599-Appreciating_Our_Rich_and_Peaceful_Lives_in_the_Midst_of_Political_Turmoil
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00:00:25.320 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:28.520 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while
00:00:32.840 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:36.440 | My name is Joshua.
00:00:37.440 | I am your host.
00:00:38.440 | And today, I aim to encourage you by enhancing your appreciation of how rich and peaceful
00:00:46.640 | your life is, even today, even on today.
00:00:51.760 | Notice I'm saying today, which is November 6, 2018.
00:00:56.340 | It is an election day in the United States of America, and a great many of my fellow
00:01:02.000 | U.S. American citizens are feeling significant angst today over the elections.
00:01:08.680 | Now, here's what's unfortunate for you.
00:01:11.480 | There's a good chance that you are going to be disappointed in the wake of today's elections.
00:01:22.000 | I repeat, there is a very, very strong probability that you are going to be disappointed in the
00:01:29.000 | wake of today's elections.
00:01:31.960 | Two main reasons why I say that.
00:01:34.320 | Way number one that you'll be disappointed is if your preferred party, candidate, issue,
00:01:43.380 | if your preferred positions or people or platforms lose in today's elections, then of course
00:01:51.000 | you will feel that keen sense of disappointment.
00:01:54.840 | And there's a good chance that you will experience that deep emotional just pain that comes from
00:02:01.240 | the loss of an election.
00:02:03.520 | It's very hard if you have invested your emotional energy into certain candidates or positions,
00:02:09.040 | if you've tried hard to lobby your friends and neighbors, you've battled these things
00:02:13.520 | out in the public social media space, and you've desperately tried to change people's
00:02:18.040 | hearts and minds to agree with you, and then you find that, well, it didn't actually work.
00:02:24.000 | That's a strong reason for disappointment.
00:02:28.680 | And there's a good chance that you'll be experiencing that tonight as the election returns roll
00:02:32.680 | in.
00:02:33.680 | Now, if on the other hand, you don't experience disappointment tonight, if tonight you get
00:02:39.200 | to bask in the victory of winning or the emotions of winning, the emotion of victory, if you
00:02:47.640 | get to enjoy that tonight, you'll face two problems in the next weeks and months.
00:02:55.000 | Problem number one is your victory tonight is only one small step in a long battle.
00:03:03.520 | It's only one small battle in a long war.
00:03:06.600 | And problem number two is your candidate who gets elected won't actually do anything.
00:03:12.640 | Your position that you're voting for won't actually change anything.
00:03:17.400 | Now, whether that's because your candidate was somehow, well, let's just use the right
00:03:23.880 | word lying.
00:03:26.000 | They said a lot of nice things that they wanted you to believe, but they didn't actually believe
00:03:29.280 | those things themselves.
00:03:30.280 | They just said those things to get elected.
00:03:33.140 | Or whether it's because your candidate is well-meaning and well-intentioned and just
00:03:38.440 | quickly overwhelmed by the ongoing bureaucratic nature of government, by the fact that one
00:03:45.080 | individual candidate can really do very little, you'll face the disappointment and the frustration
00:03:51.080 | of seeing that candidate become quickly ineffective.
00:03:56.400 | So one way or the other, you're probably going to be experiencing some significant feelings
00:04:01.520 | of frustration and disappointment tonight and in the coming weeks and months in the
00:04:06.360 | wake of an election here in the United States.
00:04:09.840 | What I want to do, however, is help you to gain a different perspective because so much
00:04:15.080 | of life can be enjoyed if you have a different perspective.
00:04:21.080 | Two people face the same circumstances and they experience the emotions of those circumstances
00:04:27.800 | very differently.
00:04:30.760 | Just speaking with some common financial examples, one person cuts off their cable TV and celebrates
00:04:36.560 | it as a way to be released from the grip of the propaganda machine and a way to regain
00:04:41.000 | some peace back into their life and a chance to read some more books.
