The World and Everything in It: September 29, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Russia plans to draft hundreds of thousands of men into the war effort against Ukraine. It’s not going well.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also what a Christian organization is doing to help Ukrainians.

Plus captivating boys in a school designed for them.

And commentator Cal Thomas.

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

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

REICHARD: Here now’s Kent Covington with the news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Hurricane Ian » Hurricane Ian pushed inland this morning, blasting central Florida with driving sideways rain and winds around 70 miles per hour or more in some places.

Ian slammed the southwest coast of Florida close to Ft. Myers yesterday. Gov. Ron DeSantis noted winds topping 150 miles per hour, very nearly a Category 5 hurricane.

DESANTIS: That’s gonna rank as one of the top-5 hurricanes to ever hit the Florida peninsula.

The governor has requested a major disaster declaration from the federal government. And Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Wednesday that help is on the way.

GUTHRIE: We literally have, with first responders across the state and additional ones coming in, there’s well over 10,000 responders statewide ready to do stuff.

Tropical Storm Ian could hit Jacksonville, Florida and Savannah, Georgia tomorrow.

Storm gas prices » With the storm bearing down Wednesday, President Biden said the hurricane “provides no excuse for price increases at the pump,” and he’ll ask federal officials to investigate any potential price gouging.

BIDEN: Do not - Do not use this as an excuse to raise gasoline prices or gouge the American people.

There were few signs that average gas prices jumped significantly in Florida as the storm approached. AAA put the statewide average at just under $3.40 a gallon, almost identical to a week earlier.

As of now, the storm is not expected to affect major oil and gas refineries.

Cuba aftermath » In Cuba, lights started to flicker on in the capital, Havana, but much of the city and other parts of the island remained without power on Wednesday.

That after Hurricane Ian knocked the nation’s power grid offline.

RESIDENT: [Spanish]

One longtime Havana resident says he doesn't remember an island-wide blackout ever happening before.

RESIDENT: [Spanish]

The storm also devastated some of the country’s most important tobacco farms. And officials blame Ian for the deaths of at least two people.

Ukraine aid » The U.S. government is shipping another round of military aid to Ukraine. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

PIERRE: The United States is announcing an additional $1.1 billion dollar package of weapons and equipment for Ukraine.

That will include HIMARS rocket systems, armored vehicles, radars, and counter-drone systems.

That brings the total of U.S. aid to Ukraine to nearly $17 billion dollars.

Referendums reaction » The White House also once again denounced Moscow-backed referendums in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Jean-Pierre said the votes were entirely rigged.

PIERRE: And the Russian government falsified the results to advance the lie that the Ukrainian people want to be part of Russia.

She noted that armed Russian officials forced many residents to vote. And Moscow was celebrating the results before the balloting was finished.

Meantime, at UN headquarters in New York, the United States and Albania are jointly pushing a resolution to condemn the illegitimate votes.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield:

GREENFIELD: We reject Russia’s action unequivocally. And we will continue to work with our allies, partners, and likeminded to impose costs on Russia.

Moscow claimed on Tuesday that voters overwhelmingly favored joining Russia. That sets the stage for the Kremlin to annex those regions of Ukraine.

Europe steps up security around pipelines » European companies are ramping up security after the suspected sabotage of two underwater gas lines. WORLD’s Mary Muncy has more.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Explosions that damaged two pipelines from Russia to Europe highlighted the vulnerability of Europe’s energy infrastructure. And that prompted the EU to warn of possible retaliation if its pipelines are attacked.

Natural gas prices are climbing again in Europe after a recent dip. Russia benefits from higher energy prices and economic anxiety across Europe, but investigators have not yet determined whether Russia was behind the alleged sabotage.

Energy companies and governments said Wednesday that they’ve already begun to fortify their infrastructure and security to guard against future pipeline attacks.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Kamala Harris Asia » In Japan on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris stood on the deck of an American destroyer at a naval base and called out China over its recent behavior.

HARRIS: We have witnessed disturbing behavior in the East China Sea and in the South China Sea. And most recently, provocations across the Taiwan Strait.

Harris said the United States will—quote—“deepen our unofficial ties” with Taiwan, which China claims is part of its territory.

