The World and Everything in It: January 8, 2025

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Portland, Oregon, was a progressive laboratory, decriminalizing drugs, cutting police, so private security firms stepped in to pick up the slack.

STONE: We meet people and we say, “when you were in second grade and the teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up, did you really think that you would say, ‘I want to be homeless and addicted to fentanyl.’”

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today: WORLD Tour and Washington Wednesday.

Congress certifying the 2024 election, with new rules that make it harder to halt the process.

SOUND: A significant number of House members and a significant number of Senators would have to vote to even consider an objection.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, January 8th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:  Jimmy Carter’s remains arrive in D.C. » The Navy Band paid tribute to the late President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday as his remains arrived at the Navy Memorial in Washington.

Carter's flag-draped casket was flown yesterday from his home state of Georgia to the nation’s capital, where political leaders from both sides of the aisle paid tribute. Vice President Kamala Harris:

HARRIS: James Earl Carter, Jr. loved our country. He lived his faith. He served the people. And he left the world better than he found it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson also highlighted Carter's charitable work, saying the former president truly cared about people.

JOHNSON: We all know that his care for humanity didn't stop at building homes. In the face of illness, President Jimmy Carter brought lifesaving medicine. In the face of conflict, he brokered peace. In the face of discrimination, he reminded us that we are all made in the image of God.

Carter's body will lie in state at the Capitol … ahead of a national funeral service tomorrow.

Winter weather » A massive winter storm front that hammered much of the nation east of the Rockies has finally moved offshore. But not before wreaking havoc, causing hundreds of car accidents and thousands of flight cancellations and delays.

Peter Muillinax with the National Weather Service:

MULLINAX:  It seems as though winter has come back, uh, with a, with a vengeance in parts of the east. The big winter storm left over a foot of snow from parts of Kansas all the way to the mid Atlantic coast almost.

But now a polar vortex is plunging temperatures in some of the southernmost points of the U.S.

Mullinax said the winter front could blanket areas from Texas to Georgia with snow and ice this week.

California wildfire » Meantime in California, forecasters had warned that “life-threatening, destructive” wind gusts could topple trees and create dangerous surf and extreme fire risk.

And sure enough a wildfire driven by those winds is ripping through an area near Los Angeles.

LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone:

MARRONE:  It's incumbent that everybody have a wildfire action plan for their home if they live in a brush covered area. Please visit the L. A. County Fire Department website for ready, set, go information.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging residents to take warnings and evacuation orders seriously.

NEWSOM:  Many structures already destroyed and people were still not evacuated, still did not heed the warning.

The fire has been especially fierce in the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood of LA.

Trump press conference » President-elect Donald Trump Trump announced Tuesday that a Dubai-based developer is set to invest big money in the United States. He told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida:

TRUMP:  DAMAC will be investing at least 20 billion over a very short period of time into the United States,

He also talked about his belief in the strategic importance of both Greenland and the Panama Canal to the United States.

When asked if he would rule out economic pressure or military force to take control of either, Trump declined to rule anything out. When a reporter asked him to clarify specifically regarding military force, Trump again said no, but narrowed his follow-up response to Panama.

TRUMP:  The Panama Canal is vital to our country. It's being operated by China, China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China and they've abused it. They've abused that gift.

The president-elect also suggested renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

And speaking to the conflict in Gaza, he again warned of dire consequences for Hamas if the terror group does not release the remaining hostages before he assumes office.

Meta community notes » The parent company of Facebook and Instagram is making a big change to the way it polices user content. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says his company’s platforms are ditching official fact checkers in favor of community notes, similar to the process used on X, formerly Twitter.

ZUCKERBERG:  After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S.

On X, community notes democratize fact-checking, putting it in the hands of users, rather than a small group of officials determining what should be deemed true or untrue. Any user who sees a potentially misleading post can request that a note be added below the original message, adding critical context or correcting erroneous facts.

Medical debt credit reports » The Biden administration has finalized a rule that would prevent credit reporting agencies from listing delinquent medical debts on credit reports. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Late payments on your credit report can affect the interest rates you pay, availability of credit and more.

Sp supporters of the new rule say it will help millions who, in some cases through no fault of their own … fell behind on medical debts.

Vice President Kamala Harris called the change “lifechanging” for millions of families.

But critics predict a cascade of unintended consequences.

They say it could raise the cost of care for everyone … if providers find it tougher to collect outstanding medical debts. They also say it could impact the availability of care in some situations … And that may lead bill collectors to turn to more aggressive tactics.

