Report on Trip to Birmingham, South Africa, and London, Along with More

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday afternoon, back after two weeks overseas, and so that obviously is going to take up most of my time filling in on what took place. And it's relevant to a lot of the topics that we normally would be addressing.

Of course, we continue to pray for the situation down in Houston developed very, very quickly. I guess that storm just blew up. And I was looking at a meme online just a few moments ago. The Houston area has received an inch more rain in this storm than Phoenix as a total has received since January of 2012, which ain't saying much for Phoenix, obviously, but the point is it happened really, really, really, really, really fast.

It's the speed at which it comes that's the problem. You can handle 40 inches of rain if you just spread it out over time, let it all get out of the way. Anyway, so a huge situation down there and everyone continues to follow that.

Please notice, oh, it went and changed. Please notice in the background, I need to start off with that. We now have warp capabilities. Up until now, certainly back when this was just a white wall with ugly shade things behind me, that was clearly nothing but a very low level auxiliary engine impulse drive, purely impulse drive.

I'm not impressed with your warp core given the fact that it took me, I had to lower all the YouTube settings today to just get us to be able to feed. It has nothing to do with the warp core. It's not doing the job here.

It has nothing to do with that.

That is actually completely and totally your fault. You're the one who has been doing all this computer stuff and the network stuff and you and that guy lives up north. He knows who he is. You all have been talking about how fast everything was going to be and you're going to be able to be doing these super high resolution things, which I don't think we need, and we can barely get a connection.

It just has nothing to do with the warp core. What I'm going to do with the warp core, if I remember to do it, you can sort of see right now we're just barely doing warp one because that's sort of how I feel today.

I've been home for 20 hours and so I'm feeling a little bit on the just barely able to get to light speed right now. But if we've really got something going, then I can speed it up. And if you've ever seen the warp core at warp nine, it's just, it's a pumping.

It's moving fast. So there's the warp core back there right next to, it looks like it's about to be assimilated by the Borg who look like they're about to be eaten by the Tribbles, which completely messes up the Star Trek timeline.

But we don't worry about things like that here. We really don't. So very, very thankful for the warp core. And what's really neat is it was made on one of those 3D printer things, which is just, I don't even, that's sort of like a replicator to me.

That level of technology is sort of replication level technology to me. So yes, there's the, there's warp core warping back there and I love it. It's great. So it has a, it has a permanent spot in the, in the background there.

So we're going to have to swap a few things out once while the Enterprise D E is in front of me now. Cause we still have so much space back there, you know, just, I just have to, and you know, it's still 2017.

So Martin has to have someplace back there. But there you go. There you go. And the picture of the D is still up there, but it just, it just isn't visible. Yes. And I thank you very much for getting P45 up on the wall without it falling down this time.

That's that's really cool. That looks really good. I like it. So anyway, so let me go backwards. Let me go backwards on the, on the trip and cover a bunch of topics sort of long along the way. Really, really, really encouraging trip for me.

I'm only home for three weeks, three weeks from today. I head for Berlin with my wife. She finally gets to go with me on something. And so short, short time home. And if you want to, I've, I've mentioned this in the program before when I figured it all out, I'm spending one out of every six days in 2017 overseas.

Um, that's pretty amazing for me and I have gotten better at it. We learned something. We learned something this trip. Well, by the way, have y 'all noticed, um, I, I was in Randberg, South Africa one morning and I realized that for 16 years, since 2001, I have been, uh, dragging a sharp, uh, sharp shards of metal over my cranium.

And I, I, I got tired of it mainly as an issue of time. I mean, uh, and blood loss, um, I, I sort of wonder how much blood I'll not have to produce, uh, over the course of the year. Um, but, um, so I've let it grow out to level two on a razor, on a, on a beard trimmer.

That's not much. That's where I am here. That's where I am here. And it saves me a lot of time and I like it. So there you go. So if you're wondering, did I just forget to shave after I got back from the trip or something?

