A couple weeks ago, a woman, we’ll call her Ms. E, at church came up to me while we were cleaning up church and asked me what we were doing while we were here. I told her a bit of what we were doing.

She went on to tell me she has been spending some time with a 9 year old boy who was homeless, and was looking for good male role models for him and asked if I’d consider spending some time with him.  I told her that I wasn’t going to be here much longer, but that I’d pray about it.  Ms. E told me that this age range  is such a crucial time to spend with kids, because basically after 12 their trajectories are pretty much set.

I didn’t want to start something and not finish it, especially with a kid that might not have much consistency in his life anyway.  I thought I’d check with Ben Wichael one of the YWAM guys I met on this trip and see if he’d be interested in going with me a couple times together and then taking over.

Anyway, we put a date on the calendar to make it happen.  I picked up Wichael from the YWAM base, and cast some vision for our time.  I used to do martial arts as a kid and remembered talking to one of the instructors I’ve kept in touch with.  He shared with me how one of their goals in the 30 min class was to give every student appropriate touch, like a high five, along with a positive affirmation by name, 5 times during each class.

No wonder everyone like karate classes so much.  Who knew that they were being so intentional about that, I just thought they really liked me.

Anyway, I set that as a goal for us.  Fist bumps, high fives and encouragement.  And I thought outloud, “What was the one lesson I wanted to impart to this kid in our hang out time today?”  Wichael and I discussed it.

We arrived at the school with some help of Wichael’s gps on his phone, and pulled in the carpool lane.  We saw B.  (We’ll just call him B.)  I rolled down my window and one of the teachers asked gruffly, who are you here for?  B. I responded, and she turned around and shouted his name.  His eyes lit up in excitement, Uncle Ben!  Uncle…. his voice kind of trailed off, and he hoped in the car.  Wichael and I were amazed that complete strangers picked up a student from a school and no one batted an eyelash.  We also wondered what children’s services thought about kids who were homeless.

“How was school?”  We asked.  He responded saying that he had PE today and talked a bit about what they did.

Since I heard him say Ben’s name, I asked him if he remembered my name.  “Tim?”  He asked.

“Nope, Jim.”  I responded.

“Jim…” he said a few times emphasizing the J.

I sat with B. at church last week and Ms. E asked him to tell me what he wanted to be when he grew up.  He told me he wanted to be a NFL football player.  I asked him if he had a football and he said no.  I told him that we’d go get him one when we hung out but that he’d needed to remind me.

“B. I remember I told you to remind me about something when we hung out today, but I don’t remember what it was, do you remember?”

I could sense the excitement in his response.  “I remember! You told me we would go get a football today!”

“Oh yeah, that’s right, do you still want to go do that?”

“YES!”  He exclaimed.  “I thought maybe you’d forget, or that you wouldn’t want to do it anymore.”  He said his voice trailing off.

A time for a teachable lesson.  “Nope, do you know what good men do B.?”  “Good men keep their word do you know what that means?”

“It means that if you say you’re going to do something that you do it.”

“Right!, and thats what we want to be is good men, so I said I was going to do something and we’re going to go do it.”

“Okay.”  He said, I could still sense the smile in his voice.

I had a fleeting thought that it’d be cool to go over to the punchbowl cemetary, because it has an amazing view, but didn’t know exactly how to get there.  As we were trying to get back to a road I knew I took a turn, and lo and behold guess where we were?  The entrance to punchbowl.  We drove around and I showed B. and Wichael the views.

Still kind of lost we ended up going up Tantalus, neither B. nor Wichael had been up there either.  I thought that if you kept going up it looped around, Wichael was looking at his gps and kept telling me he didn’t think it was right.

“Ben, what do you think is another characteristic of a good man?”  I asked.  “A good man takes responsibility and doesn’t blame others.”  He said.  Great give me an example.  Ben went on to describe how if he threw a baseball and broke a window that he wouldn’t lie that he didn’t do it, but that he’d let the owner know what he did, and pay for the window.

I read an article this past week on how values need examples.  And I think that’s a really good point.

I gave an example of how I needed to admit I was wrong because I thought that Tantalus wrapped around, but it didn’t and how I needed to take responsibility for my mistake and apologize.  I asked B. if he understood and he didn’t respond.

I looked at Ben, and he turned to look at B.  “He’s out.”  He said.