To face down Chinese aggression, the U.S. will depend heavily on two key regional partners—South Korea and Japan. And relations between those nations have remained frosty since World War II.

One of the aims of the vice-president’s four-day trip to the region, is to help mend ties between the two U.S. allies.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Russia's plan to draft hundreds of thousands of men to fight in the war is not going well.

Plus, ministering to victims of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 29th of September, 2022. Glad to have you along for WORLD Radio today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up: Russian conscription.

Last week, Vladimir Putin decided to call up conscripts to fight the war in Ukraine. It’ll change the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russian families.

The announcement sparked vocal dissent. Many fled the country. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

PUTIN: [Speaking in Russian]

JOSH SCHUMACHER, reporter: Vladimir Putin last Wednesday announced on Russian state television a partial military mobilization. The move came after Russian losses in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. Or, according to the Kremlin, after Russia strategically retreated from the area.

Evgeny Kosykh used to be a pastor in Russia. He also attended this year’s World Journalism Institute in Europe. He says the Russian authorities are being a bit misleading about the military mobilization.

KOSYKH: Russian authorities said they wanted to recruit 300,000 people. That’s the official line. But in the mobilization decree, there’s one part about the number of people who should be called up. And that is classified. One source for that information is an independent Russian newspaper called “Novaya Gazeta.” It reports that Putin wants to mobilize one million people for the war. What that means is almost every family in Russia will face this.

The same day Putin announced the mobilization, Russian citizens took to the streets.

AUDIO: [Protests in Russia]

Some reports say that more than 1,300 Russians—some say as many as 2,000—have been arrested for protesting the war. One man attacked an enlistment office and shot the commanding officer. Russian media reported that he was upset his friend, who had no combat experience, had been called up. At least 17 other enlistment offices have received a notorious Russian gift: Molotov Cocktails. That, according to Russian independent media.

Neighboring countries report that 194,000 Russians have voiced their protest by leaving the country.

Initially they tried to leave by plane, but pretty soon all the tickets were gone—despite the fact that prices were soaring.

Before long people resorted to traveling out of the country by car, on foot, or using bicycles.

According to satellite images by Maxar Technologies, the line of cars waiting to get into just the country of Georgia stretched for nine miles. That’s four and a half times the length of Manhattan island.

Kosykh says the reason all these people are leaving is pretty simple:

KOSYKH: People don't want to go to war. They don't want to kill. And they don't want to be killed. This is a senseless war. Almost everyone understands this. Russians reacted to this decree with protests and military aged men and their families fleeing the country.

One young man from Russia who’s now in Kazakhstan said something pretty similar.

AUDIO: [Speaking in Russian]

He said that many of those fleeing Russia distrust the government about how many people are actually being called up. They also are trying to avoid the possibility of getting called up in the future if the government does announce a full mobilization.

Evgeny Kosykh also says that this mobilization order poses a major question specifically to Christians: how seriously do they take their faith?

KOSYKH: The government does not take into account Christian beliefs and so Christians face a serious choice. The punishment is 10 years in prison for refusing to go to war. We all sometimes face a test of our faith. And this test for Russian Christians now is very severe. It’s likely that many will end up in prison, because the Russian regime is ruthless towards those who do not comply with their decrees.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

REICHARD: And a special thanks to WJI alum Evgeny Kosykh for contributing to that report.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: serving the victims of Russia’s invasion.

Heartbreaking scenes continue to come into focus in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium  after Ukraine’s military chased Russian forces out of the area.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Mass graves, signs of torture, and evidence of assaults against civilians as young as four years old.

Joining us now is the head of one of the groups working to provide aid and ministry to the residents of Izium and Ukraine more broadly. Sergey Rakhuba is president of Mission Eurasia.

REICHARD: Sergey, good morning!

SERGEY RAKHUBA, GUEST: Good morning, Mary, and thank you so much for the opportunity to share what’s happening in Ukraine with your listeners.

REICHARD: You just arrived back in the United States from Izium. First of all, paint the picture for us as vividly as you can. What did you see there in Izium?

