Welcome back from our break.
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Before the break,
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I was talking and enjoying
the discussion with Amjad Alam.
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I've been to your
homeland of Pakistan,
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but it's been a while,
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and it's refreshing to
hear what you're doing there
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in witnessing to your faith,
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in a way that's
non-confrontational
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that fulfils the
chart of the wheel
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have on religious liberty
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to respect other people's faith.
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But as a Christian,
or if you're a Muslim,
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whatever I'm sure it
applies, but as a Christian,
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we're under personal
obligation to share our faith.
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No religious faith is a private,
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personal, introspective
thing or shouldn't be.
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Yeah.
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And I'm encouraged the way
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that you've been able to freely,
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and openly, and naturally share.
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And your experience has
been that in that environment
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you don't see opposition
because what are they opposing,
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a fellow human being
who believes in something.
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One thing is for sure, you see,
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I just came to
America, not long ago,
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but thing is
this that originally,
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I'm from Pakistan, if you see.
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Well, I know the
language, I know the culture,
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and we know, we've
been, we lived there.
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My parents lived here,
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and our forefathers
lived here, you know.
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And we know the
culture and there was a time
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because everybody was
together with no problem.
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And we did not know
who is who, you know,
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but now still, you know,
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I feel like that
there a lot can be done,
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you know, that
people like Christians,
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Even I see the employers,
you know, that sometime they,
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they want to have a
Christian employees,
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you know.
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And someplace
we have challenges,
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we don't get a job.
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It's all
different situation, time...
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And you know that's...
And place too, you know...
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A certain level of
that is to be expected
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because humans have...
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many humans have their
own attitudes and prejudices,
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hopefully not that rise
to the level of persecution,
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but people make choices.
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Even in the US,
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with freedom of
religion and so on,
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you're going to
find, you get a job
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when someone is not at
all religiously inclined.
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They may see you as
just not the type of person
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they want to hire.
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It's not religious prejudice,
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but you're not
on their wavelength.
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And I'm sure even
in the ideal situation
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that you're reaching toward,
it's never gonna be perfect.
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People judge things
a little differently.
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Yeah, but let me just tell you,
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I was in Pakistan
about two years ago,
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and in the
midnight like 12 o'clock,
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I was just going with my friend,
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and my actually
assistant and he was,
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we both were going
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and I have one of my relative
and the baby in the car.
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And, you know, I was,
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a couple of people came on
a motorcycle and, you know,
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we thought they need help.
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What happened,
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all of a sudden as
we stopped the car,
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they point gun to
us, and those were,
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those things are not
with only Christians,
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but can be with a Muslim.
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Did they just
pointed the gun and moved on?
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It can be with
Muslims too, you know.
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It can be because
in the middle one,
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they're looking for money,
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they're looking for some other
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than they can
damage you if you don't.
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They want everything, you know.
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I think their poverty
and there are challenges
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of their
problems are there today.
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Well, it's an interesting
interjection that you gave
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and people should remember that.
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You say that the laws
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there are not particularly
biased against any faith,
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but the society has issues.
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The society has issues.
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Now poverty or economic distress
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will bring out
inherent problems.
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And clearly the US has
a constitutional advantage
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over many countries.
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We have a
tradition of accommodation,
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not just tolerance, but
freedom from all religions.
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But in times of
economic distress,
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like the great
depression or even 2008,
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there was a sample of
it, but in the future,
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there's bound to be drops,
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you can expect these
underlying prejudices,
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tensions, even criminality,
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gangsters and
that, that will increase.
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And we should be a little
bit understanding of Pakistan
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and other countries.
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It's not just that
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they are more
religiously prejudice
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say than another country.
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The society is under
deep stress that brings out
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what is inherent and may exist
here in the US just as much,
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but it's not manifesting
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because the stress is not there.
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Yeah, as you said that
society has a lot of challenges,
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you know, that we're facing.
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And, of course,
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as mentioned in the
earlier program also,
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its literacy rate
is also important.
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When people are
educated, they have education,
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the things can
be very different.
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Well, the literacy rate,
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I think is directly tied
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to the advancement
of spiritual truth.
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It is.
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Now, this year,
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I'm sure this program is going
to be shown this year in 2017.
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This is the 500th
anniversary of the Reformation,
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Protestant Reformation.
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It's worth remembering
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that the Reformation
was inextricably connected
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to the development of printing
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and the
distribution of books generally
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and Bibles in particular.