00:04:44.960 | Another person cuts off their cable because they're out of money and sees it as the ultimate
00:04:49.200 | expression of their poverty and it's deeply frustrating to them.
00:04:53.820 | One person moves into a van down by the river and sees it as an ultimate expression of a
00:04:59.040 | lifestyle choice that fills their values of simplicity and frugality and minimalism and
00:05:07.760 | an opportunity to commune with nature and to live a lifestyle of adventure.
00:05:12.920 | Another person is forced out of their house and into a van down by the river and finds
00:05:17.600 | it to be the most humiliating thing that ever happens to them.
00:05:20.440 | And we could go on and on.
00:05:21.600 | You could see same situation, different perspective.
00:05:25.240 | So often if you gain a different perspective on something that's happening around you,
00:05:29.000 | you can appreciate it in a different sense.
00:05:31.320 | That's not to minimize what actually happens, but it is to say that part of a good mental
00:05:38.760 | health or part of the ability to maintain good mental health is just simply being able
00:05:45.520 | to pull back from the situation that's near you and appreciate things that happen around
00:05:51.040 | you.
00:05:52.040 | So today I want to bring you a story that I've often wanted to talk about, but I haven't
00:05:57.240 | for quite a long time because first it's fairly personal.
00:05:59.920 | Two, I've wanted to see all of the details verified because unlike many types of stories,
00:06:05.680 | there was no way to verify this except through personal contact.
00:06:08.960 | There was no news vetting that could accomplish the task.
00:06:11.880 | There was no journalistic investigation into various reports and censoring the truth from
00:06:17.360 | various perspectives.
00:06:18.360 | There was only personal confirmation that could happen.
00:06:21.800 | And that has only happened fairly recently.
00:06:23.560 | But I thought today on election day in the United States, it would be a useful point
00:06:28.120 | of orientation for you to appreciate the rich and peaceful life that you and I enjoy.
00:06:38.480 | Today's story comes from the country of Kenya.
00:06:42.280 | I'm going to be quite circumspect with the details of the towns and cities in Kenya.
00:06:47.560 | I'm also being circumspect with the names of the people involved, but the facts are
00:06:51.520 | true and it's a situation that I've been involved in for years.
00:06:55.920 | Going back a number of years, over the years, my family and the church that we're a part
00:07:00.720 | of, we've had contact with a number of different people in Kenya.
00:07:05.040 | And one man that we've come to have contact with is a man named Jacob.
00:07:09.000 | This man named Jacob is a really incredible man, a man of character and integrity, just
00:07:16.680 | a testament to who he's a man of character and integrity.
00:07:21.640 | I can't say enough good things about him.
00:07:24.000 | Jacob has his own interesting story and it's interesting, especially as it relates to finance,
00:07:28.560 | to see the twists and turns of his life and to compare them with the financial planning
00:07:34.800 | that most of us do in our own life.
00:07:37.400 | Going back a number of years, Jacob and his wife had young children and a small family
00:07:42.960 | and they were living in a part of the country that started to turn against them because
00:07:47.560 | Jacob and his wife were from the wrong ethnic tribe in that part of Kenya.
00:07:53.240 | And so Jacob and his wife sought to move for the safety and peace of their own family,
00:07:57.440 | they sought to move from that part of the country to another part of the country.
00:08:00.940 | They were facing significant risks of violence towards them and their family.
00:08:05.720 | They actually did flee in basically in what was the middle of the night, flee across the
00:08:11.200 | countryside to escape the risk of their life and managed to make it from one part of the
00:08:16.600 | country to another part of the country where their tribal ethnicity would not cause them
00:08:22.400 | so many problems.
00:08:24.040 | Jacob and his wife had developed their own farm prior to their having to flee.
00:08:29.520 | And in fleeing from that farm, they've ran the risk of having it all left behind.