Nope. It's, uh, it's actually purposeful. It is. And while I was in London, we could do the rest of the program like this while I was in London. So friends, uh, they said we have to do a little bit of walking.

It was, Oh my gosh. It was, I think I had 18 ,000 steps that day. Um, you do a lot of walking in, uh, in London and we walked past Buckingham palace through the, through the park into the really swanky part of, of London.

And we went to a hat shop and I got myself a hat. I now have a Bates, a Bates hat. Yep. Rich just looks at the window and he's talking on the phone and he's going, what's going on? Cause he's not listening to me.

This is a Bates hat from, from London. It's a dark blue and it's a rabbit felt and um, I love it. It is, it is great, but problem is it's felt and uh, in Arizona, no, not, not this time year. No, no, you don't know.

Cause rabbits stay very warm. And the last thing I, I need up here, I wore it while walking to the Westminster, uh, train station, uh, tube station and uh, just about, just about overheated, just about died.

So great little hat. Uh, and I appreciate, we had a lot of, we had a lot of fun down there anyways, back to the story. I've got all sorts of stuff to show you here. And so it's, it's easy to get, uh, get distracted.

Um, what was I saying? Yes. It's going to sort of a backwards. We learned, we learned a lot of things on this trip. And uh, when I, one of the things we decided to do is we scheduled and actually booked the flights so that I could have the debate with Zaka Hussein in Birmingham.

I've been invited there more than once and you know, we, we looked at the, we looked at how to get there and I know how to get, I know how to get to the underground station from any of, from basically terminal three, four and five.

I've gotten there. Um, and I have a, an oyster card, which is how you travel on the tube. And I've got the app on my phone so I can plan my, my journey where I got to get off where to do all that kind of stuff.

And so we thought, well, I just need to get to London, Houston, E-U-S-T-O-N, Houston station and catch the overground train to Birmingham. And I'm staying right across the street. So you don't have to have anybody to take me or anything like that.

Technically sounds like a plan. Uh, let me give everybody a warning. Uh, the tube was not designed for you to carry check luggage and your carry on luggage on and off those trains. You've heard the phrase mind the gap.

Well, there is a gap and there's also an up and down. I mean, I was getting off at a, and I made the mistake of getting off at Leicester Square instead of Green Park. I realized that was a mistake. I'll tell you why in a second.

And I got the heavy check baggage down because it's, you know, 15 days overseas. I've got suit jacket and shirts and shoes and ties and all kinds of, and, um, as I get that down, I'm turning around to get my other bags and they fall off the train on my back.

And then I start hanging toward the way out, which is exit. That's what we call it here. Way out there. That's when I realized something. The reason I should have gotten off at Green Park is because it has the little handicap thing on it.

Leicester Square doesn't. What does that mean? No lifts. We call them elevators, but lift is obviously a better term and it takes less energy to say it. No elevators. It's all stairs. And I, I will say it was pretty amazing how many times as I was dragging those four pieces of luggage up those stairs, totally anonymous Londoners.

Just, this is going to sound wrong at first, just grabbed a piece of luggage and ran off. No, they grabbed a piece of luggage and brought, brought up the stairs with, for me, just, and then just kept going.

Just didn't even, you know, just, just help me out. They're probably all obviously going, ah, great. Another American got off the wrong, wrong place. Better get them out of the way. But it was really nice of folks to do that.

But I destroyed my neck. I'm still, this morning I woke up with a horrific headache. I just destroyed myself getting my luggage up those stairs. And it was just, could it be done if I knew which, if I know now what I knew then, I suppose.

But you know, I'll just be honest with you, dragging that much stuff on off the tube, just not a good idea. If you just got your, just got your carry-ons, you're okay. So anyways, I get up to Birmingham and had lunch with Zakir Hussain and a friend of his.

We had a great lunch. We, we really did. We had a great time talking about all sorts of things. And again, unlike my critics who don't understand, I've yet to meet a critic in this recent, this recent spate of attacks upon me, who actually has any close relationships with any Muslims at all.

