The World and Everything in It — February 26, 2020

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: Good morning!

An effort in Congress to stop surprise medical bills has bipartisan support. But two different approaches. Can they agree on one way forward?

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

Also today, World Tour. And we’ll meet a man who equips missionaries to be ready for anything while doing ministry in a dangerous world.

J: There are people here that we serve that have very little hope and the only hope is the hope that’s found in Jesus Christ. And so our missionaries know this and they’re willing to go there and accept the risks.

And Janie B. Cheaney mourns the loss of the old family photo album.

BASHAM: It’s Wednesday, February 26th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Megan Basham.

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

BASHAM: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGON, NEWS ANCHOR: Democrats debate the identity of the party in South Carolina » White House hopefuls faced off in another bruising debate Tuesday night—this time in South Carolina, ahead of Saturday’s primary vote. 

And with Senator Bernie Sanders still leading in national polls, the broader debate is now one over the identity of the Democratic party. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist doubled down on a government takeover of healthcare …

SANDERS: Guarantee healthcare to all people, not have thousands of separate insurance plans.

While most of his opponents warned that turning the Democratic party into a socialist party would be a big mistake. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar… 

KLOBUCHAR: I like Bernie. We came in together to the Senate, but I do not think that this is the best person to lead the ticket. 

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the socialist label will hurt Democrats all the way down the ballot. 

BLOOMBERG: Bernie will lose to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, and the House, and the Senate, and some of the state houses will all go red. 

Former Vice President Joe Biden still leads in recent South Carolina polls. But the big test will come in less than a week on Super Tuesday, when roughly 40 percent of voters will cast their ballots. 

Senate Democrats block protections for unborn » Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a pair of Republican bills aimed at protecting unborn children and abortion victims who survive the procedure.

A majority of senators, including multiple Democrats, voted in favor of a bill that would require abortionists to save the lives of babies born alive after a failed abortion. 

AUDIO: They ayes are 56, the nays are 41. The motion is not agreed to.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Doug Jones, and Joe Manchin voted for the born alive bill. 

Casey and Manchin also supported a separate measure that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks. But Senator Jones and Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voted no. The final vote was 53-to-44.

Both motions failed, as they needed 60 votes to survive. 

Democrats have defeated both measures multiple times in recent years.

Chinese authorities sentence foreign dissident » A court in eastern China has sentenced Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai to 10 years in prison. WORLD Radio’s Anna Johansen reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN, REPORTER: The Chinese-born Swedish citizen operated a bookstore in Hong Kong for years—selling books that took a skeptical look at the ruling Communist Party.

The Chinese government has charged him with—quote—“illegally providing intelligence overseas.”

In 2015, Minhai disappeared from his seaside home in Thailand. He was one of five booksellers connected with the publishing house Mighty Current who went missing that year. He surfaced a year later in a televised and staged confession. Chinese authorities released him to house arrest but detained him again in 20-18 when he boarded a train to Beijing with Swedish diplomats. The court claimed he applied that same year to restore his Chinese citizenship and would not appeal his sentence.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Anna Johansen. 

COVINGTON: Pompeo blasts Iran, China over COVID-19 response » As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had strong words Tuesday for Iran over how its handled the outbreak there. 

POMPEO: The United States is deeply concerned by information the Iranian regime may have suppressed vital details about the outbreak in that country. As of yesterday afternoon, Iran was second only to China in coronavirus deaths. 

Iranian officials report 95 confirmed cases, but 15 deaths from the virus. COVID-19’s mortality rate is about 2 percent. If Iran only has 95 cases, that would make its mortality rate seven times greater than the rest of the world. And Pompeo said it’s time for Iran to “tell the truth” about the scale of the outbreak there. 

The secretary also criticized China for expelling three Wall Street Journal reporters. He said a free press is necessary to ensure the public and medical workers can get accurate information about the virus.

Former Egyptian leader Mubarak dies at 91 » Former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak has died. WORLD Radio’s Kristen Flavin has more. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: State-run TV announced Mubarak’s death on Tuesday. He was 91 years old. 

