The World and Everything in It: December 29, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

All week long we’re reviewing the biggest news stories of 2022. Today, a focus on the crisis at the Southern Border. 

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Plus, we consider some of the religious figures who died this year.

And listener stories of answered prayer.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, December 29th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kristen Flavin with today’s news.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Netanyahu » The government of incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be sworn in today.

Netanyahu has already outlined many of the top priorities of his new government.

He plans to legalize controversial settlements in the West Bank and overhaul the country’s legal system.

BEN-GVIR: [Hebrew]

Newly appointed National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir saying the new policies are a victory for those desiring security on Israeli streets.

Southwest » Southwest Airlines predicts it’ll be back to normal before the new work week.

But today’s likely to be business as usual—with the airline flying a reduced schedule—after canceling half its flights yesterday.

Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan.

JORDAN: Whether you haven't been able to get to where you need to go or you're one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airline, to know is that we're doing everything we can to return to a normal operation.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says that isn’t enough.

BUTTIGIEG: What this indicates is a system failure and they need to make sure that these stranded passengers get to where they need to go and that they are provided adequate compensation.

Southwest says it takes responsibility for its system’s failures, but stresses the unusual winter storm made things much worse.

Buffalo » With National Guardsmen in Buffalo, New York, going door-to-door, officials are bracing for a rise in the death toll from the winter storm.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.

BROWN: The loss of life during this winter storm is a very, very painful thing for all of us. We are heartbroken.

The city’s been working to clear roads and most of the power is restored.

But now with temperatures expected in the mid-40s today and near-50 by Friday, the concern is flooding from melting snow.

County executive Mark Poloncarz says the blizzard of 2022 will go down as a painful memory.

POLONCARZ: I offer my deepest condolences and sympathies to the individuals who’ve lost loved ones at this holiday season. It’s just, it’s terrible, I understand that. Every time this Christmas season comes along people are gonna remember the storm and the death of their loved ones. 

FTX » Former clients of the failed cryptocurrency firm FTX are filing a class-action lawsuit. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The lawsuit alleges that FTX ensured clients it would keep their investments secure, but ended up misappropriating their funds.

FTX has filed for bankruptcy and halted all withdrawals.

Meanwhile, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has a new judge overseeing the federal criminal case against him after the previous judge had to recuse.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

China » The United States says it will require COVID-19 tests of anyone arriving from China.

The announcement comes after China said it would resume issuing passports for tourism. That’s the next phase in China’s plans to end COVID lockdowns.

China has struggled economically and officials hope that reopening will help spur growth.

Noko » AUDIO: [Applause]

Speaking to officials of his regime during a party conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has laid out plans for boosting his military power.

North Korean state media said the goals were for bolstering the self-reliant defense capability of the country in 2023. It did not elaborate any further.

Tensions between North and South Korea spiked sharply this week. North Korean drones flew across the border into South Korea.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: this year’s record-shattering illegal border crossings.

Plus, remembering some notable religious figures who died this year.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 29th of December, 2022.

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Today, we continue reviewing the biggest news of the year.

This time, the crisis at the southern border. The number of immigrants illegally crossing into the United States this year shattered all records: 2.4 million, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

BROWN: Title 42 permits border officials to turn back immigrants on public health grounds before they seek asylum. That law remains in place for now.

But the failure of the federal government to fix the immigration system has resulted in a humanitarian crisis.

REICHARD: WORLD Correspondent Bonnie Pritchett visited South Texas in September and brings us an updated report.

BONNIE PRITCHETT, CORRESPONDENT: Days before Title 42 was due to expire, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited El Paso. He met with local officials and Border Patrol agents and told reporters how the Biden administration will address rising migration.

MAYORKAS: What we do is we plan for what might occur and we develop different plans for different scenarios and then rather than be too predictive, because its so difficult to understand, so difficult to predict, we just prepare for different options…

The weekend before Mayorkas arrived in El Paso, so did a caravan of almost 7500 immigrants.

REPORTER: A massive border crossing in Texas overnight as hundreds of migrants trekked across the Rio Grande to reach the United States…

Until then, daily border crossings into El Paso averaged 900.

