The World and Everything in It - November 25, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

A new draft peace plan for Ukraine is circulating in Washington. We’ll talk with an expert about what’s in it, and what the risks are.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, more states are looking at assisted suicide laws, but pro-life doctors worry we’re wiping out the wisdom of dying well.

And later: the story of the first Bible printed in the New World and the pastor who learned a native tongue to help make it possible.

HILDEBRANDT: They didn't have a written language, there was no literature. There was nothing, and so he had to start from scratch.

And WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the traces that a life leaves behind.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, November 25th. 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: It’s time for the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Pentagon investigating Sen. Mark Kelly » The Pentagon is weighing whether to pull retired Navy captain — and Arizona U.S. Senator — Mark Kelly back onto active duty to face a court-martial.

Kelly was one of six Democratic lawmakers—all former military or intelligence— who appeared in a video, calling the Trump administration a threat to the Constitution. And in that video Kelly added:

KELLY: Our laws are clear, you can refuse illegal orders.

That came as Democrats criticized lethal military strikes against drug cartel vessels in international waters, calling them illegal.

Sen. Kelly insists he was simply citing what the law already says.

But the White House says the message went much further. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued the intent was unmistakable:

LEAVITT: To try and give a wink and a nod to the 1.3 million active-duty service members who serve in our United States Armed Forces and essentially encourage them to defy the orders of their commander in chief.

Kelly responded to news of the Pentagon probe, with a lengthy statement listing his combat missions, his years as a NASA astronaut, and his wife Gabby Giffords’ survival of a gunshot wound — accusing the administration of trying to intimidate him, and adding that it will not work.

Ukraine latest » U.S. officials say they’re optimistic that negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine are moving in the right direction.

And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says talks between US and Ukrainian officials in Geneva Sunday were “substantive.”

But he also stresses that any peace plan must uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty.

ZELENSKYY:  Putin wants legal recognition for what he has stolen to break the principle of territorial integrity and sovereign.

Washington’s 28-point framework peace proposal reportedly presses Ukraine to hand over some territory to Russia and reduce the size of its army.

President Zelenskyy reportedly may make another trip to Washington as soon as this week to map out the next steps in peace talks.

Comey and L. James cases dismissed » A federal judge has tossed out the criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed, and therefore, the cases she brought against Comey and James cannot stand.

Comey reacted, saying the ruling sent a message:

COMEY:  The president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.

Both defendants claimed the separate cases were purely political, because of their past involvement in investigations of or cases against Donald Trump.

But Attorney General Pam Bondi insisted Halligan was lawfully appointed and both cases were fully warranted.

BONDI:  We'll be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal to hold. Leticia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct.

The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled — but possibly not in Comey’s case due to the statute of limitations.

The judge’s decision doesn’t address the merits of the allegations — it focuses solely on what he said were the procedural flaws in Halligan’s appointment.

U.N. meeting on Israel » Israel is again drawing criticism from the United Nations.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric called out the Jewish state on Monday over a weekend airstrike in Lebanon.

DUJARRIC: We are seriously concerned about the deadly Israeli strike on a residential area in southern Beirut yesterday. We urge all actors to exercise maximum restraint and to avoid any further escalation.

Israel says the airstrike was targeting Haytham Ali Tabtabai, a top official with the Hezbollah terror group, and that they successfully took him out.

Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian:

BEDROSIAN: The IDF attacked the Hezbollah Chief of Staff in the heart of Beirut, who led the strengthening and arming of the terrorist organization. Israel is determined to act and achieve its goals anywhere and at all times.

Lebanon's health ministry says a total of five people were killed in the airstrike and more than two dozen were injured. It was the Israeli military's first such attack on Beirut in months.

Boeing space capsule won’t carry astronauts on next flight » Boeing’s troubled space capsule will not be carrying astronauts on its next flight. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more.

BENJAMIN EICHER: NASA and Boeing and have agreed that the next Starliner flight will be a trial run, carrying only cargo, no people.