Mubarak led the country for nearly 30 years before being forced from power in an Arab Spring uprising. He was a strong U.S. ally, a bulwark against Islamic militancy and guardian of Egypt’s peace with Israel. But hundreds of thousands of young Egyptians who rallied in the streets in 2011 saw him as a symbol of autocratic misrule.

His overthrow plunged the country into years of chaos and uncertainty. Two and a half years after Mubarak’s ouster, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi led the military overthrow of Egypt’s first freely elected president and rolled back freedoms gained in the 20-11 uprising.

Mubarak died at a Cairo hospital where he had undergone an unspecified surgery. El-Sissi announced three days of national mourning beginning today.

Reporting for WORLD Radio, I’m Kristen Flavin.

COVINGTON: I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the bipartisan effort to stop surprise medical bills.

Plus, safety measures for missionaries crossing the Southern border.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: It’s Wednesday the 26th of February, 2020. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. First up: Washington Wednesday.

EICHER: Legislative action in Washington pretty much grinds to a halt during election years. This session of Congress hasn’t had much to halt: you had the Mueller-related probes, then, of course, the impeachment inquiry, and now the politics really gets going. With lawmakers retreating to their partisan corners to campaign. 

It is only the extremely rare bipartisan issue that can convince members of Congress to work together in this climate. But this year it’s happened, and the issue is surprise medical bills.

BASHAM: As the name suggests, these are bills patients don’t expect and in many cases struggle to pay. And there’s broad support for putting a stop to them. Not one, but two House committees have drafted bipartisan proposals to protect patients from those bills. The problem is, the proposals take different approaches. And lawmakers can’t agree on how to merge the two.

Joining us now to talk about those sticking points is Thomas Miller. He’s a healthcare policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute. Thomas, good morning!

THOMAS MILLER, GUEST: Good to be with you. 

EICHER: Let’s start by defining the problem. I think we know what a surprise medical bill is, but can you talk about how they happen and how widespread a problem they are?

MILLER: Well, they primarily happen in two different circumstances. Patients will be going to what they assume is an insured, in-network facility, and there may be other medical providers who are part of the food chain who toss in a bill when they’re not part of an insurance arrangement and certain in-network rates. These tend to be the type of healthcare providers who the patient has little role, if any, in knowing they were going to see them and selecting them. A classic example is an anesthesiologist.

The other situation is more an emergency care operation where the patient has little control over where they’re going to. 

Those are the two main circumstances in which this occurs. There are different parameters for each. And by most recent studies, it’s a significant although not overwhelming problem in maybe as many as 20 percent of surgeries or emergency room situations. It should not be permitted or tolerated, but it’s been going on for some time and it’s a problem that needs to be stopped. 

BASHAM: As I mentioned: two House committees have proposed two different solutions. But you think they both miss the mark. Would you explain your reasoning?

MILLER: Well, this started out as a motherhood issue where every politician wanted to say it’s terrible, patients should not be put in the middle of this. They should not be having these surprising large bills. That’s terrible. Let the hospitals and insurers and other doctors work this out. 

But it turns out even though it’s a motherhood issue, they are brothers from a different mother, apparently, and each one wants to be a little further up the food chain in terms of getting to name their own price kind of priceline style. So, the respective camps have either gone in the direction of leaning toward, you might say, a pro-insurer aspect where they’ll tend to deem contracted rates, which tend to bring down these costs, but the physicians and other parties feel like they’re losing out and they’d be taking a lower reimbursement than they otherwise might have. And so it tends to force them into networks they don’t want to be part of at the price that’s being offered. 

The alternative is you have an arbitration style approach, which is more favorable to physicians in particular, and that usually involves—depending upon the model you use—two prices being submitted, and the arbitrator has to decide one or the other some people call that baseball style but that’s not exactly how it works in baseball. That has, in practice, tended to drive healthcare prices higher, which is why physicians favor it. 

And we’ve got respective camps, different subcommittees in the House and Senate who have leaned in one direction or the other. All we know with Congress is the funding chain for the government runs a little short of some items around next May and that’s probably when we’ll have to reach a conclusion on this, although it’s not in sight at the moment. 

