The World and Everything in It - March 8, 2022
Teacher shortages hit Christian schools especially hard; the global dependence on Russian energy; and a historic church in Alabama recovering from an arson attack. Plus: commentary from Whitney Williams, and the Tuesday morning news.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!
Schools are having a hard time keeping teachers in classrooms. And that’s especially true for Christian schools.
NICK EICHER, HOST: The war on Ukraine has brought sanctions on Russian banks and financial assets, but what happens if we target Russian oil?
Plus one church congregation’s recovery following an arson attack.
And the blessing of distractions!
REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, March 8th. 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 news now with Kent Covington.
KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Humanitarian crisis worsens in Ukraine as Russian shelling continues » The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine continues to grow as Russian forces intensify their shelling of civilian areas.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki…
PSAKI: This is barbaric. It’s horrific to watch. I mean, you have 1.5 million, if not more, refugees crossing the border. You have mothers and children dead on the side of the road. This is heart wrenching to watch.
Ukraine says Moscow continues to attack civilian targets in a medieval-style siege as it tries to batter the country into submission.
A third round of talks between the two sides ended with a top Ukrainian official saying there had been minor progress toward setting up safe corridors to allow civilians to escape.
Russia’s chief negotiator said he expects those corridors to start operating today.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said it’s hard to take Russia’s word for anything. He said vulnerable civilians …
BLINKEN: … are trying to escape cities where there’s no heat, no electricity, relentless bombardment. And where they’re running out of food and medicine. And there continue to be reports of attacks by Russian forces on agreed upon humanitarian corridors.
Many global companies pause operations or cut ties with Russia » Meantime, many companies around the world are cutting ties with Russia over the invasion. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.
KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Major accounting firms are pulling out of Russia, including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
Levi Strauss said Monday that it’s suspending sales in Russia.
Car companies like Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz are stopping exports to Russia and halting manufacturing within the country.
Netflix has stopped productions and business ventures there, and Disney won’t release upcoming films in the country.
Credit card companies are also bailing out. American Express is suspending all operations in Russia. And Mastercard and Visa say their cards issued by Russian banks will no longer function anywhere in the world.
Oil companies like Shell and BP are also distancing themselves.
And Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Samsung, and Oracle are among the big tech companies that have stopped doing business with Russia.
Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.
Gas prices continue to climb on talk of banning Russian oil » Gas prices are up once again today on talk of banning Russian oil and this driver in Brooklyn is feeling the pinch.
AUDIO: $57.40 on 13 gallons. So my Subaru had two little bars and now it’s full, but it cost me $60 bucks almost.
Pump prices recently saw their biggest jump since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And prices are now the highest since 2008. The national average is now $4.09 per gallon.
AAA spokesman Devin Gladden says rising pump prices are following rising crude prices.
GLADDEN: And unfortunately, drivers are going to have to buckle up for this ride because we really don’t know until we see how high crude prices are going.
Patrick De Haan is a senior analyst at Gasbuddy.com. He says in most cities, gas prices may climb another 5 to 15 cents this week.
DE HAAN: The pace of increases should likely slow down this week. They will not stop. The national average will continue advancing.
He also said prices are varying in ways we’ve never seen before. In some places, the price can be 50 cents per gallon higher from one station to the next.
But Americans can be thankful that they’re not buying gas in Europe. According to the European Commission, residents there are paying $7.21 per gallon.
1,100 homes evacuated as firefighters battle Florida fires » Huge wildfires are raging in the Florida Panhandle, forcing authorities to evacuate more than a thousand homes.
Firefighters are battling the nearly 900-acre Adkins Avenue fire and the 9,000-acre Bertha Swamp Road fire.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis:
DESANTIS: They have all hands on deck, from municipalities to the county to the state. We’re thankful for that.
Complicating matters, the fires are burning in an area still recovering from a hurricane several years ago.
Joe Zwierzchowski is a spokesman for the Florida Forest Service.