The company will work to prove that the capsule is safe eight months after the first and only Starliner crew had to be brought home months later in a SpaceX vessel. That was due to technical problems and safety concerns with the Starliner.

Engineers have since been poring over its thruster and other issues.

The cargo run will happen no earlier than April, pending more tests and certification.

NASA is also slashing the planned number of Starliner flights, from six to four.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Thanksgiving travel » A record is expected to fall this week, with a whopping 82 million people projected to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday.

AAA spokeswoman Aixa Diaz says, if you’re flying, you should probably make plans to show up early at the airport. And if possible, it’s best to fly on off-peak days.

DIAZ: Tuesday and Wednesday are notorious for being crowded at the airports, as well as the Sunday coming back. We are advising give yourself extra time…. we're expecting that people need to arrive at least two hours before a domestic flight.

The highways will also be packed. AAA says nearly 90% of holiday travelers are planning to drive.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a U.S. backed Thanksgiving deadline for Ukraine: Is it a realistic roadmap for peace or a shortcut likely to fail? Plus, grief, collectibles, and saying goodbye.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 25th of November.

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard

Up first, a peace plan.

Axios last week revealeda draft of the Trump team’s plan to end the war in Ukraine. It’s a 28- point proposal—one that guarantees security and reconstruction funding, but requires Ukraine to give up territory permanently to Russia.

EICHER: Many in Europe condemned the early outline, but this time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not among them. Here he is on Friday ahead of talks in Geneva over the weekend.

ZELENSKYY: Speaking in Ukrainian.

Zelenskyy says it’s a choice between the dignity Ukraine loses in the plan or an extremely difficult winter ahead.

Ukrainians in the Western city of Uzhhorod told WORLD’s Caleb Welde the situation at this point is lose-lose.

CHRISTOFOROV: If we give this territory, it not stop the war.

REICHARD: Sasha Christoforov works for a humanitarian group there. He worries the plan rewards the wrong person.

CHRISTOFOROV: Putin is liar. Putin is killer and terrorist, and he wants all Ukraine.

EICHER: Evangelical pastor Vadim Khloba thinks that giving Russia what it failed to win on the battlefield will not produce lasting peace.

VADIM: When we stop this war and Russia will not be punished for what they doing, a couple years and they start again.

So: what’s actually in this plan?

What’s changing after Geneva?

And is anything realistic before Thanksgiving?

Joining us now is George Barros Bah-ros— Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War and a former adviser to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

REICHARD: George, good morning.

GEORGE BARROS: Good morning, thanks for having me.

REICHARD: George, what we know about the plan so far is based on reports of drafts, so nothing set in stone. But it sounds as though the White House is using the Gaza peace plan as a template for this one. What stands out to you from what we know so far about this 28-point plan for Ukraine?

BARROS: Yep, the key thing about the plan is that this is not going to be the plan that is going to be executed upon. Over the weekend, we had numerous American officials, including, you know, Steve Witkoff and Marco Rubio and General Keith Kellogg and a variety of other officials explicitly state that the plan is evolving. It's going to be changing. They were listening to the critiques that the Europeans had, that the Ukrainians had when they discussed this on Sunday in Geneva and Switzerland, and they are currently undertaking several revisions to that 28 point plan.

And we could talk about what the initial reported 28 point plan was, but suffice it to say, really, this wasn't a peace plan. It was a plan to give Russia a piece of Ukraine and not give Ukraine the sufficient guarantees that it needs to deter Russia from a future war. So they had several deficiencies. I think the administration is taking a very constructive approach to that, and we'll see what happens when the next iteration of the plan comes forward, but it will likely be a much stronger plan. That said, I strongly suspect the Russians are going to reject it anyway, and that can lead us to some interesting further developments.

REICHARD: Well, let's drill down into that some more. George, when we talked back in August before Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, you said land swaps would be a no go without robust guarantees of us support for Ukraine. So what do you make of what's on the table this time?

