Welcome back.
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Before the break, I was
talking with guest Dr John Graz
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about the festivals
of religious freedom
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that have been conducted
all over the world. Yeah.
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And you were
going to give us really
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a summary of the
rational behind this.
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You know, the purpose
of the festival is to have
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as many as
people we can together
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in a stadium or
public square and so on.
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A big mass of
people to send a message
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which is thank you
God for religious freedom.
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It means we love
religious freedom.
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And thank you the government
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which protect our
religious freedom.
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It means there are two aspects.
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One toward God, we glorify God.
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We say that religious
freedom is a gift from God.
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And the other
side is we recognize
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the importance of the government
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And we are really
grateful about the government
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which protects
religious freedom.
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It's very
against dynamic I think.
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It means it's a
good dynamic, very simple
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and you can invite
people from different religions.
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It means they are
very happy to be here
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and also to say we
support religious freedom,
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it means you give
them great opportunity.
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And of course people
are very happy to speak
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on before you know,
20,000, 30,000, 40,000.
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What's the largest
number you've any of these--
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Forty five
thousand twice, you know,
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in the Luanda,
Angola and in Lima,
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Peru for the first world
festival of religious freedom.
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That's a lot of people.
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And in this case, you know,
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we had no problem to
have minister of government
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probably one day we
can have the head of state,
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because they are very surprised.
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And now the problem you
have is to make sure that people
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will not speak to 30
minutes or we're not confused,
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you know, the meeting we
finally elect the world meeting
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but that's something
you have to make sure.
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But the program has
to be very attractive.
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It means the best
meeting we had, you know,
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we had a very big orchestra,
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choir of children and so on
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which gives really
a strong message about
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we love religious
freedom. We want to keep it.
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It's very reinforcing, isn't
it? It's positive reinforcement.
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Yeah and you'll
show what does it mean
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to have
religious freedom,you know,
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because if we--you did
not have religious freedom.
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Couldn't do it.
You will not have
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all these choir, all these--
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what people are
doing in this society
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to have this society and so on.
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It shows that hey, look we
are doing that in the society.
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We are useful for you, why?
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Because we have religious
freedom, and we want to keep it.
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This is why, you
know, one of my dream
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will be to have not just
only 50 or 40,000 people,
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but 100,000 people one day.
And I hope that it will come.
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You know, you have almost
every week in the stadiums,
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many stadiums are full.
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Football stadium, yeah,
they're about the same number.
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Almost every
week around the world
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to just to look
at the people playing
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football or soccer
or baseball and so on.
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I think when there is something
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so much important
like religious freedom.
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We should really
put people together.
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we should really have
such a big crowd and to say,
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"Yes, we love
religious freedom."
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And you've had them
all over the world now,
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but not yet a major
one in the United States.
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And so that's the next
challenge,isn't it? We need to--
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Still one of our
dream, but I have to say that,
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you know, we
have to recognize that
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in many places in the world,
they are very well-organized.
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They know how to held
big meeting like, you know,
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in Peru, you were not
first, 500 buses came,
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you know, they
filled the stadium.
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I went to one
event in Peru years ago.
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Yeah, years ago.
And there were about
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4 or 5,000
people at that meeting.
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Yeah, yeah, but you know,
when you see the stadium--
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when I saw the stadium empty,
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the first time I
reorganize a mass meeting.
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I'd say my Lord, you
know, that--you know,
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I want to be full of praise,
but that would be impossible,
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but anyway if we have
half, we will be happy.
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And you know,
there is a promise that
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I will never forget.When
we start with this festival,
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I read the Bible in Deuteronomy
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Chapter 28, you
know, and God said,
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"I will make you the
head and not the tail
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if you'll obey my
commandments. " It say,
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"We try to obey
you commandments."
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Now there is a
blessing. I have no right
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to see little things when
the promise of God is big thing.
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You know, we are the
one who reduce thing.
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The promise of God is fabulous.
The blessings are fabulous,
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but we think small. We
want to stay small and I'll say,
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you know, religious freedom
is a huge--it's a big value.
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It's so important. We
have no right to think small.
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We have no right to be happy
with a meeting with 25 people,
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with 30 people.
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We need to see
bigger because this is--
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This is a huge event. You know,
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this is a
religious liberty program,
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but you know, just you've
given me the chance again.
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It's central to
Seventh-day Adventist
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and a Christian
viewpoint of serving God.
