonymous with Judaism to help people struggling with addictive behaviors. He died in late January from COVID-19.

TWERSKI: If you’re helping somebody who’s doing nothing, you’re doing nothing, alright? And I think if we have this kind of domino thing where everybody’s helping everybody else, but nobody has an idea of what it’s for. So I think we have to have a sense of purpose.

Rabbi Twerski wrote about 80 books throughout this lifetime on topics ranging from the addictive mind to domestic violence within Jewish communities. He also established the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburg. In the 1980s, Forbes magazine recognized the center as one of the top 12 rehabilitation centers in the United States.

John Baker, who co-founded a Christian 12-step program for recovering addicts, died less than a month after Twerski. Baker was a recovering alcoholic when he approached Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren with the idea of beginning a ministry called Celebrate Recovery.

BAKER: You know, it’s a tough road for anyone dealing with any kind of hurt, hang-up, or habit. That’s what we say in Celebrate Recovery. You don’t have to do this all by yourself. It’s not going to work if you do it alone.

Today the organization has chapters in more than 30,000 churches, and also works with Prison Fellowship.

Now to the founder of one of the largest African American Christian publishing houses—Urban Ministries, Inc.

Melvin Banks was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1930s. He later went to Chicago to attend college at Moody Bible Institute.

After finishing his education, Banks decided to start a publishing company focusing on Sunday school and church education materials for African American congregations. He started in his basement in 1970, and grew to serve 50,000 different churches across America.

BANKS: We included African American young people as photographs in the publication. So for the first time, they were gaining a sense of esteem by seeing themselves portrayed in the publication.

Throughout his career, Banks emphasized the multi-ethinic nature of the scriptures and the gospel story.

Melvin Banks died in February. He was 83 years old.

And finally, the founder of the largest church in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. David Yonggi Cho was 85 years old when he died in September.

Cho founded the South Korean megachurch, Yoido Full Gospel Church, in 1958. The congregation first met in a temporary shelter pieced together from U.S. Army tents left from the Korean War. But it quickly outgrew its temporary home.

WORSHIP SERVICE: “I’ll raise a Hallelujah/Heaven comes to fight for me/I’m gonna sing, in the middle of the storm…”

And storms did come. Cho was convicted of embezzling funds from the church to the tune of about $12 billion. The court gave him a three-year suspended sentence in 2014.

Cho insisted his conscience was clear before God. And his supporters claimed his only crime was being naive about the waywardness of his son, who also participated in the scheme.

Yoido Full Gospel Church has a membership of approximately 800,000 people, and offers 7 services every Sunday. It has planted over 500 churches elsewhere in Korea.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

NICK EICHER, HOST: She solved the puzzle, but did not win the prize.

The internet was outraged after a contestant on Wheel of Fortune correctly guessed all of the words in the puzzle, but lost out on a brand new Audi on a technicality.

The phrase that Charlene Rubush correctly guessed was “choosing the right word,” but here’s what happened.

AUDIO: … the right … word.

You know, this one’s tough because you said all the right words including the word ‘word,’ but as you know, it’s got to be more or less continuous. We can’t give you the prize and it was the Audi.

But a short time later, Audi heard about her tough loss and tweeted this:

You’re a winner in our eyes, Charlene. Now, let’s give you a prize. Time to—hashtag— #GiveHerTheQ3.

That would, of course, be the Audi Q3—the prize she almost won on Wheel of Fortune.

Either Audi execs caught wind of the internet controversy or they got a call from Santa.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

In this season, between the end of one year, and the beginning of another, our thoughts often turn to building and rebuilding. Our next story is about rebuilding something significant: The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. A fire in April of 2019 destroyed the wooden roof and the spire. Experts say the whole structure was within minutes of complete collapse when firefighters finally put out the blaze.

EICHER: The day after the fire, while embers were still smoldering, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rebuild the historic church in five years. That was ambitious, given the original construction took over 100 years! But now two and a half years later, efforts are well underway. WORLD European Correspondent Jenny Lind Schmitt recently met a man involved in the project.

AUDIO: [CROWD GROANS AS SPIRE FALLS]

JENNY LIND SCHMITT, CORRESPONDENT: Gauthier Corbat watched with the rest of the world as flames engulfed Notre Dame de Paris.

AUDIO: [SIRENS AND FIREHOSES]

CORBAT: The day after the cathedral burned, the Groupe Charloit in France made a call and offered the wood to reconstruct the cathedral. I heard the call on the radio and I thought, I’d like to be involved in this project.

Gauthier Corbat is part of the Corbat Group, a four-generation sawmill company in Switzerland. The mill is in a village only three kilometers from the border with France.

Transnational cooperation in the wood industry has been important since the days when Gauthier’s great-grandfather ran the mill. So it was natural for Corbat to offer his company’s resources for the project. But rebuilding quickly became a matter of French expertise and resources.

CORBAT: France is the only country which is really capable of offering, so beautiful oaks. It's really the country of oaks, so it's also for France, it’s important, I think that the wood and these oaks come from the country.

Directors of the rebuild project chose trees in forests across France. Offers from several other countries were politely but firmly declined, dashing Corbat’s hopes of having Swiss wood represented. But he kept calling and sending messages to project leaders. Finally the Corbat mill was chosen as one of 40 sawmills cutting the logs—and the only one outside France.

CORBAT: The oaks must have a big diameter, at least, I don't know, 60 centimeters. And they must be really also, clean. And for our pieces, we need at least five, six meters. So really clean wood without knots and without any problems.