BARROS: Right, the land swaps that's proposed in the current plan, which I suspect are not going to exist in the next plan, are an absolutely no go, even if there were robust guarantees. Because, look, the plan stipulates that Ukraine would lose all of Donetsk Oblast, and it would become a demilitarized zone, and it would be a de facto recognized as Russian terrain. This is a big problem for Ukraine, because Ukraine's best fortified and most defensible terrain right now is, in fact, in the continued part of Donetsk Blossom Ukrainian forces still maintain. And that's why the Russians are so, you know, vested in having the Ukrainians diplomatically surrender terrain that the Russian military is very unlikely to seize in any sort of short timeline. And really it's very difficult for there to be a credible Defense of Ukraine without that terrain, because it's a straight shot across the Steppes of Eastern Europe to go deep into the heart of Ukraine like just as the Russians tried to in 2022 without that lodgement. So that's a big deal there.

Now let's talk about the meat and bones of the security guarantees. The plan talks about how Ukraine should receive NATO, like Article Five, like security guarantees. And I'm sorry to throw sort of a bit of a bucket of cold water on this, but we can do a better deal for Ukraine than NATO Article Five, because there are deficiencies with NATO, the Article Five. Many people don't know this, but if you actually read the NATO charter and read the language of Article Five, Article Five actually doesn't oblige a military response in reaction to an attack against one of the allies. It says that the member states should take steps as deemed necessary or as to respond to the situation, which can include military force, but it's not an obligation, and we already know that the Russians are engaging in acts of war against Europe, against NATO member states. We had sabotage in Poland. We've had assassinations in the UK. We've had these unprecedented drone and even manned aircraft airspace incursions into European countries. And NATO has responded and decided actually not to treat these as attacks and to not respond in turn to these sorts of malign Russian acts.

And I actually think that if we were to look at security guarantees and stronger treaty language that is actually likely to deter Russia from going in, we should look to more robust examples. For example, the treaty that the United States has with Japan that the U.S. Senate ratified is much stronger than the deal, than what we've given our NATO allies. The language there really is, if another state attacks Japan and they invoke the treaty, then the United States is obliged to help defend Japan, and that's a much stronger deterrent than Article Five like language, because, unfortunately, the language is actually quite mushy. But these legal, these legal details matter.

REICHARD: I'm curious, what do you make of Zelensky's willingness to even consider the plan? I mean, in the past, he said giving Russia ill-gotten territory is just a non-starter, as we've mentioned, but now he is negotiating. So what pressures are at play here, you think?

BARROS: Well, the the big issue here is that, I think. Vice President JD Vance, threatened to cut off military aid and intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians if they don't accept this deal by Thanksgiving. That was the original reported deal. And the Ukrainians, of course, understand that their center of gravity for this war is the international coalition, of which the United States plays a big role. And so when you threaten to pull out the American support for Ukraine, that can tank your ability to continue waging a defensive war, and it's a massive issue. So that that is essentially an act of coercion to bring the, the Ukrainians into accepting massive concessions.

Now again, the good news here is it appears that the plan is not going to be executed quite that way. And candidly, I think we need to explore using coercion, not just against the Ukrainians to bring them to the table, but use coercion against the Russians to bring them to the table. Senator Lindsey Graham has a wonderful sanctions bill that can be used to try to bring the Russians to the table. And of course, the U.S. maintains options to destroy more of Russia's oil and gas refineries by giving long range weapons like tomahawks to Ukraine, which would certainly hurt Russia's economy. And perhaps use some sticks to bring them to the table as well. The sad critique that I have about this particular administration's approach to this negotiation seems to be we use more carrots with the Russians, who define us as an adversary, and we tend to use more sticks with the Ukrainians, who are our allies when I think maybe the approach should be inverted.

REICHARD: Right, let's talk about that some more. That early reported drafts do give Russia everything at once: permanent control of captured territory, a road to re-entering the international community. Anything Russia might have to give up in the final deal?