RAKHUBA: Mary, I was in the outskirts of Izium, when I was there, Ukrainian army already was protecting the area from entering there because of the danger for life for people, so we're capping there. My team was there a couple of days before and they delivered food to all those people living or who were trapped there under the occupation. And the scenes they're describing, you know, so entering the places where people were gathered under the same roof, in half-destroyed house, basically waiting for somebody who can come and liberate them. They were waiting, you know, without food, without heat, without any means, you know, to support their lives. So my team is describing, it was just unbelievable picture to see, when people were stretching their hands, you know, they were running toward these humanitarian workers, you know, our national teams that work with Mission Eurasia there delivering food, and it was so hard touching. So to see that people were waiting for the moment, in order to see that they get liberated, and they received so much needed help, you know, so the first they received food, then blankets, you know, so and all the means, you know, so that could help them to survive. The scenes they described around Izium was just horrific, you know, all this mass graves and they've seen you know, so when Ukrainian army started already working, digging out the dead bodies from those mass graves, exhuming them, putting in the refrigerators and transporting to the place where they could identify them.

REICHARD: Describe to us what Mission Eurasia is doing right now in Ukraine.

RAKHUBA: Mission Eurasia is focused on providing so much needed help, aid for our teams that we partner with that deliver it to those who are in need, interned and displaced and refugee families all across the nation. As of today, we were able to pack and distribute 135,000 family food packages. We call them iCare. One food package contains enough food to sustain a family of four or five people for at least one week or more. We add a copy of Scripture to it. So, food is to feed their bodies to sustain their life, but scripture to bring comfort to their souls. We help people to find shelter, working through our networks with churches, we help lots of families to find a safer place in Western parts of Ukraine where they get ministered, so where they get shelter, where they can get help. And also Mission Eurasia is providing lots of counseling for people that need emotional help, need spiritual help. And through pastoral care and trauma counseling, we help lots of families, especially their children, to recover from the trauma they received. So when they were running from their places when Russian troops were shelling their communities and losing, their homes, even in many cases, losing their loved ones, so we help people through a special counseling to get this help.

REICHARD: Have you been in touch with anyone on the ground in the areas where Russian forces just held their so-called referendums? If so, what did they tell you about how that played out?

RAKHUBA: I've just talked to a pastor yesterday, his name is Mikhail, he was able with his family to get out of the occupied territory. He was arrested for several days by the Russian special forces, because he was found like the most influential, spiritually influential person in town, because his church every day, they were having prayer meetings, not just in their house of prayer or their church building, but also outside and lots of people from community will join them. So the Russian soldiers or Russian Special Force, they decided just simply to deport them. It could have been, you know, a lot worse because we know many spiritual leaders, pastors just simply got disappeared in those occupied territories. So talking with Mikhail, he's sharing that story. He says, Sergey, this is just what's happening there. People during this referendum, they have no choice. Basically, under the gunpoint they have to cast their ballot, their vote, so that they want Russia to annex their territory, they want to join Russia. And he says literally, that's what happens. Russian soldiers, they walk from door to door, carrying the box, you know, for voting. And they basically with machine guns on their shoulders, they suggest people vote. Russians, so they report that they're about 95 percent of population there casting their positive vote for it. But in reality, that's what I hear from this pastor and other contacts I have there, they say barely anyone wanted to Russia to occupy or to annex their territories there.

REICHARD: How, specifically, can Christians around the world pray for the people in Izium and around Ukraine?

RAKHUBA: People can pray for Ukraine, first of all, pray for Ukrainian victory. So they're fighting for their freedom. They are fighting for their nation. They are fighting for their sovereignty. So pray that Ukrainian government will have wisdom to lead the nation in a type of distress like this, in a time of turmoil. So pray for the evangelical church, for the church overall in Ukraine when they provide spiritual leadership to their nation in a crisis like this.

REICHARD: Sergey Rakhuba is president of Mission Eurasia. Sergey, thank you for the work you do and thank you for joining us.

RAKHUBA: Thank you so much, Mary.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A new Guinness World Record’s been set!

This time, an international team of soccer players did it. And it had nothing to do with the score or the length of the match, it’s the height of it! At 20,230 feet to be precise.