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I read the other day that
as the Luther's descent rose,
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in that context
they were already over
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30 million books in Europe
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and they weren't that many
people in Europe back then.
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Thirty million and
most of those Bibles.
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That's what
caused the blossoming
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of an
independent religious spirit.
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And I believe in
Pakistan or any other country
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where the literacy
rate is lagging a bit,
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when it rises and
people start reading,
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incredible things
will happen to the society,
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and the governance, and
to religious expression.
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It makes a huge lot of
difference, you know, that,
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see when we come here, we
learn a lot of new things,
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you know, that and if we
go then back in Pakistan,
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we literally see some
people are still the same.
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I think the opportunities
are less for many people
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and like
nowadays this is a reason
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we started from God of
Life International Ministry,
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we started to
educate people, you know,
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we started
academic classes from.
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And even for adult, you know,
literacy classes, we started,
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so we, they can
learn to read Bible,
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they can open, you know.
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And have you found
the general community
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including
obviously mostly Muslims?
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Are they comfortable with this
emphasis on literacy per se?
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Yeah.
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We didn't have
any problem so far
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and even some Muslim
women came to our center
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and they just
also learned sewing
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and, you know,
skills, you know, training
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and we issue them certificate
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and they just go and find a job.
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I think you're doing a
great service in there.
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One thing I
remember in Pakistan,
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and I saw it in India too.
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Where in little dark rooms,
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I remember one in particular,
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I don't think there
was a window in the room,
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and there were
maybe 50, 60 young boys,
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they're pre-teen boys,
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all sitting, they couldn't read.
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And a religious leader upfront
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was interning the Quran all day.
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He'd sing out a line
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and they would yell,
they would yell it back
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and they were
memorizing the Quran.
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They couldn't read,
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they knew nothing
about the outside world,
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and here they're going
over and over the Quran.
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Now, it's not for me to say,
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in fact, they would
not welcome me to say
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the Quran is a
wrong book or whatever,
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but let's just
say with the Bible.
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I would still think it
would be trouble problematic,
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you're not teaching literacy,
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you're droning this
holy word into their minds
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and then we wonder
why these uneducated
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perhaps even
undernourished young boys
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can't think straight.
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Their mind is
addled by religious imagery
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that even if it
were correct at the base,
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it's just now tangled up
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and swirling
around in their brain.
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You know, even within
the Christian community,
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I get letters on
religious liberty
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from people who
clearly are poorly educated,
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and they read and
read even the Bible,
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but they don't understand it,
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you can hardly read the pages
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all jumbled this and
that at the other end.
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And I think that
a great disservice
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has been done
to young Pakistani,
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the younger generation by
this sort of rote learning
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but neglecting to educate them.
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Education, you know,
that is very, very important,
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and as you were mentioning,
you know, before something,
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you know, that young
children, actually that's again,
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I say that is very sensitive,
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you know, it's
their religion, you know.
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Oh, I understand.
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I'm trying to do it on a...
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explain it on a rational
non-religious level per se.
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So this is from
the years and years...
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It would be just as
dangerous to do that
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if it were
Christianity or Buddhism.
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It's not that it's Islam,
but in this Islamic country,
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they are neglecting
education while just forcing in,
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you know what,
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a tumbled version
of their own faith.
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It's not helping them.
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But one thing for sure,
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let me just tell you that
they are at least teaching
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and there are people learning
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for our problems
are even different.
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It gets even worse. We even.
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We have Bible, we don't read.
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Well, that's
true, yes, absolutely...
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And many, you know,
we don't do our part.
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You know, at least they
are responding saying that
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what they teach
they're respectful to that
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and they are doing it, you know.
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We need to even, I
think change and show
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and demonstrate that we read,
you know, our book, you know...
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And the Bible to be
fair and work against
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even what I said, you
know, the Bible says that
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there's a
phenomenon of ever learning
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but never arriving at the truth.
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We have to approach all learning
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and spiritual
learning in particular
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with the right frame of mind.
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But I do believe
that general literacy
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is the friend of
spiritual commitment.
00:10:01.40\00:10:03.33
Sure, even adult in Pakistan,
even Christians, you know,
00:10:03.37\00:10:07.20
you know, they know
the Bible verses by heart,
00:10:07.24\00:10:10.07
but they don't know
how to read, you know.