00:08:34.480 | Now thankfully, after they were gone, they were able to negotiate the sale of their previous
00:08:39.040 | farm and they were able to negotiate the lease, hopefully leading to a purchase of a newer
00:08:44.200 | farm.
00:08:45.400 | This newer farm was a great opportunity that landed in their lap because it was unlike
00:08:49.800 | many of the structures and the farms in the area.
00:08:52.760 | It had been built by a wealthy man who had basically built it up as his retirement project
00:09:00.080 | and yet through a variety of miraculous circumstances.
00:09:04.640 | And when I use the word miraculous, I don't use it lightly.
00:09:07.840 | I use it in its sincere and true sense.
00:09:10.760 | Through a variety of miraculous circumstances, Jacob and his wife came to be the tenants
00:09:16.480 | and the owners ultimately of this farm.
00:09:20.520 | This farm was unique because it had large buildings, well-built structures, unlike most
00:09:25.240 | of the local structures, which are basically mud huts.
00:09:28.840 | This farm had structures made out of stone and it was really a well-done farm.
00:09:35.320 | Now that was the first of many unique steps in their own financial journey.
00:09:40.480 | Again, consider fleeing from where you live to another part of the country because of
00:09:44.840 | the risk of you and your family basically being lynched in the middle of the night because
00:09:49.160 | you're from the wrong ethnic tribe.
00:09:52.160 | So fast forward a while, Jacob and his wife, their children continue to grow.
00:09:57.280 | And Jacob is a man who is very active in Christian ministry there in that part of Kenya, very
00:10:02.960 | active in the community seeking to network and encourage other Christian churches that
00:10:08.560 | are nearby.
00:10:10.120 | One day, he gets word of a flood that had happened in a nearby town.
00:10:15.760 | And what happened was during the middle of a weekday when the children were away at school,
00:10:20.380 | there was a flash flood that arose and basically swept away this small village in Kenya and
00:10:28.320 | destroyed the town and killed many dozens.
00:10:31.600 | And I think it would be, I don't think I'm stretching any numbers to say hundreds of
00:10:36.480 | local residents.
00:10:37.480 | I don't know the exact number.
00:10:39.480 | This is a part of the world in which getting news verification, journalistic verification
00:10:44.400 | is almost impossible.
00:10:46.640 | So almost impossible to sit in the United States and find out about these things in
00:10:51.200 | remote regions of the world.
00:10:52.720 | But many, many dozens of people were killed, including several dozen members of a local
00:10:58.800 | church that Jacob had had interaction with.
00:11:02.480 | So as Jacob is there, there are about a dozen orphans that he had known prior to the flood
00:11:11.120 | and they were newly orphaned that day.
00:11:12.640 | Again, the children were away at school in a higher part of the country, not down in
00:11:16.440 | the canyon where the flash flood was, and their parents were killed in the flash flood.
00:11:21.420 | So of course, them knowing Jacob and him knowing them, he took them home to care for them for
00:11:27.520 | a few days while they figured out what the plan would be.
00:11:30.400 | Now as time went on, ultimately he tried to work with the government and tried to understand
00:11:34.840 | how these orphans could be helped.
00:11:36.760 | But Kenya has a very unique challenge with orphans and there's basically no infrastructure,
00:11:41.880 | no governmental infrastructure for the support of orphans.
00:11:46.160 | And so at the end of the day, after going back and forth with the governmental authorities
00:11:49.600 | for a time, he was basically told either you care for them or put them out on the street.
00:11:54.440 | There's no other option.
00:11:55.600 | And putting orphan children out on the street is relatively common.
00:12:00.600 | And the orphans are expected to either die or make their way by begging or stealing or
00:12:06.240 | some way of trying to make their way.
00:12:08.720 | Well, he and his wife couldn't put them out on the street and they decided, well, we'll
00:12:13.280 | deal with this together.
00:12:14.480 | So live or die, we'll all be in this together.