Out in the yard, Corbat points out a big stack of logs. For each log that is already cut into a beam, there is a backup log set aside, in case something goes wrong.

CORBAT: That’s my last logs for Notre Dame de Paris. So you can see here, we have the detail. Every single log has a number. We find it again on the list, and from Paris. So they exactly know where the log is, so it’s our backup.

The end of each log has a white plastic tag labeled with N-D-P—Notre Dame de Paris—a number and a bar code. That identifies where the tree came from and the specifications for its cut.

The length and weight of the logs is a challenge. The beams are 20 feet long, twice as long as the mill’s usual work. The support structure of their machines are barely long enough.

CORBAT: It was quite challenging because we are talking about big pieces and long pieces. And so something not common for us.

AUDIO: [SAWING]

Cyril Drossard operates the saw that cuts the logs. The enormous industrial bandsaw stands over 13 feet high. Drossard changes the 26-foot long blade every two days at most. He’s worked the saw for 15 years, and he can hear if it’s not cutting straight.

DROSSARD: Si ça dévie ou si ça commence à chanter, je sais que ça ne va pas. Peut être que c'est moi qui va trop vite ou la lame qui va pas.

VOICEOVER: If it deviates, or if the wood starts to sing, I know that something’s wrong. Maybe I’m going too fast or the blade isn’t sharp.

Like many of the mill’s employees, Drossard is French, and he is proud of doing this work for his country.

DROSSARD: C'est exceptionnel. C'était un plaisir de faire ça pour notre pays, la France...

He says it wasn’t any more complicated than the usual work, but he was still nervous about doing it right.

Finally Corbat shows me the cut wood that will become part of Notre Dame. Twenty-five massive beams lie out in the middle of the sawmill yard. Each is 8-and-a-half inches by 8 and-a-half inches, and 21 feet long. Each one weighs about 700 pounds.

The freshly cut wood smells sweet: a mixture of vanilla and tobacco. Each piece has the white plastic barcode tag that was on the tree, but now it also has a pink tag that tells where that piece will go in the cathedral.

CORBAT: The pieces are here. They will dry and within 6 or 7 months the carpenters will come here and check the quality and check that everything goes well.

After curing here for a year, the beams will head to Paris. These beams cut by the Corbat sawmill will rebuild the famous cathedral spire.

CORBAT: After that the job of the carpenters in Paris—they will do it in the cathedral directly—they have to make the cuts. It’s like a puzzle.

The pieces are cut several inches longer than needed, because wood ends tend to crack slightly in the natural drying process. On the end of piece number 001985, a two-inch chip of wood is separating from the beam. Corbat says that’s normal and tears off the piece.

JLS: There’s a little piece coming off here.

GC: It’s completely normal.

JLS: Can I have it?

GC: Yes, of course, it’s a nice souvenir.

JLS: I’m going to save it forever!

Corbat studied art history at university before rejoining the family business.

AUDIO: [NOTRE DAME BELLS TOLLING]

That background gives him immense respect for the original builders and their work.

CORBAT: So three generations of people in the 13th century worked actually on the cathedral. So it means that the people who were at that time in the forest to select the wood, to select the timber, they didn't see the cathedral and they didn't see the wood in the cathedral.

He is amazed at being able to play a small part in the rebuild project. And he hopes it leads others to a similar respect.

CORBAT: But I hope the public in general. They will realize how important it is to protect the wood, and to protect our forests.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt in Vendlincourt, Switzerland.

Since I first heard about the Notre Dame rebuilding project, I dreamed of reporting on it for WORLD. As I worked on this story, I kept thinking about the thousands of people who played a role in building the cathedral in the 1100s–architects, woodworkers, stonemasons, painters, and the cooks and seamstresses who fed and clothed all of them. Each one played a small role in something very big, and each person was needed in order to complete it.

At WORLD, we realize we're not building a grand structure like the Notre Dame de Paris. But still, the principle is the same. Each person who contributes to support biblically objective journalism is helping to build something much bigger than any of us.

And the work doesn't stop when the goal is met. Every dollar that comes in goes to the work and the more we have, the more work we can do—and there's no shortage of work.

So if you haven’t yet had a chance to make your donation in support of WORLD during our December Giving Drive, we still need you. Now is your chance. Please visit WNG.org/donate. That’s WNG.org/donate.

Please join us in building something meaningful that will last a long, long time.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. This week, we end each program with you, WORLD listeners reading Scripture and offering prayers for the year ahead. We hope you’ll be encouraged and hopeful for what God has for us in 2022.

MCDERMOTT: My name is George McDermott, I live in Denver, Colorado. My prayer today comes from the Book of Common Prayer 2019. Blessed Lord who caused all holy scriptures, to be written for our learning, grant us so to hear them, read, Mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of Your Holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which You have given us and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, everyone God, world without end, amen.

JONES: Hi, my name is Justin Jones from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Psalm 37, one through seven. Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth Your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourself  for the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices.

SHED: This is Brad Shed. In Ephesians 1:17, Paul prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Lord, I pray in reverse order that first of all, you would increase our knowledge of you in this coming year. In that process, you will give us fresh revelation to understand what is going on in the natural and in the spiritual and all that is happening around us. And then lastly, I asked Lord for a spirit of wisdom, that we will know how to respond in a way that honors you and spreads your kingdom this coming year. Thank you, Lord.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: More year-end remembrances from the world of politics.

And, singing from a heart of faith. We’ll meet a man sharing his talent to build up the church.

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.

We are continuing the December Giving Drive—every dollar extends our ability to deliver more and better content every day. WNG.org/donate.

The Bible says: Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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.