ZWIERZCHOWSKI: Unfortunately, they’re in the impact zone from 2018’s Hurricane Michael. So that storm hit as a category-5, and it left a lot of dead, downed trees that are now serving as fuel for those wildfires.
Hurricane Michael left behind 72 million tons of destroyed trees.
SCOTUS won’t reinstate Cosby conviction » The U.S. Supreme Court will not review Bill Cosby's sexual assault case, meaning he will remain a free man. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.
ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The high court on Monday declined to take up the case, ending a two-decade legal drama.
The high court declined to review a decision out of Pennsylvania that released Cosby from prison in June. That after a former prosecutor said he had made a secret promise with Cosby’s lawyers that he could never be charged.
District Attorney Kevin Steele in suburban Philadelphia disputed that. One of Cosby’s accusers and her lawyers said there's no evidence that Cosby ever had a legally binding agreement to avoid persecution.
Numerous women have accused Cosby of assault. In 2018, he was convicted of aggravated indecent assault and spent several years in prison.
Cosby spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said the 84-year-old remains in good health. He said “many people are calling for projects for him" and that he is considering a final standup tour.
Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.
I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: teachers are in short supply.
Plus, distractions in church.
This is The World and Everything in It.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 8th of March, 2022.
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: not enough teachers.
Some blame the pandemic, but even as restrictions ease up, the problem of not enough teachers is likely to continue. The situation became so dire in New Mexico that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tapped the National Guard to fill in.
REICHARD: Most of the data related to teacher shortages is from public schools. But how are Christian schools faring? WORLD’s Lauren Dunn reports.
LAUREN DUNN, REPORTER: Alan Hodak is the administrator of Fourth Baptist Christian School in Plymouth, Minnesota. It serves about 330 students in K4-12th grade. And its roster is growing.
HODAK: We've seen growth, considerable growth this past year. We added about 85 new students, but we were up in enrollment from last year, probably I'm guessing around 60 students.
While great for the school, Hodak says that growth has created some challenges. He had to turn some families away this year.
HODAK: I have never seen it like this before. I would venture to say that adding 100 students would not surprise me for next school year… The problem with that is I can't add students unless I can find the qualified teachers. So that is really the big issue right now. I think we can continue to grow significantly but I can't make that commitment to people until I can have a contract and know that I have a person to fill the spot.
And many schools say they are facing a similar problem.
Last week, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 44 percent of public schools had teacher vacancies. And last month, the National Education Association polled its members about their retirement plans. More than half said they planned to quit teaching earlier than previously expected.
But are teachers really in short supply?
Amber Northern is the senior vice president for research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. She says these survey results don’t match education workforce statistics. At least not yet.
NORTHERN: The latest research that I'm seeing is saying that we actually aren't seeing a shortage per se, at least materialize in the data yet. That the sort of quit rates that we've seen historically are about the same. But what we have seen lately is just a bunch of surveys that say teachers are, you know, burned out, and they're thinking of retiring early or thinking of leaving.
But Northern admits it can take up to three years for the facts on the ground to show up on surveys. And COVID has complicated data collection. But she says other factors may contribute to some schools reporting openings.
NORTHERN: I just want to make it clear that often what we're seeing, and sometimes why we're seeing shortages, is that districts have a lot more money, they're seeing an influx of COVID relief dollars. And so they're advertising for more positions now, because they've got quite a bit of funding. And so sometimes while we're seeing vacancies, it’s because these are new positions being advertised.
But many Christians schools, like Fourth Baptist in Minnesota, have seen more students join their classes in the last two years. Jeff Walton is the executive director of the American Association of Christian Schools. AACS represents about 700 schools across the country.
WALTON: The normal churn in teacher turnover is 7 or 8 percent a year. And what we're seeing right now is an increase in that exacerbated by an increase in teacher need at our schools. Our schools are up at an average of 17 percent this year, so they need more teachers. And then that's coupled with fewer teachers at the other end of the pipeline, and at least a small increase in the number of teachers that are leaving that profession because of COVID-related issues.