00:12:17.400 | And so he and his wife adopted the 12 orphans, bringing their family size up, obviously rather
00:12:23.480 | significantly.
00:12:24.480 | I don't remember the exact number.
00:12:25.480 | I think they had four biological children at the time, brought them to 16 children,
00:12:29.800 | something like that.
00:12:31.040 | Now you and I, if we wanted to, could actually very easily adjust our budgets to care for
00:12:39.080 | an additional 12 children, especially if we adjusted our use of the word care to the practical
00:12:47.000 | matters of life.
00:12:48.520 | You and I probably couldn't absorb an additional 12 children into our lives if we committed
00:12:53.680 | to sending them to dance lessons and football camps.
00:12:57.240 | And if we committed to all of the finest organic food and if we committed to going out to eat
00:13:04.520 | once a week, et cetera, et cetera, the things that are fairly common for our lifestyles.
00:13:09.100 | But if you and I brought these children into our lives and we committed to providing enough
00:13:13.840 | calories in order for us to stay alive, you and I could fairly easily bring 12 children
00:13:19.800 | into our lives and care for them.
00:13:23.120 | Not so easy if you are a subsistence farmer in a very poor country, but through a variety
00:13:30.120 | of again, miraculous circumstances over the years, Jacob and his family have been provided
00:13:36.000 | for.
00:13:37.000 | And back to the provision of that particular farm, that farm has proved to be for him and
00:13:42.840 | his family a significant blessing.
00:13:44.920 | Again, I remind you, all of this is, everything I'm telling you is true and is not in any
00:13:51.000 | way embellished or exaggerated.
00:13:54.360 | This farm proved to be a blessing because although it had been much more than Jacob
00:13:58.880 | and his wife had needed when it was just them and their small children, it was exactly what
00:14:05.520 | they needed when their family was significantly enlarged.
00:14:10.240 | In addition to the orphan children, they also brought into their family several widows of
00:14:17.000 | men who had been killed in that flash flood and those widows who'd been, I'll pass
00:14:24.080 | some of the circumstances, there's heart-wrenching circumstances of what those widows had faced,
00:14:28.320 | but they had children as well.
00:14:30.120 | And so their family was actually larger than just that.
00:14:33.000 | And so the provision of this large farm and the buildings turned out to be a great blessing
00:14:37.540 | for them.
00:14:39.120 | Now over the years, it has not been easy for them.
00:14:43.060 | Even though they had infrastructure, they still face the constant challenges of drought
00:14:47.360 | and famine and food prices that change in an incredible way.
00:14:51.640 | One anecdote, last year there was a time of famine and the food prices in the local area
00:14:58.520 | in Kenya multiplied by five overnight.
00:15:02.680 | I talked a moment ago about the fact that you and I, as relatively affluent people,
00:15:08.800 | we could absorb the expenses for 12 children into our families if we wanted to.
00:15:15.080 | We would have to reprioritize many other areas of our expenditures, but we could absorb them
00:15:20.040 | in.
00:15:21.860 | But now consider absorbing them in when the cost of food increases by 5X due to famine
00:15:27.900 | and due to political conditions.
00:15:31.240 | That one really sobered me up when I first heard that a couple of years ago when it was
00:15:37.260 | in the midst of it.
00:15:38.260 | Now consider a 5X increase in your food budget.
00:15:41.780 | That was what these particular people that we have contact with in Kenya faced.
00:15:47.420 | Five times increase in your food budget.
00:15:50.260 | It staggered me.
00:15:51.260 | Well fast forward, last year in Kenya there was a significant amount of political turmoil.
00:15:59.860 | And all through that, since that political turmoil, all through we've had contact with
00:16:04.940 | it, but it wasn't until recently that we could get true confirmation where my dad recently
00:16:09.660 | went to Kenya and spent a couple of months there in Kenya traveling around, ministering
00:16:14.500 | among some of the local contacts that we have there.