We descended the winding roads of Tantalus to the sound of B. snoring.

Tears began to fill my eyes, I’m glad that he felt safe enough with us to take a nap.  I wondered what kind of sleeping conditions he had, and if it was hard to sleep being homeless.

We got to walmart about the time B. woke up.  We got to the sporting goods aisle and I told him he could pick any football he wanted.  I had to go to the bathroom and saw a large line, it was a line of people on the first of the month cashing their paychecks at walmart.  I came back and saw that B. had a football in his hand.  Which one did you pick out?  I asked him.  He showed me with a HUGE grin on his face, the green one.

The look of absolute delight on his face was well worth the $5 I was spending on the football, heck, I maybe would have maxed out my credit card buying the kid whatever he wanted if I knew he was going to be that happy over such a simple gift.

On the way out he asked me if he could take it out of the box, which I said he could and as soon as he was out the door it was out of the box, he threw the box in the trash.  “Do you want to go to a park and throw it around?”  I asked.  “Yes!”  He said, eyes still lit up in excitement.

We drove over to where we live, there’s a park that backs up to the condo we’re staying in.  On the way I asked him if he lived in a tent, he said tarps.  I asked him if it was hot, and he said sometimes.  I asked him what his mom did, and he told me that she cleaned 2 different hotels.  I asked her if he ever thanked her for working so hard, he said he didn’t, but agreed that he would.

I parked in the park and got out and we threw the ball around a bit.  It probably looked like that VW passat commercial where the dad is playing catch with his son.  Maybe not that bad, although Jess did tell me later “I saw you trying to run.”  I WAS running I told her.  She noted that I was holding my pants up, which is standard running stance for Jim Baker (right Aaron Reinard?)  I realized running around with B. that I really need to lose some weight before having kids because kids like to run around and right now, I surely don’t, although I never did, but I still need to loose some weight anyway.

I said hello to Jess through the back gate.  B. stood there in amazement.  “This is where you live??  Nah…” he said in disbelief.

While we were playing we saw another kid sitting on the curb drinking a soda.  His dad was sitting in the car looking at his phone.

“B. do you wanna ask him if he wants to play?”  And B. waved him over and the kid came running.  I was on B’s team and Wichael was on I’s team.  There was a homeless man sleeping in the park which B. pointed out, literally pointing and saying “homeless man.”  The homeless man groaned a few times saying “go away.”  But we kept playing since it was 3pm in a public park.

I had asked B on our way back from walmart if he could have anything for dinner what he’d have.  PIZZA!  He told me.  I asked him if he had a favorite pizza restaurant and he said dominos, and talked about their twisty bread.  So after throwing the football around we headed over to dominos and ordered some twisty bread and a medium pepperoni pizza.  He stared at the tv which was playing a western.  We ate and packed up the leftovers for him to take home.

I knew which park he lived in but I had never been there, and I didn’t exactly know where it was.  So I headed in that direction and B. helped us get there.  “Park over there by my grey car.”

“Oh your mom’s home?  Do you want us to get out and meet her?”  “Yes!”  I got out and he was grabbing his things.  “Thank you for the football and the pizza Uncle Jim.”  He said and smiled.

He ran up to his “house” and asked another auntie if his mom and dad were home.  At least that’s what I picked up since he wasn’t speaking English.

We walked up to some tarps hung over some pallets.  There were probably 5 or 6 of these makeshift homes there.  B’s step dad was passed out on a mattress, but his mother came out and greeted us, not making much eye contact, shaking our hands and saying thank you.

As we walked away I could hear his mom asking him what he had, and he said pizza.  I wonder if those few slices of pizza were going to feed the whole family tonight?

I got back to the car and was feeling pretty emotional.  It didn’t seem real that kids are living like that here in America.  I’ve seen that type of thing in third world countries, but not here.  Ben and I talked about it.  My guess is that probably 2/3 of the world lives like that.  Maybe that’s a bit high.  So it’s not the living conditions that are the worst part, I guess you can be a functional human with minimal shelter, its just certainly not the norm for me as an American whose house I grew up in sold for over $300k.  But it’s sad that his father figure is a drug addict who can’t get out of bed.  But I guess you could own a real nice house and still have a dad that was addicted.