Walton says the Christian college administrators he’s talked to tell him fewer students are choosing to become teachers. That’s a trend that predates the pandemic. He thinks some of that drop may be due to concerns over pay as well as increasing behavior problems with students.
WALTON: There are fewer candidates out there looking for positions in Christian education. I talked to a school leader at a Tennessee school a couple of weeks ago, he told me he's not having any trouble hiring for next year, because every week, he gets an application from a teacher in a public school in his area that's leaving public ed and looking for a position in Christian ed. So some of that I think is offsetting a little bit of the problem with the supply drying up and into the pipeline. But overall, I think the picture is still kind of negative that way. There are fewer people looking for careers in Christian education than there were 10 years ago.
Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, hosts a classical school job fair for its students each year. Last year, it limited the fair to 45 prospective employers. This year, it raised the cap to 60. Both years, about 200 schools applied to participate.
Daniel Coupland is the chairman of Hillsdale’s education department. He says he hasn’t noticed a change in the number of students considering education.
COUPLAND: So our enrollment is, you know, kind of fluctuates between 14 and 1600, you know, students, and so again, we have 10 to 15 percent of our students going into teaching in any, any particular year. So, again, it'll be interesting to see what comes of the job fair to see if that number increased. But we're only able to supply so many, you know, teachers.
Back in Minnesota, Alan Hodak says his school can work with AACS to train its own teachers and help them work toward certification. He’s even considered recruiting college students before they graduate and offering to pay some of their tuition.
Hodak says other schools in the area are thinking about similar options.
HODAK: They'll call me and they'll say Well, hey, we need this, we need that. Who do you have? Well, I don't have anybody, because I'm struggling in the same way, you know. But what I tell them is, is there anybody there who is educated, who might be interested within your church congregation or school constituency that might want to teach for you? And if so, why don't you start a dialogue and see how you can come up with creative solutions to put them in, in your school. So there's a lot of things you can do to try to encourage recruiting people. But I'll tell you, we're at a place where we have to become really, really creative in order to make it happen.
Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the rising energy costs of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
NICK EICHER, HOST: Washington’s response to that invasion includes heavy sanctions on Russian banks and its central bank. But the United States has stopped short of banning Russian oil and gas.
Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, more and more members of Congress have been calling for such a ban, despite White House resistance to this point. Press Secretary Jen Psaki last week explained why:
PSAKI: We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy. That would raise prices at the gas pump for the American people because it would reduce the supply available.
Energy prices are soaring anyway. The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline here in this country just topped $4 for the first time in more than a decade.
Here to help us understand is Chris Miller.
He is an assistant professor of international history at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and co-director of the school’s Russia and Eurasia Program.
REICHARD: Professor, good morning!
CHRIS MILLER, GUEST: Thanks for having me, Mary.
REICHARD: Glad to have you. Well, the Biden administration went out of its way to leave energy out of the sanctions it imposed on Russia in hopes of avoiding a big spike in energy costs for Americans. But again, those prices are rising anyway. Why is that?
MILLER: Well, what we've seen in energy markets over the past couple of weeks is that although none of the sanctions that either the U.S. or Europe have imposed have directly hit energy markets, energy markets that are worried anyway that future sanctions might come or that Russia on its own might disrupt its exports of oil and gas. So the fact that the war is happening is already driving up energy prices, even if the Biden administration or Congress don't take any specific steps to change what's legal and illegal when it comes to energy imports.
REICHARD: Let’s provide some context. How important has Russia been to the global energy market?
MILLER: Well, Russia is one of the three biggest producers of oil alongside the United States and Saudi Arabia. It's also an important producer of natural gas, much of which it supplies to Europe. And Europe would struggle to make it through this winter without importing Russian natural gas. It would have to shut down some industries if Russian gas exports were to stop. If Russia would have stopped exporting oil, the world would survive, it would just be a much more expensive place to drive a car.