00:16:17.260 | So this is a firsthand report specifically from my own father who was able to see and
00:16:21.860 | verify these details that we had had a lot of correspondence on over the last couple
00:16:26.220 | of years.
00:16:27.220 | And I want to read to you his summary of the situation.
00:16:30.580 | And this was never intended.
00:16:31.820 | He didn't ever intend this as a kind of a public document.
00:16:34.660 | This was just a private summary that he sent back to our local church, which had sent him
00:16:40.060 | out to Kenya.
00:16:42.300 | And I want you to just to listen to the circumstances that Jacob and his family faced and consider
00:16:49.960 | them in the wake of today's political election and your own life and my own life.
00:16:56.940 | This past week has been primarily taken up with visiting those in this area who were
00:17:01.780 | affected by the turmoil surrounding the presidential election last year.
00:17:05.820 | For those who may not know of those events, I'll try to summarize with the best information
00:17:09.460 | that I have.
00:17:10.460 | Hopefully, I'm at least 95% correct.
00:17:13.500 | A presidential election was held towards the end of October last year.
00:17:17.740 | On the first ballot, the existing president was proclaimed the winner, but the opposition
00:17:22.100 | claimed fraud and the Supreme Court also declared the election invalid.
00:17:26.940 | A second round of voting took place, but the opposition withdrew from that voting, saying
00:17:31.720 | nothing had changed and the existing president was elected nearly unanimously, but with about
00:17:37.540 | 50% of the voters not participating.
00:17:40.900 | After the first vote, violence erupted in this area that resulted in about 800 homes
00:17:46.060 | and businesses being burned and about 120 people killed.
00:17:51.240 | From what I understand, the target of the violence was anybody that was from the same
00:17:54.940 | tribe as the president.
00:17:56.800 | The deadly attacks came without warning, and many were caught fleeing for their lives with
00:18:01.140 | nothing but the clothes on their backs.
00:18:03.660 | A number of believers in this area, along with their neighbors, were among those affected.
00:18:08.660 | About 300 or so found themselves together running for their lives.
00:18:12.180 | 12 of the men were killed trying to protect their families or possessions in some way.
00:18:17.500 | There was no transportation available, so they started walking with the goal of reaching
00:18:21.660 | a certain town where they thought they might find a refugee camp.
00:18:25.340 | One of the men, who was a leading Christian in that area, knew Jacob and led them to Jacob's
00:18:30.240 | place where they planned to rest for a couple of days before going on to this other city.
00:18:35.220 | They started early one morning and reached Jacob's place about 10pm.
00:18:39.440 | Because they did not know how the neighbors around Jacob would react, they tried to keep
00:18:42.940 | their presence as secret as possible.
00:18:45.460 | They were trying to decide what to do and where to go.
00:18:48.860 | There was no news, so they did not know what was happening even in a town nearby.
00:18:54.340 | After a few days, the neighbors began to learn of their presence and reacted in a friendly
00:18:58.140 | way, bringing food, blankets, and so on.
00:19:01.960 | Because of this, they decided to stay longer before making a decision.
00:19:05.860 | During this time, one of the men, not a believer up to that point, stood up and declared that
00:19:10.180 | he felt something was happening in him and that he felt they should stay and not go on
00:19:14.460 | to this other town.
00:19:16.340 | This man later became a strong believer.
00:19:18.780 | It was during this time that Jacob first informed us of the situation, asking for prayer.
00:19:23.840 | We also helped some with the cost of food, etc.
00:19:26.580 | As time drew on, the leaders felt they should stay until things calmed down and they could
00:19:30.460 | possibly return back home in the near future.
00:19:33.600 | One brother decided to go back and see if it was safe to return and unfortunately was
00:19:36.940 | killed, leaving his family behind.
00:19:39.540 | This brought the number of men killed to 13, leaving their wives as widows with multiple
00:19:43.940 | children to support.
00:19:46.340 | Feeding and housing 300+ people was not an easy task to say the least.