BARROS: There's a couple things that are some minor Russian concessions within the deal as originally reported. So for example, it does state that you would have a lockdown on the southern front line, and that Russia would would no longer have a claim to the other provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which the Russians illegally declared as annexed terrain, even though they don't control it, all of it in 2022. And this deal would, in principle, force the Russians to relinquish their claims on that and for that reason, I think the Russians are very unlikely to do that. I think it's very difficult to compel Putin to try to amend his constitution, because it would be a massive embarrassment to him, but, but that would be a concession. Another concession would be amnesty for war crimes, that one of the points in the reported deal would be amnesty for both sides for for war crimes. And essentially that would mean that we let the Russian, you know, war criminals and rapists and murderers who have committed a litany of war crimes that would all, in principle, be lifted.

REICHARD: So there's a lot still up in the air with all this, including buy in from European allies. George, how likely do you think it is that the President gets Zelensky to sign a deal before Thanksgiving?

BARROS: This is not going to happen before Thanksgiving. I'm fairly confident of that. The recent commentary that we got from Secretary Rubio over Sunday indicated that this is still being workshopped. You know, they're talking, they're sitting, they're receiving feedback. There's counter proposals. I think it's going to take a little bit of time and thinking to develop this deal. And of course, as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, which is imminently upon us, I think it's very unlikely that we're going to get there, because things move slowly in Washington this week.

REICHARD: George, is there any aspect of this story you think people should be paying more attention to or is underreported?

BARROS: Couple of closing thoughts here. It seems that President Donald Trump is really trying to rush to a deal, and the timeline seems to be sort of a self imposed one. Whereas Moscow and Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin, they're in no particular rush to get to a deal particularly quickly. I mean, Putin is actually trying to, he's trying to do a variety of things, but he's trying to play a long game here and get to a deal that really benefits Russia.

And you know, one of the points in Donald Trump's book The Art of the Deal is when you're faced with with a bad deal, you walk away. And so I think it would be prudent for the President to heed his own advice and understand that actually there are tools in the American arsenal that we can employ to degrade Russia's negotiating position and get a deal that actually better puts the American interests first and not let the hasty deal be the enemy of the ideal deal. And really there's no reason for us to rush into it for any event. The frontline is not at a risk of a major collapse, and the longer this war protracts, the hairier and the less sustainable it becomes for Russia. Those are the key things that we should keep in mind.

REICHARD: George Barros is Russia team and Geospatial Intelligence Team Lead for the Institute for the Study of war. George, thanks so much!

BARROS: Of course, thank you so much, Mary, and wish you a happy Thanksgiving.

REICHARD: Same to you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: more states considering assisted suicide laws.

Pro-life advocates warn that hastening death short-circuits lessons unique to the final season of life. And doctors and disability advocates warn the guardrails never stay in place. WORLD’s Lauren Canterberry reports.

LAUREN CANTERBERRY: In the early morning hours of October 31st, Illinois state senators passed a bill that not even the governor expected to come up for a vote. The measure would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill residents aged 18 years or older who were not expected to live more than six months.

Robert Gilligan is the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois.

ROBERT GILLIGAN: What happened is, in Illinois the legislature passed a lot of very significant, controversial pieces of legislation during what they call the veto session. Technically they’re supposed to be times when the legislature acts on the governor’s veto.

The state’s regular legislative session ended in May, with only the House having approved the bill. Then the Senate began a special session last month.

Now the bill is sitting on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk awaiting his signature or veto. But if he takes no action, the measure will go into effect 60 days after it arrived in his office.

Pritzker is not the only governor staring down an assisted suicide bill as the year wraps up. Over the summer, New York lawmakers also approved a similar bill and sent it to Governor Kathy Hochul for consideration. Neither governor has publicly said what their decision will be.

GILLIGAN: Advocates will say they need this because they don’t want to experience pain and suffering at the end of life. We all want to help people, but in terms of helping people under the guise of compassion, we’re actually not helping them. We’re hurting society.

Proponents of assisted dying claim laws like these provide a necessary end-of-life option for the terminally ill. But pro-lifers argue the legislation is a slippery slope—claiming that assisted suicide targets vulnerable and disabled people. They say allowing people to kill themselves with the help of medical professionals deprives them of the lessons and experiences that are unique to the final season of life.