Any, any at all. Could even name a Muslim by name that they've actually sat down and, and eaten with or, or have any type of meaningful relationship with all. And Zakir is a really nice young man. I could tell that years ago when we first met.

He's pretty high strung in debates. He tried to be a little bit more focused this time around. I appreciated that. But we had a great conversation and we talked about a lot of things and we had the opportunity to, you know, sort of compare and contrast how our different worldviews encounter and discuss things.

And, and it was, it was just, it was, it was a great time there in Birmingham. And then Martin picked me up and we found a tortillas at the, at the train station, which was nice. Or was that, I don't think that was before.

No, that was, it wasn't before we went to, or was that? I remember when we ate, we found tortillas one place or the other. And tortillas is sort of like, if you go to Moe's here in the States or Cadoba up in Colorado, that type of a Mexican place.

And it's, it's really good. It really, it's, it's a, it's a Mexican food place. It's actually good in London or this, in this case, Birmingham. And so went to the hotel and again, the arrangements were a little rough, but it was because in each of these situations, I really want to thank both Yusef Ismail and Zachary Hussain.

We arranged this stuff really short notice. We did not exactly know what my travel schedule is going to be like, what we'd be able to get booked, so on and so forth. And we had to do it on short notice.

And so, you know, some people go, oh, well, you know, you could have done this, could have done that. Well, yeah, if you have plenty of time and lots of money and neither of us, none of us had any of that.

So I appreciate the amount of effort that went into putting it together. And I could not believe it was posted the next day. Did you see that? Then they took it down and, and fix some stuff. There was some audio, something like that, and they put it up, put it up on a different link.

So, but you need to grab it rather than just linking to it. We just need to have an archive of everything. I don't know. I don't know. So anyway, it was up pretty quick and I'm going to talk a little bit about the debate later on.

I want to address a couple of things that Zakir said. Just briefly, not going into too much depth right now, but it was a very interesting evening because it's very clear to me that the quote unquote new direction or new information that some of the Muslim apologists are talking about is basically tapping into standard Jewish apologetic.

It's not actually specifically Islamic. And I, I would argue it's not consistently Islamic because if you utilize the argumentation that Zakir was using against the prophetic fulfillment of Jesus's death in the Old Testament, you've got zero reason to believe whatsoever what the Quran says about Muhammad being prophesied in the Bible.

In fact, I think if Zakir will think about it, the two debates we've done, if he will take the standard that he used in regards to the Psalter, in regards to the death of Jesus and apply it to his own comments from just a few years ago in the East London mosque, he just refuted himself massively.

And that's the problem with the Islamic perspective is because it's inherently anachronistic. It's having to go against something that the author of the Quran simply didn't understand. And so you end up with some serious problems there.

But I want to thank Zakir for the, he found out how much work really goes into trying to arrange these things. We had technical problems. Zakir wanted to use his computer and they didn't, we didn't, the hotel didn't have the connections and, and we ended up having to use my computer and somebody downloaded the thing and we did the best we could with, with what we had.

We got started late as it was and, and so we did, we did the best we could. So I thank Zakir for that and I look forward to further encounters with him. And you know, it's funny, I'm sure, I'm sure that both Zakir and Yusuf Ismail, both, if, if my critics were to contact either one of them and ask them, do you think that James White believes like you, that he's engaging in Chrislam, what's, what's, you know, do you, do you think he's clear in, you know, calling you to believe in Christianity and, and do you know what he believes and, and why he would want you to, to follow Christ as he proclaims him to, do you know what repentance is, do you know what faith is?

They would go, of course, we're not, we're not ignorant of where he's coming from. He's very clear on things like that. I think they would all testify to that. And yet at the same time, I'm able to correspond with them and to talk with them and to make application of these things to, to so many, to too many other things.

Someone has already put a picture from me with the hat, just from this program as a meme, Christian Anarchist has already put it up on, on, on Twitter.