I wonder if this family is here legally?  I’m sure setting up a semi permanent structure in the park isn’t legal, but homelessness is way out of control here in Hawaii.  But if B. was born here in the US that means he’s a US citizen right?

I’m not the government, so it’s the governments job to do what the government has to do, I’m not advocating open borders, but while these individuals, made in God’s image, are on my radar and are here, it’s my job is to care for them the best I can.

Caring doesn’t mean enabling either.

It made me wonder if B’s mom when she came here thought that they’d be living in a park under some tarps.  Is this the dream that she had of immigrating to America?  What was her life like back in Micronesia?  Is this better?  Is this future better for B?

Jared really messed me up in his interview on Doing Ministry Well, when he asked the question, What does the Kingdom of God look like for these people?  Does it mean they have to have jobs, and houses?  Is that what the kingdom is about?

How do we as a church reach out to this family?  We can do things for B, but we’ve got to help the whole family unit.  And if we help the whole family unit, then we probably have to help his whole tarp village.

But how do we help and not hurt?  How do we care and not enable?

I wish I had answers to these questions, but I can’t find answers to these questions from afar.  And unfortunately I probably am only going to be able to see B. one more time before I head back to TN…

Couldn’t help but smile as I watched this If you’re having trouble viewing click here.

 

Do you remember when angelfire was the webhosting platform and everyone had an animated gif of a yellow road sign that said under construction?

Anyway, we’re working with Bryan Switalski from SWISSCO to give jimjessbaker.com a facelift.  And we’re going to be working on releasing some great new content soon too

So if you stop by and see things amuck know it’s beauty in the making!

Aloha!

Last night I made it down to Waikiki for the first time in quite a few weeks.

I got there a bit late and they were already handing out pizza.  I greeted Like and we chatted a bit.  RK and Like just celebrated an anniversary so we chatted about their visit to a hipster Mexican resturant.

A guy came through the line and made eye contact with me and exclaimed “RK’s the man.”

I positioned myself to run into this guy again as he came through the pizza line, I figured if he spoke to me, that’s my open door to chat.  I wondered actually if this was the same guy I met the very first week.  It wasn’t.  I asked him his name and he told me, this morning it slips my mind.  Our handshake didn’t really lead to more of a conversation.

I said hello to Cindy and then RK.  Bucko came over and chatted with me.  Bucko did some time and when you googled his name, mugshots would come up.  So RK has been helping him with SEO and getting some new positive content to the top of google when you search his name.  Today’s version of Galatians 2:20 and 2 Cor 5:17.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

^17″Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Check out Bucko’s video here.  I love this guy.  Every week he’s genuinely excited to be alive and serving Jesus.

 

If you can’t see this video check it out on youtube here.

Bucko told me about how he’s helping a guy out who’s been clean for a few weeks, and is letting him sleep on his floor.

I also heard this testimony through the grapevine, but last night all the pieces came together… check this out.

Bucko was walking around in near Mccully park and pointed to a homeless guy and said “Jesus thinks your amazing!”

The guy walks towards him and is notably touched, tears in his eyes, and asks something along the lines of “Why’d you say that man?”

I’m not sure what else transpired, but Bucko went home and then felt the Lord leading him back to that park to talk more with the guy.  As it turns out the guy was going to kill himself that night, but hearing that Jesus thought he was amazing was enough to give him hope.  He was invited to Tuesday night pizza night and got baptized.

So last night I’m chatting with Bucko and trying to explain that I actually live in Clarksville TN, and we’re just visiting Honolulu, and Bucko lights up.

“Tennessee, let me introduce you to my friend James he’s from Tennessee.”

So I meet James, he’s from Chattanooga.  We chatted about my limited knowledge of Chattanooga, and some civil war history of which I really need to brush up on now that I live in the South.  He talked about how before moving to Hawaii he was a homeless outreach director, and how God has a sense of humor since he’s been homeless now for the past year.  He shared how he’s applying for another homeless outreach job here on Island and has submitted a bunch of the paperwork required.

James talked about how he’d learned a ton now that he’s actually experienced homelessness.  I asked him what things he’d do differently now when it comes to outreach.  He said he’d listen a lot more, and talk a lot less.  He used to think that he could judge people and know what services they needed.  And he also said the difference between a warm bottle of water, and an ice cold water is huge, that homeless people don’t see a lot of ice in their tents.