Eleven states and Washington, D.C., currently permit medically assisted suicide. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice. Matthew Eppinette is the executive director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.

MATTHEW EPPINETTE: They talk a good bit about guardrails and safeguards like residency requirements, like waiting times. But what we’ve seen in state after state after state is there’s then a movement to go in and amend bills that have been passed and to remove exactly those kinds of safeguards.

In 2019, Oregon lawmakers removed the 15-day waiting period between a patient requesting lethal drugs and receiving them. In 2023 they allowed non-state residents to request the medication. Five other states have also reduced their waiting periods. New York’s newly proposed law has no waiting period.

Illinois state Senator Chris Balkema spoke out against the bill before the October vote.

CHRIS BALKEMA: Every state and country that has enacted this has opened the guardrails over time and made it easier and easier to take one’s life. The impact on Illinois’ most vulnerable, the one and a half million people with disabilities is huge.

As of now, the states that allow assisted dying all limit it to individuals with diagnosed illnesses that will likely claim their lives soon. But disability advocates warn that states could expand the laws to include individuals who doctors say could have a poor quality of life.

Conrad Reynoldson is the founder of the nonprofit called the Washington Civil and Disability Advocate.

CONRAD REYNOLDSON: I have a form of muscular dystrophy and it’s a rare disease that is often misunderstood as terminal.

When Reynoldson was diagnosed as a toddler, his doctor said he would have a poor quality of life and likely die young. Now, decades later, Reynoldson says doctors often wrongly assume people with disabilities will not experience the same fullness of life as others.

REYNOLDSON: It just sets up a two-tiered system where you have quote-unquote healthy people that get suicide prevention, and then quote-unquote unhealthy people who get this.

Every state that allows assisted suicide laws also operates suicide prevention programs. Eppinette says these policies cannot coexist.

EPPINETTE: At the very least it gives a tacit endorsement to the idea that there are some lives that should simply come to an end at a person’s own hand.

While assisted suicide proponents claim the laws are intended to save people from suffering and pain, pro-life doctors say medical advances have drastically improved pain management options. Dr. Sharon Quick was an anesthesiologist and now leads the Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation.

SHARON QUICK: You never, ever need lethal drugs to manage pain. I think we have this attitude in our society that youth, beauty, strength, independence, and intelligence are valued. And when you start losing those things, as you do at the end of life, then even patients will feel like they’re not valuable anymore.

According to Oregon’s most recent report on its law, the top three end-of-life concerns for people seeking assisted suicide were loss of autonomy, decreasing ability to participate in activities, and loss of dignity.

People who support assisted suicide point to these fears as reasons to help people end their lives. But Quick and others argue the responses show a need for our society to change how we view death. Instead of dreading the natural end of life, we should learn how to care for our loved ones and allow ourselves to be cared for when we need it.

Quick recalled watching her father lose his abilities as he struggled with multiple diseases near the end of his life. Instead of growing bitter, he allowed his family to meet his needs and always found something to be grateful for, an attitude that stuck with Quick.

QUICK: When you can learn to recognize your value, even in the midst of all of those losses, that is a freedom that is amazing for people to have, that their value is not dependent on their circumstances.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Canterberry.

NICK EICHER, HOST: In Germany, a runaway farm animal slipped the slaughterhouse and went on the lam.

I’ll have to spell that for you, LAMB.

Because the fugitive hid out among a flock of about 200 sheep.

She did stand out. She was a good bit bigger, moved differently, and spoke some kind of foreign language.

SOUND: [Moo!]

Meet Mücke—the cow.

And according to shepherd Alfons Gimber, she fit right in.

He said she sniffed, she mingled, she “behaved almost like a sheep.”

The flock accepted her, no questions asked.

But this was not to be a long-term arrangement. The shepherd did track down Mücke’s owner and offered to help return her. The farmer, though, changed his mind and agreed to let Mücke live out her years in a local sanctuary.