You know, you could go for the vocab look. The vocab malama look? Yeah. Get the sunglasses. Oh, sunglasses. I do have my Oakleys. Yes, and always look down, keep your eyes, you know, shaded. I like that.

Yeah. You know, These are, these are, this is a classy hat, folks. You got to look up Bates, you know, you know, Bates has been in continuous operation even during the battle of Britain since 1898. That's amazing.

So, and we're talking downtown London. I know you're not overly excited about this, but my daughter should know because she wants to go to London so bad that it's not even funny. Yeah, but I'll bet she wouldn't get the hat.

Oh, she might. She might. She might. And the hat lady, oh my goodness. She knew these hats inside and out. It was amazing what everyone was made of and, and how it would handle moisture. And oh my goodness.

She was the hat lady expert. If you want to, if you want to talk to somebody who knows hats, find the lady at Bates Hattery in, I forget what road it was on, but it was right across. If you walk across the park from Buckingham Palace, it was right in there.

It was, it was great. So anyway, so what was I saying? Oh, yes. So went from Birmingham, took the train back down. Again, dragging that luggage on off that train is just so much fun. Down to Heathrow, actually took a train from Houston to, to the thing so I could avoid having to try to go down the stairs with the luggage.

That could have been deadly. Apologize. I has a broken neck thrown down the stairs and in the London too. And then flew, of course, down to Johannesburg and on the next day had the opportunity to go out to Pacha's room and to meet with Dr. Jordan where I'm working on my PhD.

We had a wonderful conversation. Some of you saw the pictures that my dear friend Rudolf Bussoff posted. By the way, I just real quickly, I on Facebook, I linked to the fact that Rudolf was doing a presentation at an apologetics conference and there was a video included and people were actually asking me, have you become a heretic?

That video was heretical. Yeah, it's the group that Rudolf was refuting. It's a new, it's a brand new cult in South Africa called Christ in Me. And it's fascinating because it's right now, I mentioned this, I think when I came back last time, but it's sort of like the E .D. Howe period.

Remember when I mentioned E .D. Howe last time? Rich isn't listening to me anymore. I mentioned that there was an early period like 1834 when E .D. Howe wrote a book against Mormonism, like early, early on.

And it's very valuable because of what tells us about what Mormonism believed in the early stages. Well, that's where Christ in Me is. Their theology is still changing and evolving and stuff like that.

So Rudolf, who is a Christian pastor, who is my contact guy in South Africa, if you've been blessed by anything that's happened down there in South Africa, you can thank Rudolf for all of that because when I land, he picks me up and he's been my connection down there and he's just a dear, dear, dear friend and a dear brother in Lord.

And he was responding to those folks and people are like, this is heretical. Yeah, that's why you respond to heretical stuff. But that wasn't Rudolf in the video. And I guess I can understand if you're not familiar with what's going on in South Africa, how you were confused.

But what I can understand is why anybody would think that I would be promoting heretical stuff. I've sort of been doing this for 35 years. OK, I haven't changed. I've been very consistent all along. And so it's anyway.

Yes, the hat does go well with bow ties, especially with a nice jacket. Someone's asking in channel, especially in London, if you're asking. So anyway, I had a great discussion with Prof Yori, especially and just real quick, a geeky thing here, just for a second, for those of you that are sort of interested in this kind of thing.

And by the way, I'm wearing my NWU shirt, Northwest University. There's that's just one campus, but they it's a long story as to what happened, what the government forced them to do and is forcing them to do.

And you pray for the pray for the folks down there. South Africa has got serious, serious problems. Again, I guess we all do. But there's serious corruption problems and things like that. And there's really isn't any opposition party in South Africa.

And that's that's a that's a problem. Ah, but geeky point here. The Skyman says you have changed that hat is proof. No, no, it's not. Because I have worn people. Remember, I wore those driving caps, the driving cap things.

Yeah. And I was actually looking for a driving cap when we found this. And they're all like, oh, that really looks good. So we went with it. Um, the. Uh, newest textual apparatus in the ECM project from Munster, the newest release has been the Book of Acts.