REICHARD: And how dependent the United States and Europe has been on Russian energy?
MILLER: Well, when it comes to oil, oil is traded globally. So it's not that much more difficult to buy from any other country if you can't buy directly from Russia. It's a little bit more expensive, but not a huge change. But for gas in particular, Europe is quite dependent because unlike oil, which is usually shipped around the world on ships, gas is largely shipped via pipelines. And there's a number of pipelines that connect Russia to Europe, and those aren't easy to change in the short term.
REICHARD: Chris, I noticed a really interesting development and that is that a delegation of top U.S. officials just traveled to Venezuela for meetings with the Nicolas Maduro regime. And that’s remarkable because the U.S. government believes Maduro rigged recent elections there and the U.S. has repeatedly called for him to step aside.
But this is a situation of the lesser-of-two-evils. Venezuela is a significant oil producer. And the Biden administration is apparently looking to Venezuela to maybe help replace Russian oil and perhaps deprive Vladimir Putin of an ally. Chris, what do you make of this meeting with the Maduro regime?
MILLER: I think you're right to say that it is about trying to find other sources of oil if Russian oil does get further knocked offline and we've seen this not only with regard to Venezuela, but also Saudi Arabia, where there are reports that the Biden administration is asking the Saudis to increase oil production. And also with Iran, where I think there's no doubt that part of the Biden administration's rush to complete a new deal with Iran is partially motivated by the desire to see Iranian oil back online to bring prices down in case Russian oil is knocked offline.
REICHARD: What else can the United States and Europe do to help break free of Russian energy as painlessly as possible?
MILLER: Well, in the short term it's difficult simply because changing your energy sources takes a fair amount of time. So, we shouldn't think that there's any sort of silver bullet that's going to keep energy prices down in the short term. If this war lasts longer, energy prices are going to go up. In the longer term, though, I think we never should have gotten ourselves reliant on Russian energy in the first place and ought to do more to make sure we're supplying our energy needs—whether oil or gas—from friendly countries rather than from adversaries.
REICHARD: What else do you think Americans need to know in this situation?
MILLER: Well, I think a lot of the debate in Washington is about whether or not we should sanction Russia and what effect that will have on energy prices. But the reality is that prices are already going up because of the war. It's Putin's decision to invade that has driven prices up, because no one knows what's going to come next. Traffic to the Black Sea, which much of Russia's oil transits through, is now obstructed because of the Russian naval deployments there. And so whatever the U.S. decides to do when it comes to sanctions, the reality is that it's the war that's driven up energy prices, not U.S. political decisions.
REICHARD: Alright, Chris Miller is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Chris, thank you so much.
MILLER: Thanks for having me.
NICK EICHER, HOST: Moviegoers who showed up for a Friday night screening of The Batman in Austin, Texas got a bit more reality than they expected.
One man posted this reaction to social media:
AUDIO: I’m at the Batman movie, and there are bats in the movie!
Did you catch that? There are bats in the movie. Meaning an actual bat in the actual theater.
Staff went so far as to pause the film and contact animal control.
No reports of anyone bitten and we should point out here less than 1% of bats living in the wild have rabies. But that’s kind of easy to say from where I’m sitting!
The theater offered customers a refund, but most chose to stick it out, watch the movie, and share space with the bat.
But now thanks to the prankster, going forward everybody gets closer bag checks before anyone—or any flying mammal—gets in.
REICHARD: Thanks, Prankster.
EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 8th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.
Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.
NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: church arson.
Back in 1997, President Bill Clinton pulled together a federal task force to combat arson attacks on churches.
The number of arsons declined in each of the task force’s three years from nearly 500 annually down to around 200. Still, the federal government reports about 100 such attacks on houses of worship each year.
REICHARD: And when arsonists attack, the aftermath doesn’t just leave charred walls and hymnals. Sometimes, it leaves opportunities. WORLD Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson brings us this report.