EICHER: You were one of several dozen healthcare policy experts who sent a letter to Congress about this issue earlier this month. That letter urges lawmakers to look for a third option to solve this problem. 

Suppose you’re king of the world here, king of Congress. What would you do? What would you recommend? 

MILLER: Well, there are no kings in Congress. They all think they’re kings even if they’re not running for president. The idea is let’s step aside from the food fight as to who’s up and who’s down and who wins and who loses. I mean, we know the patients lose in any case and secondarily, sometimes, taxpayers. The highest price is not the right one as a default setting.

The argument is let’s be a little more straightforward and transparent about this. Borrowing from other areas of financial practice, as well as some areas of healthcare occasionally, truth in advertising, which says that whoever you are or what party you are in this process, you should be telling the patient what you’re going to charge in advance. And if you can’t tell them that, they’ve got some consequences to deal with. 

So the argument is if you’re holding yourself out as an in-network facility or an in-network insurer and the parties being covered are in-network, then if you don’t actually police that situation, allow others to get involved without a network contract or an understanding, and they try to throw a surprise bill on someone that there will be penalties for either the insurer or the hospital in various cases for not honoring the representation that it’s in-network. 

There also in some other aspects outside of the letter are arguments for saying that you cannot balance bill if you are a healthcare provider if there is the assumption that someone went to a network facility. There’s other regulations that have to be imposed for situations where you go out of network in an emergency situation. But that can be done through basically imposing a certain reimbursement level through federal regulation on what are called emtala emergency required services. 

So, let’s be straightforward about this: It’s one thing to pay more if you know it upfront, but it should not surprise people. It’s part of the larger price transparency argument that if you make the prices and the costs more transparent, people can actually function as real patients who understand what’s going on. 

EICHER: I’d like to get your thoughts on how the issue of surprise medical billing fits into the larger healthcare debate. I mean, Bernie Sanders is looking more and more plausible, and he’s talking full-on nationalization. 

So this is basically two questions: I do want to touch on whether any of this matters if we go Medicare for All, but tackle this question first, because there are other possible health-insurance ideas floating around: how does this surprise medical billing question fit into our current scheme of medical insurance?

MILLER: Well, we rely upon to some and various extent insurers to be the surrogates, negotiators, or protectors of patients. Sometimes they do a better job, sometimes they do a worse job. Sometimes they don’t save as much money as you think they do, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment. But an individual is somewhat at the risk of some powerful entities if they don’t have someone else in their corner to tell them what the rules are and what the deal is, and that’s why people will buy insurance in order to have that type of pricing protection. 

Now, the system doesn’t work perfectly right now, but we could tighten it up with better transparency and making people honor the agreements they make as opposed to figuring out a way around them.

Now, in a Medicare-For-All world, I guess you would get one bad price all the time for everyone is what they’re trying to promise. There are also folks who like the idea of price controls and regulation. And although I think it’s a stretch at the moment, those who are favorable toward we’re going to require that the reimbursement will be this level in these surprise situations would probably like to use that as a building block for saying, well, let’s mandate all the prices so we all get the same price at a lower level and somehow someone else will make up the difference. So there’s a little bit of that suspicion about rate regulation being imported in through this surprise billing situation, which is an abuse of the system and extending it more broadly.

There’s another argument, which is to say if you don’t have a contract, if you haven’t actually talked to your patient about what you’re going to charge them, the straightforward way to get them to practice better is to say no one pays anything until they actually tell you what the price is. That would be a dash of cold water in the face of those who are trying to abuse the patient or figure out ways around things that they can’t do through straightforward market needs. 

BASHAM: So turn now to the Bernie Sanders issue, if we go full-on “health care is a human right,” won’t the question of surprise billing be more of an interagency, government-to-government thing than a thing individuals have to be concerned about?

MILLER: Well, sure it depends on what version of Bernie full on you want, and you know there are variations on that. But in the world in which there’s basically one rate—whether it’s the Medicare rate, which is the great promise, it’ll be so much lower or a higher rate, an all-payer rate. There would be less variation, at least above board, in terms of what’s being charged. 