And if you're familiar, I'm sometime over the next couple of months, I'm going to take a program. It's going to bore some of you absolutely serious. You're not going to get through 10 minutes of it. And others of you are just going to be enraptured by it.

Um, the coherence based genealogical method, CBGM. Um. It is being used. It was used in the. Catholic epistles. General epistles of the Nestle Island 28th edition. It is somewhat of a revolution. I think there are 35 places where the application of this methodology changed the textual reading.

From what would be currently in the NA28 to what will be in the NA29. And it is utilization of computers. To relate. Witnesses, not so much manuscripts. There's a difference between manuscript and witness in this methodology.

And like I said, sometime in the future. It's taken people sometimes a full year of doctoral level study just to get their minds wrapped around this thing. So please give me some patience in trying to make it so it's understandable to other folks.

But the point is, Acts is now done. And Rich just ordered for me the full set from Munster. Why is that relevant? Why is that exciting to me? Because I'm working on P45. What does P45 contain? Elements of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

And a bunch of Acts. And so what that's going to allow me to do. And I think John's coming up pretty soon. And so what's going to allow me to do is to. At least in Acts. And then if they get anything else done over the next two years, maybe.

Bring that information to bear as well. They've published an entire volume of their. What the computer does, it creates family relationships between manuscripts. So that's going to be published now online.

That's going to allow me to make that application to P45 and to relate P45 more accurately. To families of manuscripts. Which is one of the key issues in dealing with the textual background of P45. So I'm going to.

I'm going. That's going to be exciting. That's neat stuff. And I'm really looking forward to getting into that in the thing. So I was talking with Dr. Yordan about that and about some other issues. And we had a really good meeting.

And it's just it's a privilege to work. For those of you who don't remember, Dr. Yordan did his PhD in textual criticism under Metzger at Princeton. And so people wonder, why would you do this study down there?

Because Dr. Yordan's there and he's interested in it as well. And when your advisor is interested in the same subject you are, it makes for better work. So there you go. Had that meeting. And then on Saturday, I spoke at.

If you could be a member of more than one church. If Antioch Bible Church had an associate members program for when you're overseas, I would be a member at Antioch Bible Church. Tim Cantrell and the elders at Antioch Bible Church.

It is my home away from home. I literally have a home away from home. Now, when I go to Johannesburg, I stay with Damon and Linda. And they're grown kids in Randburg. And I've got my room and I can run there.

I know all the paths around the very safe development. And we know where the local gym is. So I can go and go and row and we know where Spur is because I love Spur. And Spur is the completely politically incorrect South African American Indian restaurant.

It would be sued every way from Sunday if it existed in the United States, but exists in South Africa, so they can't get sued. It's great. Anyway, Spur has a really good chicken quesadilla. I mean, it's really good.

And so I get to eat there all the time. Anyway, I went to Antioch Bible Church and did a very quickly put together conference on three of the solos specifically. Well, I was asked to speak on three of the solos.

What I did is I sort of changed it all up. And I sort of addressed those solos through the story of Martin Luther, because next month, three weeks from now, I'm going to Germany. I want to be able to give some meaningful insights to that particular aspect of the Reformation.

And so that's where my mind was. And I just simply have to thank the Lord. The teaching and the preaching ministry in this trip was really blessed. Everywhere I went, people were talking about how convicted they were, how blessed they were, how helped they were.

Even by sermons, which for me is sort of like, really? You liked one of my sermons? Yeah, we really did. And folks really liked how I placed the study of those solos within the historical context of what happened in Luther's life.

It really helped them to get a much better handle on it and to be much more interested in the subject. Because I'm giving the history of Luther and not just in a dry way, but in hopefully a rather exciting way.

And those have already been posted on the Antioch Bible Church website. I think I put, I think I linked to them on my Facebook page. I think, anyways. Yeah, I did. In fact, I put it on the blog. I put a link of South African stuff.