00:19:52.820 | However, Jacob's place is large, so between using every available room for sleeping, a
00:19:57.940 | couple of rented tents, not really tents but the kind that is used for vendors, and some
00:20:02.540 | sleeping outside on the grass, provision was made.
00:20:05.820 | Cooking was non-stop, both on the inside and outside kitchens, with everybody helping with
00:20:11.100 | that, the farming, and so on.
00:20:13.300 | Fortunately, they had water from the well that was installed last year.
00:20:16.740 | Bible study and fellowship was also non-stop and resulted in considerable spiritual fruit.
00:20:21.260 | I was told that at least half of the people turned to the Lord during that time.
00:20:24.980 | One number given was about 180, some were baptized.
00:20:29.020 | Finally it became safe to go back and survey the situation.
00:20:32.420 | Almost all of the homes had been burned, the possessions in the homes stolen, and all of
00:20:36.980 | the livestock taken as well.
00:20:39.400 | Those who had relatives or some other place to go left Jacob's place when it was safe,
00:20:43.960 | but that still left more than half with no place to go.
00:20:47.460 | About 65 homes needed to be rebuilt.
00:20:50.420 | The leaders here went to the government asking for help, but the response was minimal.
00:20:55.020 | Over the months that followed, we helped with finances to rebuild the homes at about $200
00:20:59.220 | per house.
00:21:00.460 | This was enough to provide a basic mud structure with a tin roof.
00:21:03.940 | The size of the houses varied, but I would say that the average was about 12 by 18 feet,
00:21:08.780 | some smaller, some larger depending on the situation.
00:21:12.420 | Sometimes it was just one room and sometimes divided into two.
00:21:15.740 | On Tuesday we met with about 30 believers and they served us lunch.
00:21:19.280 | In the next three days we visited as many homes as possible, maybe about 20.
00:21:24.140 | The country is mountainous, so we spent a lot of time going up and down the hills.
00:21:27.900 | In each home the believers told of their testimony of losing everything, having no hope, and
00:21:32.420 | their thankfulness for our help in giving them a roof over their head again and a place
00:21:35.560 | to call home.
00:21:36.940 | We shared a short word of encouragement and then prayed.
00:21:39.260 | It was a moving time for all of us in many ways.
00:21:43.180 | We cannot understand such things from a human point of view, even to understand how evil
00:21:47.140 | men can be.
00:21:48.660 | One husband was killed while trying to carry his wife to safety.
00:21:52.040 | She is unable to walk from birth.
00:21:54.500 | Other similar stories would break your heart.
00:21:56.940 | Only God knows all that took place.
00:21:58.900 | We heard many touching testimonies.
00:22:00.840 | We were told that there are now a total of eight gatherings in that area, meeting in
00:22:03.980 | homes.
00:22:05.580 | In my own evaluation, rebuilding the homes was probably the easiest part.
00:22:09.340 | The obvious need is now to help these people rebuild their lives and establish some sort
00:22:12.980 | of income.
00:22:14.280 | Many depended on their livestock, of which there is none at present.
00:22:17.580 | In some houses, there is hardly one chair.
00:22:19.780 | They borrowed chairs from their neighbors for our visit, and some are sleeping on the
00:22:23.300 | mud floor.
00:22:24.500 | We encouraged the leaders to really seek the Lord's wisdom in each case.
00:22:28.020 | But the deeper need is to see these new believers established in the Lord.
00:22:31.840 | There are several men laboring diligently to that end.
00:22:34.220 | They need our urgent prayers.
00:22:35.960 | May God enable all of us in that ministry.
00:22:39.220 | How can we understand these things?
00:22:41.120 | My answer is that we cannot, but we know that God is good, He does not make a mistake, and
00:22:45.660 | even in such crazy calamity, He is drawing men to Himself.
00:22:49.420 | His eye is on His eternal goal, and He knows how to take what the enemy is doing and work
00:22:53.040 | it for His purpose.