AUDIO: With that the chair calls director Steve McCraw…

In August Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw testified before a State Senate committee on Border Security.

DPS MCGRAW: Clearly, without any question…the most significant threat to public safety in the State of Texas and Homeland Security in the State of Texas, and I would argue throughout the nation is an unsecured and national border with Mexico. Period…

President Joe Biden dismissed such concerns when asked if he would visit the border while in Arizona this month. As he walked toward the helicopter waiting on the White House lawn, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy shouted a question.

DOOCY: Why go to a border state and not visit the border?

BIDEN: Because there are more important things going on; they’re going to invest billions of dollars in a new enterprise in the state…

The human price extracted at the southern border has cost the region and the migrants more than money.

Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed. Jason Owens is the Border Patrol operations chief for the Del Rio Sector, that includes the small city of Eagle Pass.

OWENS: Well, for me, the technical definition is when the the circumstances of the event overcome your available resources to deal with that event. And so that can be on an emotional level that can be on a physical level…

In September, Del Rio Sector agents apprehended about 1500 to 2000 illegal immigrants a day. To address the surge, the Department of Homeland Security erected a larger, temporary processing facility. The department also allowed its employees from other divisions to volunteer for one-month stints at the facility. It hired contractors to relieve agents of paperwork duties.

OWENS: And I still argue that we don't have enough. And I don't think, if you ask anybody, they're all gonna agree. That's, that's being overwhelmed. That's, that's at a That's at an operational level…

In addition to processing immigrants who crossed the border illegally, agents provide humanitarian assistance. Attempts to rescue people from the Rio Grande don’t always end well. On one day in September, nine people drowned, including children, trying to cross the river.

OWENS: And there is no break, there is no end in sight, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. That's what it means to be over overwhelmed emotionally.

U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales believes those working conditions are partly to blame for an unprecedented number of suicides among Border Patrol agents this year.

REP. GONZALES: These things they are seeing, what they’ve been exposed to, 100 percent, has an impact on you. I go back to it. It reminds me of my time in the military, these war-like situations are they leave an everlasting impact on you…

At least three of the 14 who took their lives worked on the U.S. southern border.

At a news conference this month, Gonzales and seven other representatives introduced the bipartisan Taking Action to Prevent Suicides, or TAPS, Act. The legislation will provide mental health support for Border Patrol agents.

The bill would create a multi-agency task force to assess underlying factors contributing to the high suicide rate. It would also protect agents’ from poor job performance reviews for seeking mental health care.

The unprecedented migration also has residents on edge.

MARTIN WALL: Like this morning. They picked up three busloads here…

Martin Wall grew up on this 1000-acre ranch outside Eagle Pass less than two miles from the Rio Grande. He pointed out his front window to the dirt driveway that skirts his yard.

WALL: Just think about three buses getting three busloads of people walking through your backyard…

As a kid, Wall roamed the property alone until dark.

Not his kids – at least not during the last two years.

A trained guard dog escorts his son on the property. His 17-year-old daughter is armed.

WALL: A little girl ought to be able to not have to go out there on our own property and have a pistol on her side…

It’s common for kids raised in the country to learn to use a firearm at an early age.

WALL: But they never pack them on their hip. Maybe for a snake or something but not for people.

The porous border has put residents like Maverick County deputy Denise Cantu in an untenable position.

Cantu grew up in Eagle Pass. In September she stood on the bank of the Rio Grande and reflected on life in her hometown. As the mother of two young girls, Cantu doesn’t want to see another child drown in the river. As an officer of the law, she wants the never-ending illegal immigration cycle to end.

DEPUTY CANTU: We'll get called out, “Hey, there's 300 immigrants coming from Gemalto, into town.” And there we are National Guard, DPS, sheriff's office, you know, trying to wait on them to come over here. I mean, We can't stop all 300. There's not enough of us. They still get apprehended, turned over to BP and BP does their process. Then they'll get released. So, you'll see them again.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Ever get a haircut and wonder what happens to all that hair that lands on the floor?

Well, hairdressers in Belgium sweep up the clipped hair and bag it up. Then they hand it over to the Hair Recycle Project. That’s an N-G-O that puts the hair into a machine that turns it all into matted hair squares. Those are then used to absorb pollutants, like oil or other hydrocarbons.