Not all of it, but what I had up to that point is on the blog. So you might find those to be useful. There was like three hours along with questions and stuff. A fellow by the name of Marco did a really good job in asking questions, even though I was sort of throwing him curves by doing things differently expected.

So that was Saturday. Sunday morning, I went to Heritage Baptist Church. Also, it's, I think, a church plant from Antioch, if I recall. They're in Johannesburg, and they're actually doing a church plant out in Potchester.

Oh, and I suppose I should, well, I don't know if I should mention this. I don't want to get in trouble. But when I went to Potch on Friday, Potchester was just called Potch out there. Just Johannesburg is called Joburg, et cetera, et cetera.

I had lunch with a local pastor who was trained under Peter Ruckman. And I sort of wondered what this would be like. Because, look, Peter Ruckman identified me as the Antichrist. And if you've read any of the correspondence that went back and forth between us, if you don't know who Peter Ruckman is, put the name in the search engine on our website and go, really?

OK. We had a really nice lunch. And I'm not going to say much more than that, other than it was encouraging. And the gentleman has a good head on his shoulders. And I look forward to further conversations with him.

It was not what I expected it to be at all. It was quite nice. It was quite nice. So anyway, the Baptist Church is putting a church plant together in Potchester. And I have spoken there once before. And I think I mentioned to you about two years ago when I spoke there that I had some there are a bunch of university students that go to the church.

And that was where I received some extremely encouraging statements. One young man that had said it was the dividing line that helped him to keep his faith during university. And those guys were there.

And I spoke from Colossians chapter three. It really went well. I think I've posted a link to that. A lot of people commented on how challenged they were in their Christian lives to consider the command to be seeking the things that are above, set your mind on things that are above.

It went really well. And then Sunday afternoon, I heard Damon saying that at Antioch that evening, where I was going to be preaching, that they were going to be doing the Lord's Supper. And so I texted Tim Cantrell and I said, so would you mind if I did the sermon on the supper?

Since you're going to be doing that and we'll have the supper afterwards. They were going to do the supper beforehand. And then I was going to preach. Instead of just sort of having it sort of disjointed like that, I said, let's do something about the supper.

And so I preached a sermon on the Lord's Supper before we had the Lord's Supper there at Antioch. And it changed. Well, some of you saw when I left Johannesburg, Tim Cantrell wrote a really nice note to myself, and I guess they sent it to you as well or something like that, which you posted on the blog, didn't you?

And just a really kind word of encouragement, testimony for the impact that the ministries had in South Africa. I certainly have spoken to a lot of churches there and really encouraged folks. And part of that was as a result of just how many people came up to me afterwards and said, wow, we really needed that encouragement.

And it was a special evening. It really was. And by the way, if you want to see what Antioch Bible Church looks like, see the Vatican in the back and then the church in the front? That's Antioch. Why would that be?

Well, take a look at this book. The gentleman who translated this, this is the new Polish version of the Roman Catholic Controversy. Roman Catholic Controversy, this is the Polish version, I think came out in 96.

And for the last couple of times I've gone to Antioch, this older gentleman has come up to me and has talked to me. I guess it was probably two, three years ago, maybe more. He came up to me and said, I would really like to translate your book on Roman Catholicism into Polish because my people in Poland need that information because Poland is a heavily Roman Catholic nation.

And I have people come up to me when I travel all over the place saying, we need X, Y, and Z. And I have to say the same thing. It's still in print. You have to talk to Bethany House. And 9 .5 times out of 10, nothing happens.

Well, not this case. Last time I was there, he said, it's done. It's done. And I'm like, really? And then this time it came, he had a picture of the cover. And I said, wow, they haven't sent me one yet.

Well, I got back and they had. And so here it is, the Roman Catholic Controversy, available on Amazon, now available in Polish, and translated by a man from South Africa at Antioch Bible Church. And we put the picture of the cover up on the screen before I spoke on The Soul is the Reformation and stuff like that.