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Will liberate it from
sin and now we're sharing
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that liberation to
the wider audience.
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And in the civil world
as Hillary Clinton said at
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our Liberty
dinner some years ago.
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You can tell in a
country, the state of
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their civil libertiesby their
religious freedom.You're right.
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So it's integrally tied
up to just human freedom
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around the world.
Exactly and this is
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why you attract-- We
shouldn't be embarrassed
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about promoting
religious freedom. No.
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It's central. It's
one of the best way
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to deal with the governments,
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with officials, and human right.
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You show that you are
interested by something
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which is essential not
just for us, but for all.
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And you see the blessing of God.
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And I think we'll see
miracle because you know,
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for us this kind of
meeting should be also
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glorification of God, you know,
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because it comes from God.
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We don't say that religious
freedom just come from men.
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Men's did a lot of thing
for our religious freedom,
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and we have to
be grateful to them.
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This is why in our
congress and in our festival,
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we also thanks people who'd
give their life for our freedom.
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And we have to
thank to the country
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which protect our freedom.
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Imagine that you say
that we want to thank God
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and we want to
thank the country.
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We want to thank all
those who died for our freedom,
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and you have just 25 people.
What would be the message?
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The message will be
that religious freedom
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is not important. And
people who die for them,
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you know, people will
say they die for nothing.
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Look, they are even
not happy to be together.
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This is why we have to
transform in the mass meeting.
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We need to have time
to time mass meeting.
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And I have to
say that, you know,
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when I was in the Philippines,
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I had the visit of
the Union President,
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the leader of the
church for region.
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And he said, "We are
interested about festival."
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And my colleague there said
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"In 2014, we'll have
three important festivals."
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Then in Africa,
Lusaka, they say,
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"We want to have the
big one." Then in Cameroon,
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they want to have
their big festival.
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And next year our
congress plus the festival.
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Then in South
America, next year 2013,
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we will have the
second world festival
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of religious
freedom in Sao Paulo.
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And go on and go on,
we have more and more
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people Mexico, Chiapas--
Yeah, the Chiapas one I thought.
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Chiapas where people were
persecuted during 30 years.
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Now they have
freedom and they want to say,
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"Thank you God for the freedom
we have for religious freedom."
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And of course if you say we are
creating evenement to evenements
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to say thank you God
and you have just 50 people
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that means that you
don't believe, he go what does.
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This is wonderful. You know,
I am hesitating to say this,
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but I think in your position,
you're going to be remembered
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as the leader in
the religious liberty
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that really got
these festivals going.
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It's been-- you know
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that was I just-- Growing macro
of what you are doing there.
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You know,
Lincoln, the first meeting
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I was invited when I
was nominated at the GEC,
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General Conference, the first
meeting as a religious leader.
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The first meeting I
was invited in Romania
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and I used to go to Romania as a
youth leader and we used to have
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5,000, 6,000 people
sometime 10,000 people.
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And they say,"This afternoon,
we will have all the church
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together and we will have a
meeting on religious freedom."
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And I thought that, "Man,
that's may be 1,000 or 2,000."
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And we had 30 people.
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And I said that,
that was all the churches.
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They say, "Yes." I say,
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"But why did we have
just 30 people?" They said,
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"But you know,
religion freedom doesn't attract
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a lot of people." And I say,
"We cannot be happy with that.
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If we are happy with
that, we miss our mission.
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We have to be able to
mobilize people, not everyday.
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You know, this is
what I said in a country.
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You've to do that once
a year or not once a year.
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Once every five
years, but a big one,
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and once a year, you have
an event that would be good,
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but don't give up, don't
say that it's impossible,
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it will not work. It's
just a matter of faith.
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And one day what I dream
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used to have all
religion together.
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And, you know, the festival give
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a fabulous image
for the Adventist church
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because we organize first,
you know, when we organize
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a meeting with 4,000 people--
Well, we need to be the head,
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not the tail. Yeah, you know,
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you organize a
meeting with 40,000 people.
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You know what does mean?
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You are able to do that.You
have the capacity to organize.
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You'llshow to the public
you are not crazy people.
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You are able to do big
things. And we share things--
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And we share. And
come over there. We are not
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not sort
of--another sort of a creature
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We share this can same value.
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We share the same
value with others.
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We invite other to
be there. We are not,
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you know,
exclusively invite them.