So… a clean getaway, a safe landing, and one very assimilated bovine.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 25th.

This is The World and Everything in It.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Coming next: WORLD’s Paul Butler on the first Bible ever printed in the New World.

Only a handful survive today — a testament to the pastor who learned a native tongue to help make it possible.

One of those Bibles sits inside a climate-controlled room at Gordon College.

ST. GERMAIN: We rebound this in 2021. We had a conservator come in and do some work on it, so the binding’s a bit tight. So when you open it, it might feel a little resistant, it's just because it's been rebound.

PAUL BUTLER: College Archivist Sarah St. Germain holds the first Bible printed in the New World. This copy at Gordon College is one of 37 left. It’s St. Germain’s job to keep it in good condition.

ST. GERMAIN: So we have our big HVAC which you can probably hear in the background, that humming noise that keeps our environment stable.

This Bible is bound in smooth brown leather. Its simple cover has a straight border with fleur de lis embossements at the corners. It looks a lot like how it would have in 1663.

ST. GERMAIN: The pages, the four edges, were painted yellow at some point. So all those the top, bottom and side edges, . . .

On the brown spine, small gilt letters spell the word Biblum. It’s not in English, but a dialect of the Native American language Algonquin. This book is known as the Eliot Bible.

DIMAURO: The Eliot Bible is a Bible of firsts.

Damon DiMauro is a language professor at Gordon College. He spoke with associate correspondent Anne Burgdorf and says the Eliot Bible is one of the first translations completed by a non-native speaker, done for a language with no prior writing system.

DIMAURO: Eliot claims to have discovered new ways of grammar, namely, new possibilities for organizing language and thinking grammatically.

John Eliot is the translator of the Eliot Bible. He was a Puritan minister remembered as the “Apostle to the Indians.”

DIMAURO: He believed in education and that's why, you know, he believed in literacy, not just translating the Bible, but teaching people to read, and he put together primers, catechisms, and other grammars.

Eliot came from England to Massachusetts in November of 1631. He was ordained to pastor a church in Roxbury, and his mission was to share the Gospel with the Native Americans. To do that, he enlisted an indentured native to help him study Wampanoag, a local dialect of the Algonquin language. Eliot was fascinated with the complexity of the Wampanoag language.

DIMAURO: Most people thought that these were just barbarians, but, and I think that linguists know this too, that every language has its inner logic and is organized in a different way.

Eliot also loved that the language organized nouns by distinguishing between animate or inanimate.

DIMAURO: And so he said that they had a notion of the soul, of something being alive, and so that was really encouraging to him, that as a pre evangelistic tool, he could use that to try to minister to them.

After 15 years in Massachusetts, Eliot delivered his first sermon in the Wampanoag language. Biblical scholar Ted Hildebrandt worked on the New Living Translation project. In a video lecture posted online, he says Eliot opened the floor for questions after his sermon.

HILDEBRANDT: I think one of the keys to understanding Elliot, after the sermon, they had a question and answer period of three hours— John Elliot respected the Indians so much that he allowed them to ask questions, and he wrestled with their questions for three hours.

But there was one question in particular that drove Eliot’s mission.

HILDEBRANDT: ‘How do I get to heaven?’ and he basically said, you know, ‘read the Bible, hear what Jesus says, and pray.’ And he realized that they couldn't read the bible in their own language, they didn't have a written language, there was no literature there was no nothing, and so basically he had to start from scratch.

Eliot had translated the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer into Wampanoag. But the entire Bible was a monumental task. And Wampanoag is not a simple language.

HILDEBRANDT: I've had you know Acadian I've had Ugaritic I've had Hebrew I've had Greek I've had Latin and German and stuff like that, and this language is much much more difficult than anything I’ve ever seen.

Eliot completed the Bible in 1663. Harvard University printed 1,000 copies on a press sent from England specifically for Eliot’s Bible. The King James Bible, published half a century earlier, had been translated in seven years by 54 scholars. Eliot, working largely by himself, completed his translation in 14 years— all while ministering, traveling, and preaching.