00:22:54.800 | We met today, Saturday, with more elders from other gatherings.
00:22:57.340 | It was a good time of fellowship, and they were very thankful to meet us.
00:23:00.980 | What God has in mind for the future, I do not know, but we'll just leave that with
00:23:04.140 | God.
00:23:05.340 | One thing that is happening here at Jacob's Place is a university-sponsored project for
00:23:08.900 | the good of the community.
00:23:10.500 | The project involves working with the land for soil and water conservation, growing some
00:23:14.860 | experimental crops in the greenhouse to see what works best, raising rabbits (60 cages
00:23:20.020 | were built last week), a barn for milk cows which collects the manure and urine for fertilizer,
00:23:25.580 | a fish pond, and so on.
00:23:27.300 | Jacob's Place has been designated as the "pilot project" for the community.
00:23:31.720 | The university is funding the project and will then bring students from the university
00:23:35.380 | for training.
00:23:36.620 | The community around this place will then be brought in to learn how they can reproduce
00:23:40.360 | what is taking place here in their own place.
00:23:42.620 | I rejoice in what I see because it will be another open door for the gospel in many ways.
00:23:47.300 | It is an answer to prayer.
00:23:50.300 | And with that, my dad just closed with a couple of personal paragraphs, and that was the end
00:23:53.980 | of it.
00:23:54.980 | Now, I want you to imagine those circumstances.
00:23:57.460 | I want you to imagine the circumstances of 300 people living in your home and on your
00:24:03.620 | property.
00:24:06.300 | Or imagine yourself in the circumstance of a refugee fleeing for your life with your
00:24:13.380 | family.
00:24:15.920 | Imagine the circumstance of you as a husband trying to carry your wife to safety and your
00:24:21.900 | attackers coming along and killing you, for no other reason than political conflict largely
00:24:30.240 | driven by ethnic and racial strife and hatred.
00:24:37.340 | And then compare that to the tension that you might feel today given political strife
00:24:44.540 | in your area.
00:24:47.820 | And be grateful for the peace that you're experiencing in your community.
00:24:57.260 | If you want to have a greater appreciation for your day today, I simply urge you to think
00:25:04.260 | about that, to appreciate the peace that allows you to go down to a local polling place, that
00:25:14.180 | allows you to cast your ballot if you choose to vote, and to stand in line with people
00:25:20.340 | who vigorously disagree with you, and then to leave.
00:25:24.420 | And you don't go in fear of your life.
00:25:26.660 | You don't go in fear of your property.
00:25:29.020 | You don't go worrying if tonight you'll wake up with a band of thugs carrying torches
00:25:34.140 | ready to lynch you as they surround your house.
00:25:38.580 | You don't worry about them burning your house down, taking and stealing your animals, and
00:25:43.860 | just looting your business.
00:25:45.140 | It's not the society that you live in.
00:25:48.140 | Be thankful for that, because that is a monumental achievement.
00:25:53.480 | To live in orderly, peaceful societies, to be in the circumstances that you and I live
00:26:00.700 | in, to be in this place where we worry about what riders to put on our insurance policy,
00:26:06.700 | and to worry about the stuff that I talk about every day, these things that on a global scale
00:26:13.620 | seem so inconsequential but yet are so important to us, that's a luxury.
00:26:20.420 | And may we never lose sight of how truly privileged and blessed we are.
00:26:26.900 | Because today, in other elections that happen around the world, not everybody experiences
00:26:30.940 | those same things.
00:26:35.200 | Also don't lose sight of the fact of how hard it is to get the information.
00:26:38.700 | All the information that I shared with you, never been able to verify it with any news
00:26:42.460 | reporting other than a sentence or two here or there, an illusion.
00:26:47.420 | You say, "How can that be?"
00:26:48.580 | Because if in where you and I lived, where you and I live, if there were hundreds of
00:26:54.460 | people killed and hundreds of homes burned down, that would be front page news.