Get this, Myrna: One strand of hair can support up to 10 million times its own weight as it absorbs pollutants.

BROWN: Our Creator is creative!

REICHARD: Indeed He is!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, December 29th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: notable deaths.

Today, we continue our recap of those who were widely known or who exerted great influence—especially in the church or in society as religious leaders. People like Albert Nolan, a South African Catholic priest who fought for human rights and democracy. Or Christian activist known as “Brother Andrew” who smuggled Bibles into communist Poland.

REICHARD: Here’s Harrison Watters, our WORLD Radio production assistant, with a few more. 

HARRISON WATTERS: Duane King was serving as a Nebraska pastor when he met a deaf couple who told him that they didn’t get anything out of church.

KING: All of a sudden my mind was whirring with ‘Of course they can’t, and there must be other people like that, it just struck me. And what I wrote next he says was a God thing, because I wrote, ‘if you come to church I’ll learn sign language.’

King’s promise led him and his wife to found Deaf Ministries and plant a church for the deaf in 1970. Nine years later, King began producing devotional videos sharing the gospel. Here is a video from 1979 where King visits Jerusalem to tell the story of Jesus in sign language.

CLIP: I looked, I saw with my own eyes and Jesus is not in his grave.

In 2020, Deaf Ministries completed an even more audacious project—the first translation of the Bible by the deaf for the deaf. It took 38 years and 53 translators to film Genesis through Revelation in American Sign Language.

CLIP: We’ve seen a lot of change in many deaf people because they’re seeing the Bible in their own heart language.

King died in January at age 84.

From evangelizing the deaf to evangelizing musicians.

MOHR: After I had been a musician, I had to give it up. And then I became a concert piano tuner.

German Franz Mohr grew up in a Christian home that loved music. As a young violinist during World War II, Mohr was so disturbed by the destruction and death that he considered committing suicide. Instead, he prayed to the God of his parents and became a Christian. Mohr soon found his life’s work in tuning pianos for Steinway and Sons in America.

CLIP: Creating the perfect sound has been a lifetime of passion for Franz Mohr, that master piano tuner whom the great pianists like Horowitz Rubinstein and Clyburn would not play without.

Audio here from Crescendo International. As a Christian who’d found new life, Mohr sought to share his joy with the concert musicians as he tuned their pianos.

MOHR: We need a reference point in the music world to determine our concert pitch and this is the tuning fork. And so in our spiritual life we might feel that we are right in our opinion about God and spiritual things, unless we have the Bible we have no reference point.

Mohr served with Crescendo, the musical arm of Campus Crusade for Christ—or Cru—for more than 20 years. He died at his New York home in March at age 94.

Next, the wife of a philosopher who made her own mark defending objective truth.

Alice (Von Hildebrand) Jourdain was born and raised by Catholic parents in Belgium. When the Germans invaded in 1940, Alice emigrated to the United States. She studied philosophy at Fordham University and earned her doctorate in 1949.

Ten years later, Alice married Catholic philosopher and theologian Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

HILDEBRAND: It was truly you know a communion. We agreed on everything that mattered.

Alice Von Hildebrand assisted her husband in his work while pursuing her own career as a Catholic professor teaching at the secular Hunter College in New York. There, she sought to win students over through her commitment to objective truth.

Hildebrand: I felt absolutely like a fish out of water. No, for some reason God wanted me there and even though subjectively when I left the classroom I said “you’re a failure,” students were responsive to me.

After her husband’s death in 1977, Von Hildebrand carried on his work defending the “inviolable mystery of the person” in the face of increasingly dehumanizing philosophies.

HILDEBRAND: The greatest illusion is to believe that human laws can make the world perfect. The only thing that can make the world perfect is a change of heart, the purification through revelation

Von Hildebrand died in her New York home in January. She was 98.

The most arrested rabbi in America also died this year.

Israel Dresner was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in New York City. As a young man, he was passionate about fighting for civil rights and became a rabbi in the progressive Reform branch of Judaism.

In the 60s, Dresner joined Martin Luther King Jr. in the first of the Freedom Rides. Here he is in a 2011 American Experience documentary.