DIMAURO: For about a 20 year period, Eliot's ministry was very successful. I mean, it was, it was idyllic, it was utopian. He had achieved what he wanted and it was really going very well.

Unfortunately, Eliot’s vision was short-lived. In 1675, war broke out between the Wampanoag people and the colonists.

Those on both sides destroyed many copies of the Eliot Bible, resenting it as a connecting point between them. However, Eliot’s love for the Wampanoag never faded. Ten years after the war, he published a second edition of his Bible.

HILDEBRANDT: He loved the Indians, he respected them, and treated them with dignity, and respect; he listened and interacted with their questions, he took their children and catechized and taught them the gospel and new ways of living and things, and they trusted him.

Over the course of his ministry, Eliot saw 1,000 converts. He published Wampanoag devotionals, catechisms, and grammar books. In fact, linguists later used Eliot’s works to resurrect the Wampanoag language. Around the world today, modern missionaries and linguists are still doing what Eliot pioneered: studying indigenous languages to create writing systems and Bible translations for them.

DIMAURO: You learn other languages because you learn how other cultures and people think. Language is a reflection of how people think, and I think that that probably fascinated him, and it's a reflection of God's creation, and it does add a new dimension to knowledge of God.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler with reporting from Anne Burgdorf.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 25th. 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. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on what’s left when a loved one dies.

JANIE B CHEANEY: My husband was a collector of whatever interested him at the moment. It might be guns. It might be paintings or prints that took his fancy at a flea market. After we bought our five acres it was antique farm implements to hook up to his tractor. Most of all, model railroad equipment: boxes and boxes of diesel engines, steam locomotives, track, and rolling stock stored under his 8x12-foot layout.

When we moved out of our farmhouse three years ago, most of those collections were gone, either given away or sold. Except the model railroad. All those boxes came along with the layout, first to our temporary house, then to our permanent home. By then, though, Doug was well on his way to forgetting his oldest enthusiasm. He never asked about all the equipment I sold. He watched a stranger come and dismantle the layout and carry it out the door without a word of protest. I think he had forgotten what it was for, not to mention the hours of time he’d spent painstakingly laying track and wiring switches.

Since August, Doug had gotten progressively weaker until two Mondays ago, when he closed his eyes. We thought then that he had only a day or two to live but he breathed on, slow and steady, until late Friday afternoon. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me one last time. I told him I loved him. He took three, maybe four, breaths, each with long pauses between. And then he was gone.

While he was still here in those final days, growing progressively weaker and more unaware, his possessions meant nothing and his hours were cluttered with morphine, lorazepam, mouth swabs, and wipes. But now the few remaining things he owned are weighted with memory. There’s the cap he bought at Hobby Lobby emblazoned with Psalm 90, verse 2, because he remembered God. There’s the 2x4-foot seascape he bought at a DAV thrift store, because he remembered beauty. There’s the handmade candle holder he bought at a children’s craft fair, not because he liked candles, but because he liked children. Those were impulse purchases, not deliberate ones like his collectables, but they all speak to me of what remained in him after so much was gone.

My collectables are furniture, books, craft supplies, fabrics and trims. I hope to use or ditch most of it before my kids have to, but I wonder how much, if anything, will remain of me. We occupy space while moving through the world, but in the end we’re limited to an 18-inch urn or an 8x4 plot of ground. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but I’m not sure what that means. I don’t think it means instantly reunited with loved ones who’ve gone before; that joyful meetup will probably have to wait for our bodily resurrection. But present, in that my late husband lives in the mind of the Lord who shepherded him so gently into eternity. Lord willing, he’ll live in my mind too.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: Many Americans are struggling with the high cost of housing and healthcare. We’ll talk about it with Hunter Baker on Washington Wednesday. And, the latest movie in the Knives Out franchise hits theaters tomorrow. Collin Garbarino has a mid-week review. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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The Psalmist writes, “Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight. Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.” —Psalm 119:143, 144

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