AUDIO: [NEWS REPORT]
KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: An arsonist hit First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, September 30th.
BETHEA: We think that she hid out right down here in the third floor, down the hallway that we just passed. We're pretty sure she hid out in there until about two in the morning
That’s the church’s pastor, Mark Bethea. At first sight, he thought the damage was minimal. Sure, a reception area was wiped out, but flame-retardant carpet kept fires under control in two sanctuaries. But that was more than five months ago. Back before he understood the problems that come with extensive smoke and soot.
BETHEA: The air conditioning units picked up soot and spread it out all throughout the church. So it's all in those spaces . . .
Along with an army of professional cleanup crews, the church has also hosted lots of equipment. Five stories of scaffolding. Spray painters. Food tents. Eighteen wheelers.
AUDIO: [AIR PURIFIERS]
Air purifiers—tall ones with charcoal filtration—are strategically placed throughout the church’s complex of buildings. It’s a big campus. More than 377,000 square feet.
But even with so much in disarray, Associate Pastor Kenny Hoomes says there’s no natural explanation for the place not burning down, particularly the old sanctuary that was built in 1905.
HOOMES: There's some good hard wood in that building. It could be a pile of rubble today, and yet on this freezing cold, snowy morning here in Montgomery, Alabama, we're able to worship in that old building, and be warm and dry.
Billy Irvin is a longtime member of First Baptist. He’s a deacon and teaches a 9th grade Sunday School class for boys. He also knows Montgomery inside and out because he’s on staff with a Christian broadcasting company.
BILLY: I regularly am sitting around tables, at least monthly, with pastors of different color and different denominations praying together, finding ways that we can serve the community together . . .
So Irvin wasn’t surprised when congregations throughout the community stepped up last fall to help First Baptist.
IRVIN: Trinity Presbyterian Church, which is about five minutes away. Some of our choir music ministry met there at their church for a while. Fraser United Methodist Church across town called and said, “Do you need our stage? Do you need our sound equipment?”
AUDIO: [HYMN SINGING]
First Baptist met outside for worship services for weeks after the fires. And classrooms were off-limits, too.
IRVIN: So we met in homes, we met at restaurants, we met in the park. In fact, my Sunday school class is up the street here in an old house. It’s where we meet on Sunday mornings.
At one of the outdoor services the church had a special guest. Dawson Zhang pastors Montgomery Chinese Christian Church. He was shocked when he learned the arson suspect was a Chinese woman.
ZHANG: We pray for Pastor Mark and the congregation. We told him our Chinese congregation loves you, supports you. We’re one family in God, in Jesus Christ. So God's love can conquer the hatred.
Billy Irvin appreciates Pastor Zhang’s kindness, but he says First Baptist isn’t focused on the suspected arsonist’s ethnicity.
IRVIN: . . . an international person did this. Well, an individual did this, an individual whose heart is certainly not in alignment with Christ. Someone who has got evil in them did this.
Irvin remembers being in the church parking lot, helping set up chairs for one of the outdoor services, when he had a thought.
IRVIN: This church is going through a cleaning of these little micro carbon things you can barely see, yet they've contaminated the inside of the church, and it must be cleaned up for it to function properly . . .
He says the same is true for us.
IRVIN: . . . in that Psalm, right? Lord, if there's anything in me, even if I don't even know what it is, if you'll help me identify it, then I can clean my heart so that I can be right with you . . .
Pastor Bethea doesn’t downplay the arson, but he doesn’t grumble about it, either.
BETHEA: No pastor wants to be dealing with this. They want to be dealing with helping people connect with Jesus. And in a way, that's what we’ve talked about—stewarding the season. That in a way this has allowed us to connect people to Jesus through the struggle that we're facing.
Meanwhile, the cleanup and restoration work continues at First Baptist. They’re able to meet in part of the buildings. But even a Servpro staff member said the project has been challenging. Especially the pipe organs.