Mastercard organized the whole thing with a plane outfitted with an artificial turf soccer field. Not regulation size, but they made do.

The plane flew a parabolic path to simulate zero gravity. The team played the entire match with their feet only occasionally touching the turf, thereby setting the record for the highest altitude game of soccer on a parabolic flight.

BROWN: It’s safe to say they took their game to new heights!

REICHARD: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 29th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Back to school. Sort of.

When September rolls around, most kids head back in the classroom, armed with freshly sharpened pencils. But for one set up aimed to captivate boys, there are no desks. And the students are more likely to pack a sharp knife for whittling rather than a pencil. WORLD Correspondent Koryn Koch has the story.

KORYN KOCH, REPORTER: All that aggressive snarling and yelling? That’s what happens when you get a dozen boys together and tell them to re-enact an epic battle scene from the Lord of the Rings. The boys brandish prop swords and charge at each other in a choreographed skirmish.

They’re practicing for Bilbo’s Birthday Party. Marty Comer and Sammy White explain the unusual scene.

Marty and Sammy: It's like a giant Lord of the Rings party. And we're just doing little skits in it… I'm Gollum. So yeah, I'm Merry. It's a boy. It's a Hobbit and it's also spelled differently than M A R Y it’s M E R R Y.

Practicing their skits is just one of the activities the boys will do today at the Riverside Club for Adventure and Imagination.

Riverside meets during school hours and its aim is to teach. But it isn’t a school.

It’s more like…

Searby: What if Teddy Roosevelt met with JRR Tolkien and they tried to figure out like, what's the best program for boys?

That’s Peter Searby, founder of the program.

Searby: So it was like, roughing it outdoors, physical experience and then being you know, both men of prayer and men of the arts…

Searby wanted to create a program for boys that educates and inspires them through adventure and storytelling.

Searby: The tutorial is all about a creative approach to story expression. We do that through a variety of creative projects. So we try to think of what– what are the various ways that you can tell a story that are going to engage their their minds, their hearts, their imaginations…

So what does that look like on an average day? Riverside’s newest tutor, Steven Mantel, gives an idea.

Mantel: We could be doing improv scenes. We could be outside in the woods. We could be playing games with each other. We could be trying to inspire kids of like, what stories or characters do you want to write today or random scenes that you want to do? So the average day is never average.

The program’s goal is not to check boxes, but rather to spark the boys’ imaginations.

Brown: We're not like a school in that sense where we grade projects. But at the end of the project, we want the boys to have poured themselves into it and really given it their best…

Wesley Brown has worked as a Riverside tutor for four years. He loves seeing how Riverside has trained and inspired the boys.

Brown: One of the boys last year had ever written a lot of stuff, at least. He was young, probably nine years old. We started doing a medieval knights tale. And he loved the concept. And so the next week he came in and says Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown, I have I have my story, and he drops it at the table. And it's a typed out 32 page story. And then he had a friend of his illustrate it and put it in a book. So it's like a bound story illustrated that he wrote and now he loves writing because he loved the project and the idea behind it.

Riverside is designed for boys aged 8 to 13. They come one day a week, and each small group goes with a different tutor to work on that day’s projects. There’s no traditional classroom setup here. That’s partially because of Peter Searby’s own experience with standardized learning.

Searby: I had a lot of trouble fitting into into the kind of system when I was a kid, I thought something was wrong with me. There's a lot of focus on what I call checkbox learning now so a lot of testing and sitting in rows. And so there wasn't an activation and sort of an encounter with I don't know, the love of learning.

As an adult, Searby became a teacher, but he didn’t like what he saw there, either. He felt there were too many hoops to jump through and not enough emphasis on what’s truly important.

So he decided to create a program for boys like himself, providing opportunities for adventure, inspiration, fellowship, and most importantly, faith. Every day at Riverside begins with prayer and singing.

AUDIO: [OPENING SONG]

Each year has a different theme, like the Revolutionary War, or medieval knights and chivalry. This year, the theme is C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Today, the boys are building Ents—the iconic tree people from The Lord Of The Rings.