00:26:59.500 | It would.
00:27:01.040 | But not when it happens in a rural part of Kenya.
00:27:04.740 | It's not of much interest to most of our news sources.
00:27:08.420 | But it doesn't mean that it's not happening.
00:27:09.740 | Again, that's personally verified, frankly, by my own father, who we had a lot of extensive
00:27:16.420 | interaction over the course of the last couple of years.
00:27:18.700 | And then he's just returned from a two-month visit there.
00:27:22.820 | So I want you to appreciate that.
00:27:27.020 | In your own political battles, I'd also just encourage you to always stand for vigorous
00:27:38.300 | public debate on issues that matter.
00:27:42.520 | Violence is – physical violence is usually flamed when there's not an outlet for vigorous
00:27:49.980 | public debate.
00:27:52.060 | My concerns personally is if there is suppression of vigorous public debate of ideas, that ultimately
00:27:58.880 | can lead to increasing political violence.
00:28:01.060 | I don't want to live in society like that society in Kenya, where there is no outlet
00:28:08.260 | for vigorous public debate and people feel no choice but to turn to violence.
00:28:13.100 | I don't want to live in that society.
00:28:15.420 | Now, just a few more lessons or suggestions for things for you to comment on.
00:28:20.540 | Notice that in situations, in extreme situations, you're going to look for your friends and
00:28:28.680 | neighbors and you're going to stick up for one another.
00:28:32.180 | And the strength of your community now will – frankly, will guide the outcome of your
00:28:40.780 | success in an extreme situation like that.
00:28:43.900 | So the more you can do to build in your local community, the stronger your local community,
00:28:49.020 | the more insulated you can be from some of the potential tragedy.
00:28:53.900 | I probably take a more extreme form of financial preparedness than many people do.
00:29:00.420 | I don't think it's weird to talk about financial preparedness that involves good
00:29:06.500 | financial diversification and it involves the fact that you and your family might have
00:29:11.420 | to flee in the middle of the night from a bunch of thugs with torches surrounding your
00:29:16.180 | house.
00:29:17.180 | That's because these stories are not uncommon on a global basis.
00:29:20.940 | They're uncommon in the United States of America today.
00:29:24.620 | They weren't uncommon in the United States of America 50 years ago, but they're uncommon
00:29:28.860 | in the United States of America today and they're not uncommon on a global basis.
00:29:32.300 | I think we'd be well-served to think about that and to consider that in our own thoughts
00:29:38.580 | and in our own planning.
00:29:40.420 | So when I think about what would I do or how would I get my family out, that's where
00:29:44.060 | some of this comes from.
00:29:45.220 | It's just to say this is the reality that many people face.
00:29:49.340 | I could go on.
00:29:50.340 | I'll let you draw your own lessons, but consider.
00:29:54.380 | Consider how peaceful your life is today.
00:29:58.140 | Though you feel the turmoil of hot political debate, though you feel the frustration and
00:30:03.580 | feel like this is the most important election of your lifetime, appreciate at the very least
00:30:09.860 | the monumental civilizational achievement that is represented by peaceful, orderly
00:30:17.020 | voting and a citizenry that stands ready to accept the outcome of that voting.
00:30:25.700 | Frankly, one of the most important things about the American experiment is that Americans
00:30:31.940 | did not come together on the basis of race, religion, tribal affiliation, ethnic identification,
00:30:41.540 | but around a set of principles and a set of ideas, the American creed.
00:30:46.700 | And if that American creed is strong, it leads to a harmony in civilization.
00:30:50.700 | If that American creed is weak, who knows?
00:30:55.580 | Now where we go from here, I don't know.
00:30:58.140 | But at the very least, appreciate the peace that you can experience today in your own
00:31:03.780 | life and don't let the political battles take an outsized influence in the harmony
00:31:10.580 | of your own personal life.