So another connection, but that actually is a picture of their new, because they didn't have this building when I first started going down there. This has only been the last two or three times I've been there.

Well, for example, last time I was there and I had the debate in Linasia in the mosque, Tim and a bunch of other guys came. And that night the church was broken into while we were at the debate at the mosque.

They didn't really take much, but that's their new building there. And they're sort of the flagship church in the Five Solos group. A lot of churches are leaving the Baptist Union and joining the Five Solos group because of liberalism and things like that.

So they're doing a great work down there. And next month they have the resolutions conference there with Votibalkum. And the thing was, we had almost no time to advertise this or anything. We had more folks show up.

We had a packed house. We had a pretty packed house for that thing. And we had people from literally all over South Africa, churches all over South Africa come and attend. It went really, really well.

So please pray for Tim Crantrell and the folks at Antioch Bible. Great place, great church. And we're very, very thankful to be able to partner with them in what we're doing. So then I flew from Johannesburg to Durban.

And for the first time, Rudolph didn't get to go with me, which is a bit of a bummer. He's teaching more and more and really having an impact in some unusual circles. So pray for Rudolph as well and his wife and their ministry there in South Africa.

Like I said, it's all been because Rudolph has worked so hard. And I've just gotten to know brothers, especially brothers, obviously, around the world that just mean the world to me. And Rudolph and Tim, some of those people that mean the world to me down there in South Africa.

I really, really love those people. So I went down to Durban. And normally, I would go down into sort of like the area around what's called Phoenix. There's actually a Phoenix suburb of Durban. Visit with the Palais there.

That's who I've stayed with in the past. This time, though, for some reason, the connection was different. When I had a debate with Ayub Karim, if you saw the one on the crucifixion, in attendance that night was a young man who gave me a CD.

And I was mentioned in the liner notes of the CD. And he is a tremendous guitarist. In fact, this time down, I really got much more of a sense of just how great he is. I mean, he did two songs before I spoke at the church.

Seb Goldswain, Sebastian Goldswain is his name. And he is a tremendous guitarist. And so poor, poor Seb, he's the music guy at Hillcrest Baptist Church. And Hillcrest is sort of Durban's down by the sea.

And then it sort of goes up. And so, you know, about halfway up is Hillcrest. And oh, by the way, when we're landing in Johannesburg from London, the pilot comes on and says, temperature in Johannesburg are landing one degree.

That's one degree Celsius, of course. So that's about 34. They had just had a the coldest cold front of the winter blow through. So I'm like, yeah, I mean, I did some I did some runs in Johannesburg and seeing the breath and I brought warm stuff and but it was cold and I loved it because it's winter down there.

It's the middle of winter. So it was, you know, it's 110 here and it was cold down there. I enjoyed the cold. It was it was very nice. I enjoyed that. But they had actually had snow up on the mountains up above.

So it was it was it was it was nice. It was really, really nice. So Pastor Clint Archer and the elders there at Hillcrest Baptist Church, we arranged two we had two things. One thing at the church on Tuesday night, I believe it was of this past week, a week ago tonight, I spoke on grieving and loss.

Now, I've already I think I linked I know I linked on I don't think this is on the blog article. I linked both Twitter and Facebook. They've posted if you look up Hillcrest Baptist Church, South Africa, it'll come up and spoke on grieving and loss.

And that's a, you know, people ask me to speak on it fairly regularly. But, you know, I even told them I said it'll be easier for me to do the debate tomorrow night with a with a Muslim than it is for me to address this subject, because it's just it's tough.

It's it's a hard topic. And yet it's a very important topic. And my little book on that subject has helped a lot of people. And so we we did that. We had a really good turnout at Hillcrest. We really, really did.

Seb did, if you're familiar with the song, Classical Gas. That's a really, really tough. In fact, the funny thing was, you know, Glenn Glenn Campbell had passed away a couple of weeks earlier, and I was looking at some Glenn Campbell videos, and one of them was him doing classical gas, because I guess it's sort of a, you know, most guitarists will do classical gas.