DRESNER: We started out with 14 Protestant ministers, eight white and six black and four Reform rabbis, and we wound up with ten of us getting arrested.

Over the course of the movement, Dresner landed in jail four times. But he said that his sacrifice paid off when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in August 1965.

As a lifelong advocate for various minority groups, Dresner saw his legacy as being a rabbi who helped others.

DRESNER: Well, I want to be remembered as somebody who not only tried to keep the Jewish faith but also to invoke the Jewish doctrine from the Talmud which is called Tikkun Olam - Repairing the world, and I hope that i made a little bit of a contribution to making the world a little better place.

Dresner was diagnosed with colon cancer in December 2021 and died less than a month later in a senior living center in New Jersey. He was 92.

Next, two British ministers who pursued two different visions of church.

Stuart Briscoe grew up walking past an Anglican church to attend a nonconformist congregation in England’s Lake District. He preached his first sermon at age 17 and was afraid of running out of material. But when he looked up at the clock after making his first point, he saw that he’d actually gone over time…with two points still to go.

CLIP: I had no idea what to do but I blurted out the only thing that came into my mind: I'm terribly sorry, I don't know how to stop and a very helpful gentleman sitting on the back row gave me my first lesson in preaching. he said shut up and sit down.

Thankfully, he didn’t stay sitting down.

As a member of the Torchbearers, Briscoe was soon speaking and preaching across the globe. In 1971, a friend pointed out that the Apostle Paul wrote letters to specific churches, and so Briscoe should consider being a pastor rooted in a local church.

Soon afterwards, a non-conformist church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin surprised Briscoe with an invitation to be their pastor. With Elmbrook Church now as his home congregation, Briscoe split his time between shepherding his members and preaching to people across the country through his radio and TV organization, Telling the Truth Ministries.

Telling the Truth Ministries: The Greek word translated church is Ekklesia. It comes from two Greek words – Ek which means ‘out of,’ and Klerao, which means ‘to call.’ So you put the two together, and the Ekklesia is the “called out ones,” “the called out people.”

Briscoe retired in 2001 and continued telling the truth about Jesus until he died in August. He was 91.

Back to England, one of the pioneers of the New Church Movement died in April at age 78.

Gerald Coates came from a nominal Anglican family in Great Britain. As a young adult, he experienced conversion and pursued baptism and membership with the Plymouth Brethren. Coates soon felt bound by the strict principles that organized the church. But then he had an experience that changed his life.

COATES: There's no Pentecostal church around our place and the charismatic movement I knew nothing about it. So one day I'm just on my bicycle singing away as often used to and suddenly I'm singing in a language I've never heard before. And I’m thinking, what on earth is this?

Coates’ charismatic gift of tongues was not welcomed by the Plymouth Brethren, who eventually barred him and his wife from attending services. With no other evangelical churches around to join, Coates started his own church. That sparked a movement which now has networks of home churches all around the world.

COATES: So the whole church has changed from within, and it's just been here very very humbling to know that you've played some very tiny part – Nicky Gumbel said had it not been for the house Church is the new church we were there wouldn't have been an alpha because I think we cut our way through a lot of theological jungle ecclesiological junk all the way we do church.

Speaking of the way we do church, a pioneer in urban ministry also died this year.

During the tumultuous 1960s, Ray Bakke moved his family into Chicago in 1965 after feeling a call to follow the Great Commission into the city. Their ministry soon became much more concrete than they expected.

BAKKE: 34 years ago our oldest son Woody brought home his friend from school and we fed Brian for about six months. Then we realized he was homeless, so we talked it over and I went to court and paid eighty dollars and adopted a kid named Brian. I already had a kid named Brian so I got two boys named Brian. It’s not hard to tell them apart: one is very blonde the other is very black.

Bakke was originally from rural Washington state, but attending Moody Bible Institute in the 50s opened his eyes to the racial divisions and poverty that infected cities. As fellow Evangelicals left Chicago to escape the violence of race riots, Bakke realized that the church was missing something.

BAKKE: At that point I realized the church had no theology of the city. Neither did I. I am proof that you can read the bible in hebrew and greek and not know what the bible says about cities.