The rule would not take effect until March of 2025. And it’s unclear whether the Trump administration will leave it in place.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Tibetan earthquake » Rescue crews in Tibet are searching through freezing temperatures for survivors after a major earthquake rocked the region, killing well over a hundred people. The exact death toll may not be known for some time.

Chinese officials say a 6.8 magnitude quake shook an area about 50 miles north of Mount Everest Tuesday morning, though the U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake at a magnitude of 7.1.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: certifying the 2024 election on Washington Wednesday. Plus, what some residents in Portland are doing to improve their personal safety.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 8th of January.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Many Americans got a snow day on Monday, but Congress plowed right on. Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris certifying her own defeat.

HARRIS: …pursuant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives are meeting in joint session to verify the certificates and count the votes of the electors of the several states for President and Vice President of the United States.

MAST: Here now with what made this vote certification different is WORLD Reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO: More than 5 inches of snow covered sidewalks in Washington DC on Monday and miles of barriers surrounded the U.S. Capitol.

While many federal employees had the day off, members of Congress, like Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, navigated the snowdrifts to get to work certifying the 2024 election results.

TUBERVILLE: I walked through the snow and wore my boots and then brought my shoes with me.

Lawmakers and their staff also navigated fences and police checkpoints staffed by officers from as far away as the New York Police Department…security measures aimed at deterring protests like the one in 2021 that ended with violence inside the Capitol building.

The 45 minute ceremony this time took place without incident.

HARRIS: The purpose of the joint Senate having been concluded, concurrent to Senate concurrent resolution number 2, the 119th Congress, the Chair declares this joint session dissolved.

According to Democratic lawmakers like Colorado Congressman Jason Crow, the peaceful process had little to do with the security measures.

CROW:: It’s January 6, 2025 and the key difference today at the United States capitol as we certified the election, from four years ago, is that we don’t have an insurrection mob… beating hundreds of police officers and attempting to overturn a rightful election.

Many Republicans and Democrats are still split on the severity and significance of what happened on January 6th, 2021. On Monday, Georgia Congressman Mike Collins downplayed the threat and seemed to troll readers on X…writing: quote “thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building.”

Senator Adam Schiff of California counters.

SCHIFF: This was a violent attack intended to stop the transfer of power and not some peaceful tourist attraction.

These aren’t the only views on what happened…Senator Lindsay Graham told the Associated Press that some protesters were violent…though not all. This time, Adam Schiff says Democrats’ acceptance of this election’s results, and the heavy snowfall, made the vote certification much more peaceful.

SCHIFF: This is how the transfer of power is supposed to proceed.

The certification process works like this:

CLERK: The certificate of the state of the electoral vote of the state of Alabama seems to be regular in form and authentic…

The clerk reads the name of the state and its Electoral College votes. Without objection, those results are considered approved and become official.

Lawmakers can object to those results on a state-by-state basis if they think there’s something irregular about how the election was conducted. For example, in 2001, several Democratic lawmakers objected to the results from Florida in the election of 2000.

WATERS: I rise to object to the fraudulent 25 Florida electoral votes.

Vice President Al Gore then asked California Representative Maxine Waters a question.

GORE: Is the objection in writing and signed by a member of the House and a senator?

WATERS: The objection is in writing and I don't care that it is not signed by a member of the Senate.

GORE: The chair will advise that the rules do care and the signature of the senator…

In 2021, Republican Congressman Paul Gosar of Texas raised a similar objection to the certification of Arizona’s results.

GOSAR: “Mr. Speaker, can I have order in the chamber?”
“The House will be in order”
[Protestor sound]

Texas Senator Ted Cruz joined his objection, and 121 House Republicans voted in support, shortly before protesters breached the House chamber.

Before the 2024 election, Republican lawmakers demanded changes like requiring states to verify proof of citizenship for voter registration, but that legislation did not get past the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Not a single one of those Republicans who objected in 2021 did so on Monday even though not much has changed for election security.

Some Republicans, like Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee, think that Trump’s win was decisive enough to relieve concerns.

BURCHETT: I always say you gotta put enough points on the board that they can’t steal it. And I think we put a lot of points on the board this time.

Other Republicans cited more systemic irregularities present in 2020 that were not a factor in 2024. Here’s Congressman Michael Guest of Mississippi.

GUEST: I voted against that because of the changes that had been put in place by the court during that COVID period that I thought were improper.