Whether that would be effectively policed depends upon the rigor with which this is approved politically, which I don’t think is going to happen. So there would be less pricing variation. 

Of course, we’d have medical care varying in other ways. Quality would be distorted and there’d be ways in which people in the healthcare community would adjust what they’re providing to match the price they’re being paid. So we just get kind of a distorted version of other ways to match up supply and demand, not the way we do through more straightforward, transparent markets.

BASHAM: Thomas Miller is a healthcare policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks so much for joining us today.

MILLER: You’re very welcome.

NICK EICHER: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Remembering Leah Sharibu—We start today here in Africa.

AUDIO: [Leah Sharibu mother]

Last week marked two years of captivity for Leah Sharibu, the Christian schoolgirl kidnapped in Nigeria by Boko Haram. Members of several Christian groups joined Leah’s mother to urge the government to secure her freedom.

AUDIO: We want to appeal to the Federal Government as Leah’s mother has appealed, that based on the promises they have made to do everything possible to ensure that Leah is set free.

Members of a Boko Haram faction kidnapped Leah and her Muslim schoolmates in February 2018 from her boarding school in the northeastern town of Dapchi. The insurgents released the other captives but kept Leah when she refused to renounce her faith. President Muhammadu Buhari promised to bring Leah home not long after her kidnapping. But attempts to negotiate her release have failed.

Attack on carnival in Germany—Next we go to Europe.

AUDIO: [Germany carnival attack]

Police in Germany are investigating what appears to be a deliberate attack on a carnival Monday. A 29-year-old local man drove his car into a crowd, injuring 35 people. About half the victims are children.

AUDIO: [German police spokesman]

A police spokesman said investigators are still looking at possible motives. But the country is already on edge following several attacks by white supremacist groups. 

On Sunday, some 10,000 people marched through the streets of Hanau to honor nine people killed in a mass shooting last week. Many of the victims were of Turkish descent. The 43-year-old gunman called for the “complete extermination” of non-white races in an online manifesto.

Germany is facing a dramatic increase in ultra nationalism and xenophobia. The far-right Alternative for Germany has become the country’s largest opposition party. It has called for the forceful deportations of foreigners.

Protests, fighting in Myanmar—Next to Myanmar.

AUDIO: [Myanmar protest]

Students in Rakhine state rallied over the weekend to protest an ongoing internet blackout. The government has cut online access in areas where the Arakan Army continues to battle Myanmar’s military.

The Arakan Army is one of the largest insurgent groups fighting for autonomy in Myanmar, also known as Burma. The United Nations has warned that civilians, especially children, are bearing the brunt of the conflict.

Violence in Haiti—And finally, we end today in Haiti.

AUDIO: [Haiti violence]

Piles of burning tires blocked the streets of Port-au-Prince on Monday. The capital is on lockdown after police attacked army headquarters over the weekend. They are demanding better working conditions. The attack sparked a gun battle that left two servicemen dead and a dozen wounded.

The country’s Justice Department said the violence resembled a “coup attempt” against embattled President Jovenel Moise.

Haiti has been paralyzed by political crisis for more than a year. Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the unrest, and regularly set up roadblocks on the highway. Kidnappings for ransom have also become much more common since the beginning of the year.

The government canceled Tuesday’s annual Carnival celebration to avoid more violence.

That’s this week’s World Tour. For WORLD Radio, I’m Onize Ohikere reporting from Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER: College basketball fans in Mississippi saw plenty of big shots in the Crimson Tide win over Ole Miss on Saturday.

But it was 84-year-old Mary Ann Wakefield who was the biggest of the big shooters that night!

It was one of those sink-a-ridiculous-shot, win-a-ridiculously-nice-prize things. You know, half-time entertainment.

But her task was not a basketball shot. Instead, a 94-foot putt, baseline to baseline. She makes it, she gets a new car.

AUDIO: Right at the bottom of the flag, yes ma’am. Let’s see what she’s got!

Now, you know what’s going to happen. Right? We wouldn’t be talking about this otherwise.