WORKER: The man who originally installed this organ in Stakely Sanctuary—his son who took over the business—was the one that came and helped clean the organ. And his dad originally installed it way back in the day. So I thought that was pretty cool.
And then, as if the fires weren’t enough, the church got hit again, but not by an arsonist. This time it got hit by a car.
AUDIO: [NEWS REPORT]
It was a Wednesday night. Choir had just let out.
BETHEA: This was a pure accident. He just blacked out. And thankfully he's okay. But it's crazy.
Bethea says these events have shown him and his congregation they can be flexible.
BETHEA: It's just a building. It's just a facilitator for what God's doing. And I think that we’ll walk away here being appreciative for the space and what it allows us to do, but unified around God's mission and purpose for us, rather than just the building and place that we are.
Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Montgomery, Alabama.
NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.
The church is filled with all sorts of people, including distracted ones. Exhibit A? WORLD commentator Whitney Williams.
WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: I have to admit, the Sunday morning crowd at my church can be a bit distracting at times. When I should be settling my mind in preparation for the sermon, I find myself thinking about my brothers and sisters and their stories. From the outside, it may not look like I’m worshiping appropriately. Focus, Whitney! But I assure you, my soul is rejoicing.
For instance, here come Chase and Melissa down the aisle. They’re running a little late because they were serving at kids’ check-in. As we continue singing, my mind takes me back to their newborn son’s graveside service almost 10 years ago. At the grieving mother’s request, the ladies from our home group prepared hot ham sammies for lunch after the service—you know, the baked ones made with Hawaiian Rolls, ham, Swiss cheese, poppy seeds, and an extraordinary amount of butter? A bit of physical comfort from their loving God on a bitter day. He did not despise their broken hearts. “Though He slay me, I will trust in Him,” their continued presence here preaches.
Oh, and over there, a widow in her 30s lifts her hands to the Lord. “Is she hungry or filled right now?” I wonder. Maybe it’s a bit of both. I’m spurred to stop and pray. Her little girl, now without an earthly father, dances to the music alongside two little girls adopted out of foster care. Their mother is also a young widow. Shared suffering binds the five of them, I’m sure of it. We’ve barely spoken—these young widows and I—yet, God speaks to me through them: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
To my left, I see an adulterous wife, repentant, forgiven, and embraced by her husband. “Forgive, as the Lord forgave you.”
A few seats down from them, a young single woman who suffered sexual abuse as a child. According to a testimony she shared a few months back, she’s learning to release feelings of shame, and finding peace and healing. “You aren’t winning, Satan.”
I spot two different cancer survivors—one of them has curly hair now. “Struck down, but not destroyed.”
As our pastor begins preaching, a little girl, who just two weeks ago underwent brain surgery, bounces past my husband and I, oblivious to the prayers these two strangers offered on her behalf. “Thank you for your mercy, Lord.”
Several interracial couples speak volumes. “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation …”
I see addicts, no longer addicted. Teens with suicidal thoughts lifted out of the muck and mire. Sinners redeemed, set free. Oh, what a foretaste of glory, divine.
Behind me, a young, wheelchair-bound man, emits both moans and sounds of glee … His mother gently pats his hand, uses a handkerchief to manage his uncontrolled drooling, and offers him soft, soothing shushes.
It all reminds me of a hymn I used to sing growing up.
“Oh, God, how you love us,” I think to myself, as I refocus my attention on my pastor, echoes of mercy and whispers of love resounding all around me.
This is our story, this is our song.
I’m Whitney Williams.
NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: inflation. We’ll talk about soaring prices and the Biden administration’s policy response.
Plus, a conversation with Senior WORLD Magazine writer Lynn Vincent—on our newest podcast launching later this month.
That and more tomorrow.
I’m Nick Eicher.
MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.
The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.
WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.
The Bible says to fan into flame the gift of God, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:6-7 ESV)
Go now in grace and peace.
WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.
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