So there’s a range to why Republicans believe 2024’s election results are more trustworthy.

There was, however, one key difference between the laws on the books in 2021 and the ones in 2025.

COLLINS: There is nothing more essential to the orderly transfer of power than clear rules for effecting it.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine heard there…before Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 to clarify the role of the Vice President in the certification process. In 2020, President Trump insisted that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to reject the Electoral College votes over concerns of election fraud. Pence and his legal team disagreed. The Electoral Count Reform Act clarifies that the Vice President’s role, along with that of lawmakers in the chamber, is largely symbolic.

FORTIER: I don't think it was ever in the power of the vice president to do this but the new act clearly says the vice president is there really just as a very ceremonial figure, standing before the joint session of Congress.

John Fortier is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He says the reform act simply clarifies what most legal experts already believe is in the Constitution. The one change it does make is that lawmakers are no longer allowed to individually raise objections.

FORTIER: The old act had if one member of the House and one member of the Senate would object to any question about the electorate, or the slate of electors, then they would have to divide into the House and the Senate separately. They have to consider this debate for several hours and come back. And we did that one time in 2004, and then a couple times in 2020... We didn't have a majority to actually sustain it, but we did have some substantial number of people voting for those objections.

The new rule raises the bar for raising objections.

FORTIER: So now it's 20% of each body. So a significant number of House members and a significant number of senators would have to vote to even consider an objection and then ultimately just as before, a majority of both House and Senate would have to agree to make some objection to throw out a slate of electors.

There were no objections raised this time around.

On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris became the fourth such office holder to preside over her own electoral defeat. Here’s what she told the press after the certification:

HARRIS: Today was obviously a very important day. It was about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is that there will be a peaceful transfer of power. … I do believe very strongly that America's democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it… And today, America’s democracy stood.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington, D.C.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

Ivory Coast-France — Today’s World Tour begins in the West African nation of Ivory Coast. Authorities there have said French forces will start to pull out this month.

Here’s Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara.

OUATTARA: [FRENCH] The 43rd BIMA marine infantry battalion at Port-Bouet [a commune of Abidjan, ed.], will be handed back to Ivory Coast's armed forces from January 2025.

He says the French forces will hand over command of a marine infantry battalion in Abidjan to the country’s armed forces this month.

It’s the latest in France’s waning presence on the African continent. In the last few years, more than 70% of African countries with a French military presence have pushed the European nation out.

Recent military coups in several former French colonies have accelerated the exit.

But the European country is still expected to retain some ties with Ivory Coast … which is considered one of France’s closest allies in the region.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Montenegro mass shooting — We head next to the Balkan nation of Montenegro where thousands of people gathered to remember the victims of a New Year’s Day mass shooting.

Authorities said a 45-year-old opened fire in the city of Cetinje. At least 12 people died—including two children.

The shooter also shot himself and later died from his injuries. Back in 2022, police confiscated illegal weapons from him and authorities sentenced him to three months in prison. He appealed and won.

Mourners called for better security measures to prevent another mass shooting.

Tatjana Minic organized the Sunday rally.

MINIC: [MONTENEGRIN] Nearly one person in five potentially owns a firearm. Isn't that enough to alarm us all? It's not just a statistic. It's our reality—a reality that brings with it dangers.

She says nearly 1 in 5 people in the country own a firearm, a reality she says comes with more dangers.

Authorities are now considering several new measures, including recruiting more police and tightening requirements to own and carry firearms.

AUDIO: [Children speaking]

Indonesia free lunch — In Indonesia, authorities on Monday launched an ambitious plan to provide free meals to school children.

The $28 billion project is projected to last four years and includes at least 190 kitchens that began to deliver cooked meals this week. The project launched by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto also seeks to cater to pregnant women this year. Each meal costs about 62 cents.

Authorities hope it will help to curb stunted growth, which affects more than 21% of Indonesian children.

The program provided meals on Monday to more than 100 students at an elementary school in East Jakarta.

Yuliani is the school’s head teacher.

YULIANI: [INDONESIAN] We do hope that this programme will have positive effects on the academic performances of these children. Because this programme will fulfill the children's basic nutrition needs.

She says she hopes the program will also impact the children’s academic performances.

The plan has faced some criticism, with analysts cautioning that it’s not sustainable.

AUDIO: [Street music]

Colombia living pictures — We wrap up in Colombia, where artists joined an annual tradition involving living pictures this month.