But it was pretty impressive. She took the putter, squared up, feet shoulder width apart, eyes on the flag, smooth stroke…

AUDIO: Tell you what, that’s looking good. That’s looking really good. … Oh! Ms. Mary Ann!!

Like a boss! 

Ole Miss needed her poise. ‘Bama thumped ’em, 103-78.

As for Ms. Mary Ann and her new Altima, I’d say she gives new meaning to drive the lane.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Wednesday, February 26th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: missionaries at risk.

Here’s a picture of what they face working in Mexico.

Over a two day period last week, drug cartel violence in the border city of Reynosa killed seven gang members and one bystander. Rival cartels have been fighting for control along the border for years. 

The attacks are usually contained, but it’s not uncommon for civilians to find themselves caught in the cross-fire, and, increasingly, the victims of carjackings.

EICHER: Many mission agencies work along both sides of the border. How do they respond to the increased violence? WORLD Radio’s Paul Butler recently spoke with one missionary whose primary ministry is analyzing these day-to-day risks, and training other missionaries on how to minimize them.

Now, before we get started, you need to know that we are concerned enough for the safety of both the missionary and organization that we are using pseudonyms in this report.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: It’s a sunny winter afternoon in southern Texas. About 20 people are gathering in a multipurpose meeting room at Reach the World headquarters. Some are seasoned missionaries. Others are in training. Still others are missionary candidates. And they’re all here to meet with this man:

AUDIO: Part of my job is to prepare you for what are the actual, real hazards in Mexico…

That’s J. He’s a middle-aged missionary with lots of experience dealing with risk. 

AUDIO: The idea is that if you come across one of these things that might hinder you from preaching the gospel, or jut having fellowship with others…

In less than 24 hours, this group is heading into Mexico for church. This session is an introduction to missionary risk management. 

J: So on a daily basis, I do risk assessments for all of our mission fields. My goal is to identify security, safety, and health concerns that might prevent someone from planting a church.

Risk Assessment in missions is really nothing new, but over the last decade or so, it has become much more formal and intentional.

J: Whatever you’re going to do is going to entail some risk. And you want…to manage risk in such a way that the benefits far outweigh the costs…

AUDIO: Don’t let yourself fall into a panic…

This marks a bit of a culture shift in missions. In the past, it was sort of assumed that God would not only provide the funds necessary, but divine safety as well. And for some, there’s been a certain recklessness that is often confused with faith. 

So over the years J. has faced an uphill climb when it comes to doing his job.

J: When I arrived, there was a lot of questions: “are we no longer doing our work in faith?” And so what I did was explained to them the Biblical basis for what I do.

J. usually begins with Jesus’s instruction to his disciples in Matthew 10:

J: Well, you remember Christ was telling his apostles that you’re going to suffer persecution. When you’re persecuted in one city, you’re to flee to the next city. So to me that means Jesus is telling his workers to have an exit strategy.

Before becoming a missionary, J.’s training included various security disciplines, and he knows quite a bit about exit strategies… 

J: Now you can implement Christ instructions in an informed way… 

For a growing number of missionary sending agencies, risk management is a key part of mission training. Not to know if someone should go, but how they should go. 

J: You notice that we still go into a high risk area because we feel the mission is worth it. There are people here that we serve that have very little hope and the only hope that will benefit them at all is the hope that’s found in Jesus Christ. And so our missionaries know this and they’re willing to go there and accept the risks.

On Sunday morning, J. meets with the missionaries and guests for a 15-minute briefing before they go. He reports on recent cartel activity, health alerts, and gives final instructions on how to respond if separated from the group. These meetings are mandatory.

AUDIO: Does everybody have their travel documents? 

J: I coordinate with the missionaries or the missionary trainees to develop strategies to avoid that hazard, to isolate or eliminate it or to minimize the impact. And so that’s, that’s our aim. That’s why I call it A-I-M…

J. displays a map of Northern Mexico that’s been color-coded—making it easy to see where dangers exist.

J: And depending on which color your area is, will determine the protocols for going in and serving there. 