00:10:10.11\00:10:11.71
My dad was uneducated person,
but he knows only to sign,
00:10:11.74\00:10:16.54
but he knows the Bible.
00:10:16.58\00:10:18.01
You know, by learning by heart.
00:10:18.05\00:10:19.48
My mother knew about
this, but they cannot read,
00:10:19.51\00:10:21.72
but this is a, this is...
00:10:21.75\00:10:23.92
Now, were your
parents Christians
00:10:23.95\00:10:25.29
all their lives or...?
00:10:25.32\00:10:26.65
Yeah, my
parents were Christians,
00:10:26.69\00:10:28.02
and, yeah, but no education.
00:10:28.06\00:10:30.23
No education, no education,
00:10:30.26\00:10:32.33
so what happens
is that they learned,
00:10:32.36\00:10:34.66
even they go to
church, they pick up,
00:10:34.70\00:10:36.46
you know, that and
when they repeat things,
00:10:36.50\00:10:39.67
pastor or other,
00:10:39.70\00:10:41.04
and they learn
these verses, you know.
00:10:41.07\00:10:42.87
And they obviously
inculcated in you the need
00:10:42.90\00:10:45.54
for more knowledge
and more commitment.
00:10:45.57\00:10:47.51
So this is the reason
I'm trying to help people
00:10:47.54\00:10:49.51
to get some education
and get some training,
00:10:49.54\00:10:52.75
technical and also how
they can read their Bible too.
00:10:52.78\00:10:55.72
And I think at
the end of the day,
00:10:55.75\00:10:57.45
your evangelistic
efforts are so valuable
00:10:57.49\00:11:01.16
because even if
people don't automatically
00:11:01.19\00:11:03.96
or routinely
accept Christianity.
00:11:03.99\00:11:06.19
You're educating
them about your faith.
00:11:06.23\00:11:08.86
Yeah, we are trying our,
00:11:08.90\00:11:11.73
and I'm thankful that
00:11:11.77\00:11:13.84
this opportunity
can be given to many,
00:11:13.87\00:11:18.11
many people they
can benefit from this,
00:11:18.14\00:11:20.94
and they can be
helped, and they can learn
00:11:20.98\00:11:24.18
and also teach others, you know.
00:11:24.21\00:11:26.25
So education is
very, very important
00:11:26.28\00:11:28.62
to what we are supporting.
00:11:28.65\00:11:30.92
I have several
resolution in life
00:11:30.95\00:11:32.75
and one of them that
00:11:32.79\00:11:34.62
I should have
taken care of before this
00:11:34.66\00:11:36.96
summation was what does
the word colporteur mean?
00:11:36.99\00:11:40.26
What is its origin?
00:11:40.30\00:11:41.93
I know what it
means in practice.
00:11:41.96\00:11:43.70
Most people, for most
people it's a nonsensical word,
00:11:43.73\00:11:47.87
but for the
Seventh-day Adventist church,
00:11:47.90\00:11:49.40
in its rapid
expansion on a global mission,
00:11:49.44\00:11:52.44
a colporteur was a
man with a book in hand,
00:11:52.47\00:11:55.68
and a compulsion in his
heart went door-to-door,
00:11:55.71\00:11:58.48
sharing his faith.
00:11:58.51\00:11:59.91
And for those
that were receptive
00:11:59.95\00:12:01.42
leaving some literature.
00:12:01.45\00:12:03.22
There is no question that
that dynamic of a salesman,
00:12:03.25\00:12:07.66
a gospel salesman
has the ability to change
00:12:07.69\00:12:11.09
whole societies and bring forth
whole companies of believers
00:12:11.13\00:12:15.40
that reality has
not changed in my view.
00:12:15.43\00:12:19.13
And in our guest's experience,
00:12:19.17\00:12:21.04
Amjad has found
both in his home country
00:12:21.07\00:12:25.84
and then in Thailand.
00:12:25.87\00:12:27.68
As well as that,
00:12:27.71\00:12:29.04
so it's not about
in the United States,
00:12:29.08\00:12:31.05
people are
receptive to the Word of God
00:12:31.08\00:12:33.85
expressed
through the printed word,
00:12:33.88\00:12:35.78
but communicated
through personal interaction.
00:12:35.82\00:12:38.95
That is our privilege.
00:12:38.99\00:12:40.56
That is religious
liberty in action.
00:12:40.59\00:12:44.63
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:44.66\00:12:47.73