Bakke’s journey to organize a theology of cities led him to co-found Bakke Graduate University in 2001 to train urban Christian ministers.

BAKKE: It's not enough to minister in the city. We also have to minister to the city. The city is being called upon to be the catch basin of the nations now, so we have to have a much bigger view. We need the whole range of all the disciplines in the kingdom of God. It's not just about pastors and evangelists anymore that's i think the distinction of urban ministry.

Bakke died in February. He was 83.

We end today with a bestselling novelist who found God through laughter.

Frederick Beuchner came from a family with no church affiliation. After studying English at Princeton, Beuchner wrote the best-selling novel A Long Day’s Dying. One Sunday, with nothing else to do, Beuchner went to the church next door. There, he heard a sermon on Jesus in the wilderness that changed his life.

BEUCHNER: He said, Christ is crowned in the hearts of those who love him or believed in him amidst confession and tears and great laughter. And I was so taken aback by great laughter that I just I found the tears springing from my eyes.

Beuchner went on to become an evangelist in the mainline Presbyterian church of America. He wrote 39 books across genres of theology, fiction, and memoir that inspired people across theological and political boundaries. Like C.S. Lewis, Beuchner addressed a wide variety of topics, including pain and death. Here he is in a 1991 sermon on stewarding pain.

BEUCHNER: And remember the cross, because it seems to me that the cross of Christ in a way speaks somewhat like this same word saying that out of that greatest pain endured in love and faithfulness comes the greatest beauty and our greatest hope.

Beuchner died in his sleep in August. He was 96.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, December 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Now, day four of our series of Answered Prayers. Both of today’s stories involve prayers that seemed to go unanswered for a time. Maybe you’re in a similar situation–where you’ve prayed and asked God for something, only to be told “no” or “wait.” If that’s you, we hope these stories will remind you that even in the silence, in the darkness, God is at work. Here’s listener Matt Gurath.

MATT GURATH: …it was last December 5, that I had a vestibular migraine. And it was horrible. I was dizzy. All the time. I was out of work for a while. I had to cry myself to sleep at night. In the basement, I couldn't even say goodnight to my wife or my son. But then, after all that time, what Jesus stuck with me so that was an answer to prayer. And he answered my migraines by sending me Dr. Alex Orton, of Haven Holistic, because through Him Jesus has worked, and he's given me such great healing. And Jesus has told me that yes, I am, the living water and through Him, all things are possible. So, to summarize, God absolutely answers prayer.

DOUG JOHNSON: Hi, my name is Doug.

KIRSTEN JOHNSON: And I'm Kirsten and we're from Dallas, Texas. This year God answered years of prayer in a way that we never imagined. After a few years of marriage we started trying to conceive. As months of negative pregnancy tests dragged into years, our hopes of having a big family were met with the heart shattering and unhelpful diagnosis of unexplained infertility.

DOUG: We knew that scripture says God is eager to give good gifts like children, but we also knew children aren't promised. So we wrestled with how to pray, as we sought to fulfill God's command to be fruitful and multiply. One after another we watched our friends prayers be answered through their first, second or third pregnancies, all while ours were met with the start of another cycle despite our greatest efforts to conceive.

KIRSTEN: we were able to process our hard emotions at Shiloh, our church's ministry for couples experiencing infertility, miscarriage and loss. God brought healing and purpose as we used our story of infertility to begin serving others also struggling to grow their family.

DOUG: And during this time, God was slowly opening our eyes and hearts towards adoption. And after months of paperwork on the Friday night before Thanksgiving, after another negative pregnancy test, we received a phone call from a birth mother who said she wanted us to be the parents of the twins she was carrying. We were in shock that God had answered our prayers with not just one baby, but two.

KIRSTEN: Over the next few months, I had the privilege to walk with our birth mother through the rest of her pregnancy. Then on April 2, 2022, she invited me into the delivery room as our son and daughter were born. We are so thankful every day for this double answer to prayer and are excited to celebrate our first Christmas as a family of four.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday…we review the most significant cultural stories of the year.

Plus, we remember the contributions of more people who died this year.

And, your final stories of answered prayer.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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Jesus said: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:1-2 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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