The protocols vary. But they always include filing a travel itinerary. J. may also require hourly calls or texts, or even assigning a GPS with a “helping hands” button. He has a team ready to go in and assist the missionaries if they get stuck or feel in danger. For J., most days begin the same way. 

NEWSCAST: Senseless violence at an arcade in Mexico… 

He watches local news, scours social media, and reads through various security briefings from government and non-government agencies. He doesn’t always look closely at everything as some of the videos and photographs of cartel violence are too graphic. But he does look, especially for patterns. And to understand what the missionaries may have to face. 

AUDIO: And the final option, depending on what situation is causing the isolating incident, you may want to involve authorities…

According to J.’s years of analysis, this is the safest time to enter this particular region of Mexico. According to his records, less than 1 percent of all criminal activity occurs here on Sunday mornings. Still, he’s vigilant—for that’s his calling. 

J: I’m really anxious to see churches planted. When those churches are planted, and I get to be a participant, not a direct like the missionaries are, but if I can help achieve their goal of planting churches, that is my satisfaction that Christ is going to be praised. That’s my main goal. 

SONG: A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD (IN SPANISH) 

The morning service is well attended: the sermon is about faith. One of the hymns is a poignant reminder of God’s protection. Everyone makes it in and out without incident. But they were ready, thanks to J.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Paul Butler reporting from the Mexican border.

MEGAN BASHAM: Today is Wednesday, February 26th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Megan Basham.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Next up, Janie B. Cheaney with an ode to the family photo album.

And, young Megan, what she’s talking about is prints on photo-paper.

BASHAM: I don’t know about those–I have old phones under the bed! And Janie’s commentary has some wise words for those like me.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: Do you have boxes of old photographs under the bed or in the closet? Vacation pics from the Grand Canyon or that collection passed down from Great-Aunt Susan that never got labeled?

As I was sorting through my latest box of photos, it struck me that none of them were more recent than 2008. 

It’s not that I haven’t been taking pictures. I’m taking more than ever, but they don’t end up in boxes or albums. Ten years ago, when I bought my last camera, big names like Cannon and Nikon had successfully weathered the digital revolution. But worldwide sales since then have fallen off a cliff: from 110 million units in 2008 to 20 million today. The steepest drop is in pocket-sized snapshot cameras. But high-end Leicas have also taken a hit.

Turns out, digital technology per se was not the problem. As consumers grabbed the latest iPhones and Androids, technology improved to make phone cameras better and better—and what they lacked in finesse, they more than made up in convenience. Meanwhile, social media made “sharing” easier and faster. Camera manufacturers couldn’t keep pace, because with technical change comes social change; in this case, not just in the way we take pictures, but in the way we use and even think about them.

That box of curly-edged photos is a record of times past. The endlessly-scrolling pictures on your phone are more like ongoing commentary. They are postcards sent from our daily travels, whether to Italy or to Starbucks. Though it’s cheap and easy to print them, we seldom do. They remain in the cloud, a monologue too crowded for reflection. Nothing is history; all is data.

New research can call old facts into question. Even new technology can add to our perceptions, like the colorized and re-digitized World War I footage in Peter Jackson’s documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old. What traditional historians fear is not revisionism, but, quoting the poet John Dos Passos, the “idiot delusion of the exceptional Now.”

Organizing photos in an album requires time and thought; likewise organizing events in a pattern, or insights into a coherent philosophy or a reasoned argument. Technology that leapfrogs both time and thought can easily succumb to the latest delusions.

We’ll keep taking pictures on phones and sharing them on Instagram. But once in a while we might take the time to select a few and organize them in a way that testified to life and its meaning. Sometimes the “Now” is truly exceptional, and sometimes it’s just an “idiot delusion.” Our children may thank us for knowing the difference.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: Companies are starting to take an interest in the spiritual well-being of their employees. We’ll introduce you to a chaplaincy for corporate America.

And, we’ll talk about laws that affect homeschoolers, and proposals that might.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MEGAN BASHAM: And I’m Megan Basham.

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

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

John tells us that from God’s fullness we believers have all received grace upon grace.

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. We’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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