Participants in the village of Galeras pose for motionless artistic scenes—earning the tradition the name, “living pictures.”

This year’s scenes included one of Jesus holding a sheep and another with the elderly smoking cigars.

UNESCO declared the tradition as an intangible cultural heritage in December.

Ibeth Severiche is one of the creators of the event.

SEVERICHE: [SPANISH] It will allow people from other countries to come and get to know us, to learn about our culture, our traditions.

She says the recognition would attract more tourists to the city.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: You think it’s difficult getting to the airport on time? Unless your name is Mike Johns, I don’t even want to hear it.

JOHNS: JOHNS: OK, why is this happening to me on a Monday? I’m in a Waymo car.

WAYMO: Connected to rider support. This call may be recorded for quality assurance.

JOHNS: This car is just going in circles.

I’m so glad he recorded this.

Johns needed to get to Sky Harbor in Phoenix, and he expected Waymo to take him there.

And points for the calm demeanor. Finally, he got a human from Waymo support:

WAYMO: I’m really, really sorry, Mike….

JOHNS: It’s circling around a parking lot. I got my seatbelt on. I can’t get out the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies.

WAYMO: I understand, Mike, and I’m really sorry for this. We’re working with this but by any chance do you have access to your Waymo app right now?

After fumbling around with the app for a minute, they were able to get the car under control.

All’s well that ends well, Johns still made his flight, because it was delayed, and the ride was free.

JOHNS: Oh, my goodness!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 8th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: safety and security in Portland, Oregon.

The city of Portland has seen massive increases in rates of crime, homelessness, and drug overdoses in recent years. Their police department is one of the most understaffed in America. As a result, some citizens are hiring private security.

MAST: But the situation in Portland is so complicated, some private security firms are having to rethink how they do business.

WORLD senior writer Emma Freire spent a day with one of them to see how they operate.

BOCK: There’s foil here and here. What are we Gordon Ramsay?

EMMA FREIRE: Alex Stone and Michael Bock are walking the streets of downtown Portland. They point out the tell-tale signs of drug use scattered on the sidewalks.

Stone is the owner and CEO of Echelon Protective Services. Bock works for him.

Their job is to deter criminal activity. But they do that in unexpected ways - by building relationships. As they walk, they greet everyone they meet. And in this neighborhood, that means a lot of homeless people. Stone and Bock ask them if they need help.

BOCK: Are you safe right now?

WOMAN: Yeah.

BOCK: Good.

WOMAN: I’m sorry my head hurts. I got a pretty bad headache. I’m shaky.

BOCK: It’s a little cold out

WOMAN: A little cold?

BOCK: For some. Not for me though. I’m not that cold. You’re doing ok with clothing and all that?

WOMAN: For the most part, yeah.

Stone and Bock act more like social workers than security guards.

STONE: We meet people. And we say to them, basically, when you're in second grade, and the teacher asks you what you wanted to be when you grow up, did you really think that you would say: I want to be homeless in Portland and addicted to fentanyl? And usually they say no. And then we say, tell me your story. How did you get here? And then we say, what would it take to get you back on track?

Stone co-founded Echelon in 2019 and it has 100 employees in Portland who work with over 400 clients. Demand for private policing is on the rise. In early 2019, the state of Oregon had around 1,600 security guards licensed to carry a gun. Five years later, that number had increased to more than 2-thousand.

And Oregon is representative of a national trend.

HOGAN: You’ve got some clear reasons private security is growing.

That’s Tom Hogan. He’s a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.

HOGAN: One, we obviously have a problem with recruitment of police officers, so they are substituting in areas where the police forces are running low. Two, there are some areas where, even though the police are fully staffed, other political forces have decided to sideline the police, and in that case, private security gets called in and hired by private companies to do things that the police may not be able to do. And three, there are just some people who can afford private security.

Portland is a particularly extreme example of those trends.

HOGAN: Portland has a sort of a perfect storm going on. They underfunded the police, they demonized the police. Not surprisingly, police officers left in waves from Portland. So the people in Portland had to hire private security in order to establish some order.

Bock and Stone do generally call the police when they encounter dangerous activity.

STONE: Bock had a call one day and it was a female African American, scantily clad. 42 degrees outside and raining. She had a stick and she was beating the stick on the ground. This lady definitely would die of hypothermia. We see it all the time. Bock calls law enforcement. What happens?

BOCK: She took the stick. Swung it at the police officer. Knocked his Monster Drink or something out of his hand. He backed up, drew a taser and then left.