AUDIO: [ENT BUILDING]

The boys collected sticks of all shapes and sizes from the church grounds where Riverside meets. Now, they stand at a long table littered with tools and bits of bark. They use dremels, knives, and saws to shape the wood pieces, then fit them together into a mini tree-like person.

On other days, the boys may be practicing army ranger tactics, going on canoe trips, or learning to blacksmith.

Wesley Brown says, sometimes, finding the space for all those endeavors can be tricky.

Brown: We are growing so rapidly that we have a lot more boys in this space than we had previously. And so there's a lot of sound bleed, and organizing. Okay, I have this space right now. You have this space. Shuffling is a process.

It’s easy to see how the space Riverside borrows from a willing church might be growing cramped. As Peter Searby takes his group of boys to rehearse scenes in the graveyard, the other tutors are rehearsing on the lawn. Excited shouts from the groups overlap as they rehearse twenty yards away from each other. But a little noise isn’t going to keep the Riverside boys from performing this epic story.

AUDIO: [REHEARSAL]

Storytelling is a theme that comes out over and over again at Riverside. Searby says it’s a crucial piece of the program.

Searby: We're actors upon that stage, as the bard said. My hope is that they come to see what character and role they have to play in that epic story they've been given by God. And what that as I call them, I always tell the boys life is an adventurous pilgrimage to heaven. And if you wake up every day with that sense, then you'll be inspired.

Reporting for World, I’m Koryn Koch in Lemont, Illinois.

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

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: commentator Cal Thomas on the Republican reboot of the 1994 Contract with America.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: House Republican leaders have announced a plan they are calling a “Commitment to America” in time for the November election and presumably the presidential contest two years from now.

In unveiling the plan, California Republican and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has the party’s priorities right. The question is whether the Republican Party can survive the Democrat and media onslaught we have seen before, the one that claims the GOP will end Social Security and Medicare and harm children.

The Commitment to America plan promises to reduce government spending – the main driver of debt that accompanies record high inflation – control the Southern border and the migrants and drugs pouring in, as well as attack violent crime. These issues have worked well for Republicans in the past. The problem has been sustaining them against opposition from Democrats, much of the media and interest groups sometimes characterized as “the swamp.”

In this “sequel” to the Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey “Contract with America,” Republicans are again promoting some of the same ideas that created their first House majority in 40 years. The 1994 contract had many things going for it, but chief among them was everyone could understand it. The contract contained 10 promises and was reduced to the size of a full-page ad in the then widely distributed TV Guide magazine. Voters could also carry copies in their wallets and purses.

Not all of the contract’s objectives were achieved, including congressional term limits and a constitutional amendment to force balanced budgets, but those that did were astoundingly successful.

The Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform bill was a major achievement of the contract. The left claimed poor people would starve. They didn’t. Most of the able-bodied among them found jobs, which benefited them and the country.

Taxes were cut and in 1998 the federal budget was balanced and stayed balanced through 2001. Hard as it is to believe with today’s $30 trillion-dollar debt, the country experienced a surplus of $236 billion in 2000.

Economic growth was 4 percent or higher from 1997 through 2000 and by the end of 2000, unemployment was under 4 percent.

For three straight years – from 1997 through 1999 – the economy produced more than 3 million jobs, a record.

It is undeniable that the contract worked.

The new list of Republican goals will work, too, if they are implemented, because they are rooted in the history of what has worked before – lower taxes, less spending, personal responsibility and accountability, empowering parents, not teachers unions.

President Biden is no Bill Clinton. The Democratic Party has been taken over by the hard left and they are not about to compromise on anything, from social issues to “climate change.”

Only if Republicans win the Congress and the White House does the GOP “Commitment to America” have a chance to fully succeed. As in 1994, the party has the issues on its side – from previously mentioned inflation and a declining stock market that is hurting the savings of retirees, to an uncontrolled border, violent crime and a cultural fabric that seems to be coming apart.

If Republicans can’t win on these issues, they can expect and deserve to be committed by voters to years of irrelevancy.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: On tomorrow’s program, it’s John Stonestreet for Culture Friday.

And, your listener feedback! And our ‘fess up time.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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

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

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

The Bible says: For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:2-5 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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