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You mentioned it in passing,
but I want to pick up on,
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you used to be a youth leader
and I think it's very important
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to involve the
younger generation in this.
00:10:18.32\00:10:20.40
Young people have
energy, they have vision
00:10:22.15\00:10:24.39
and we need to give them
the idea that religious liberty
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is something that
concerns them. Yeah.
00:10:27.38\00:10:28.87
So it's--I think it's inspired
to bring together the youths
00:10:28.91\00:10:31.90
in religious liberty
the way you use them.
00:10:31.93\00:10:33.30
You're also
involved in our festival.
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You remember in Santo Domingo,
the youths were everywhere.
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Absolutely. Seventy,
sixty, seventy percent
00:10:37.67\00:10:40.10
of the people are
young people in our festival.
00:10:40.16\00:10:42.68
And you probably
can remember the quote,
00:10:43.07\00:10:45.43
writing to
Seventh-day Adventist,
00:10:45.50\00:10:46.91
years ago Ellen White,
00:10:46.94\00:10:48.31
said something about an army
of our youth rightly trained
00:10:48.47\00:10:52.73
will then I
forget what he said next,
00:10:53.21\00:10:55.79
but some of the effect
that they will finish the work,
00:10:55.82\00:10:57.73
will change the
world. Absolutely.
00:10:57.76\00:11:00.18
You know, when I read
Patriarchs and Prophets,
00:11:00.21\00:11:03.27
it give a such encouragement
for young people taking
00:11:03.49\00:11:06.78
the Bible
example. And that's create
00:11:06.81\00:11:09.75
an event where young
people can be associate,
00:11:09.78\00:11:12.30
not only but
musician, expert, artist.
00:11:12.33\00:11:16.07
You know, you remember
the festival in Santo Domingo
00:11:16.10\00:11:19.32
they play, you know, they divide
the Bible in several section--
00:11:19.35\00:11:23.74
There were
dramatic representations--
00:11:23.77\00:11:25.36
And they play their
Bible-- The stories,
00:11:25.39\00:11:26.76
they were preaching there.
00:11:26.79\00:11:28.16
In about religious
freedom, that was just fabulous.
00:11:28.19\00:11:30.21
Yeah. You know, I--
00:11:30.24\00:11:31.61
Take the story that they told
was of the children of Israel
00:11:31.64\00:11:34.69
leaving Egypt. Liberation,
00:11:34.72\00:11:36.74
that's a story of
religious liberty.
00:11:36.78\00:11:38.33
It's not just a
concept. It's a reality.
00:11:39.23\00:11:41.31
It's something that's
happening in our life.
00:11:41.34\00:11:42.98
This is why you know, I
believe that the festival--
00:11:43.28\00:11:46.65
these opportunity
which is given to have
00:11:46.72\00:11:49.87
people together as
many as we can hope.
00:11:49.90\00:11:53.14
And to say strongly, we
believe in religious freedom.
00:11:53.42\00:11:56.77
We love religious
freedom. We want to keep it.
00:11:57.10\00:11:59.62
But more than that, we wanna
imagine that a stadium with
00:11:59.76\00:12:03.85
50,000 people saying that
thanks God for religious freedom
00:12:04.14\00:12:08.98
and thanks our
country for protecting
00:12:09.24\00:12:11.75
our religious freedom.
00:12:11.96\00:12:13.33
A few years ago, with quite
a few thousand other guests
00:12:15.50\00:12:19.89
I was in a great
stadium in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia
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as they celebrated several
decades of their independence.
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It was a memorable occasion.
Tens of thousands of people
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in the audience and several
thousand in the great circle
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there performing and giving
a display of national unity.
00:12:38.24\00:12:41.79
There were human waves that
rolled across the whole expanse.
00:12:42.17\00:12:46.55
There were
musical groups that filled
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the stadium with their music.
00:12:49.04\00:12:50.52
It was overpowering.
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That was for a
national identity.
00:12:53.94\00:12:55.78
That was for a
political purpose.
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But to do something
similar for religious freedom,
00:12:57.97\00:13:00.95
to have a festival of praise,
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where 50, 60, 70,000 even people
gather together to praise God
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and to praise their society for
the ability to live in freedom.
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To practice their faith
publicly is the stupendous event
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That's what's being done
more and more around the world
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In the plan that our
religious liberty department
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has implemented to raise an
awareness for religious freedom.
00:13:24.41\00:13:28.08
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:31.45\00:13:34.64