Stone and Bock say they know this police officer and they believe he does his best. But he and the rest of the Portland police bureau are overwhelmed by the scale of the problems they face every day.

One of the most effective tools Bock and Stone use for building relationships with people on the streets is handing out free cigarettes. We approach a tent and they try to talk to the occupants who are not interested in coming out but are interested in cigarettes. One person unzips the tent opening a few inches, sticks out a hand, and Bock gives him two cigarettes.

BOCK: How many are in there? Two of ya? Here’s a couple. There’s one. Hold your hand still. There’s one.

Despite their friendly demeanor, Echelon’s guards usually wear protective vests and body cameras and they carry handcuffs, pepper spray, and guns.

BOCK: This is not an agricultural community. There's nobody out here growing grain. There's nobody out here right now, chopping down trees, and yet the number of machetes and hatchets are all over the place. Like, I've got pictures of guys walking around, they're dripping with weapons.

Portland seems to be changing course. Voters recently elected a district attorney who vows to be tough on crime, and the state legislature reversed drug decriminalization. Hogan is optimistic:

HOGAN: The interesting thing about Portland is it's fixable. You get a good DA, a good mayor and a good Chief of Police. Portland is small enough that, within about 18 months, you could return it to the wonderful city it once was.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire in Portland, Oregon.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, WORLD Opinions contributor Anne Kennedy says praying for our neighbors is a great start, but there’s still more we can do.

ANNE KENNEDY: As a person who spends more than enough time online posting articles, X threads, and Substacks about the best way to be Christian in a post-Christian world a recent question posed to The New York Times Ethicist left me feeling…well, uncomfortably convicted.

The anonymous writer asked what he or she should do about this neighbor…who is described as a sweet—and very religious—85-year-old woman. The complaint? She “prays for me and says it in person, (in) texts, and (in) emails for even the most minor situations.” When informed by the writer that “she doesn’t need to pray for me,” this wonderful old lady says “she has to, otherwise she’s not following the Bible.”

The simplicity of that line and the persistence of that prayer have to be, together, worth the weight of a thousand blog posts on evangelism and church growth.

I live in a neighborhood that might best be characterized as “post-Christian.” Getting to know the people I live next to is seriously hard going. More conversations go on in the Nextdoor app than in person. Once, an ambulance stood lights flashing outside the house across from mine, and I rushed out, hoping to find out if everything was OK. It was on my lips to say, “I’m praying, let me know how else I can help,” but the words died when my neighbor beat an embarrassed retreat back to her front door.

One problem I have is that I care too much about what other people think about me, especially when I don’t know them. I fear violating social conventions. I love my neighbors, of course, and do pray for them, but the thought of telling them what I’m doing fills me with dread.

“She said she has to” puts everything into perspective. The person who prays must believe that the God to whom the prayer is directed is a Being of great power, the One who possesses more authority than an uncomfortable neighbor who wishes those prayers wouldn’t happen. The Christian must learn to endure the silent accusation of having given offense and see it as a reason for endurance and hope. For God did not dot the landscape with Christians to condemn the world, but that through their prayers, some might be saved.

Praying for people has to be one of the most uncontroversial things a Christian does—especially for one’s neighbor. And, going a step further, the Christian should seize the opportunity to tell the subject of her prayers that she is being brought before the throne of God. It is not a matter of personal choice, a flight of fancy, or an act of self-indulgence. On the contrary, that sweet 85-year-old troublemaker knows the definition and measure of Christian love. Not only is she putting into action her convictions, but she’s also saying it out loud to the chagrin of her neighbor.

I want to be her when I grow up. I want to care so much for the people I see every day that I don’t worry at all about myself. I want to be doddering and forgetful enough that when people tell me they don’t want me to pray, I do it out of habit. Most of all, I want to have been shaped by the commandments of Scripture so that when someone complains to me that I am “not respecting their boundaries,” I will be able to stare at them with a blank face, nod, and say, “I’m praying for you.” When asked why, I shall cheerfully and lovingly declare, “The Bible says I have to.”

I’m Anne Kennedy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: we'll hear from an Israeli man who’s trying to save his brother who is still held hostage in Gaza.

And, we’ll tell you about concerns over China’s apparent computer hacking program targeting the U.S.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Washington Bureau Reporter Carolina Lumetta contributed to today’s Washington Wednesday.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus told the disciples: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” —Matthew 10:16.

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.