I found out later that evening that James is the guy that was going to commit suicide.  And met with Jesus because someone had the boldness to say that Jesus thought He was amazing.

I’ll be honest, this week, I didn’t want to go again.  But I’m always glad I did.

Homelessness is a huge and difficult problem.  But writing this reminds me of Matt 18.

“¹² “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. ¹⁴ In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”  

What if in our judgement of societal issues, we moved towards individuals?

Is everyone down there getting back on their feet?  Nope.

Will people back slide?  Yup.

But if there’s one, is it worth it?

I guess that answer is up to us.

Who are you moving toward today in love?

We’re stokked to announce that our podcast Doing Ministry Well has been featured on www.missionalaudio.com

Go check it out!

I heard a song on the radio last night.  I recognized the guy’s voice from another song I heard previously and remember enjoying, but I didn’t know who it was.

I sensed anointing as he sung and thought, these guys have to be Christians.  Jess told me to turn it up so that we could hear the bands name at the end… Judah and the Lion.  Yup Christians.  

Really loving these two tunes.  I think I like the grit in his voice, and then the bright instruments, along with the syncopated vocals.  Refreshing.

Suits and Jacket

 

Take it all back 2.0 (live) cause live is usually always better.

What do you think?  Let us know in the comments.

 

I’m reading and listening to the book of Joshua right now.  Some people love this book, but to me it’s a little boring.  A lot of names of places, and kings, and people groups… oh history books.

I am sensing the consistency of God’s character though, the feeling of being up against impossible odds in different areas of our lives and having to simply trust that God is going before us, and He’s much larger than what we face.

I think sometimes we can get stuck by always approaching the Bible with a magnifiying glass.  It’s good to get in there and really study, but right now I’m trying to get even more familiar with the big picture.

I put my bible app on 2x speed and listen.  And I follow along at biblegateway.com

After getting pretty bored with Joshua I deicded to see if I could find a good overview of the book on youtube.  And it brought me to the bible project, which I had heard of before, Jess uses these sometimes when she teaches.

The Bible Project does a great job of helping you understand the BIG picture and I love how they addressed the big question of Joshua and the question about violence and genocide that seems to be a common objection.

I can’t find a podcast that talked about some of the absolite horrific things that Canaanites did in their culture, but when I do I will link it.  These people were not innoncent.

Anyway, I wanted to introduce you to the Bible Project if you haven’t heard of it yet and I hope it’s a good resource for you as you’re reading the Bible

What have you been reading in the Bible lately?  Comment and let us know.

 

 

5 Tips For Fire Safety

Last week I was taking a nap, and awoke to a police siren leaving the nearby park.  For the next 20 minutes I heard constant sirens.  I checked broadcastify to see if I could tune into the police radio but they’ve since taken off Honolulu.  I sent out a tweet asking if anyone knew what was going on and someone responding saying they saw an apartment fire from the high way.  When we left to go out soon after that we saw a ton of black smoke billowing out of a high rise not to far away.

3 dead in 5-alarm fire in Marco Polo Building.

Here’s 5 tips for fire safety.

1.  Have and mantain your smoke alarms

   You have smoke alarms right?  And you test or replace the batteries when needed?  Red Cross recommends to check them EVERY month.  Go check them right now, and if you can’t remember the last time you replaced the batteries, take the time to do that now.

   If your smoke alarms are tied into your electric, you should also place a few battery operated ones throughout your house too.  What happens if a fire starts while the electricity is out?  Carbon monoxide detectors are a good idea too. Here’s a dual smoke /caron monoxide  like we have.

2.  Have a plan

   Do you have a plan in place?  Having a plan saves time and reduces the chaos during the emergency.  If you have kids, do they know what to do?  Who is going to go get the kids?  Who is gonna grab the dog?  Have I figured what my plan of esacpe is?  Does our family have a set meeting point?

3.  Have fire extinguishers in strategic places and know how to use them

   I often see peoples fire extinguishers hung in kitchens.  The problem is a lot of times they are in a corner, where if there was a fire on the stove, you’d have to walk through the fire to get to it.

   I have 3 fire extinguishers in our home.  One at the top of our basement stairs which leads into our kitchen.  I would not have to walk near the stove to grab it.  I put one at the bottom of the basement stairs incase there is a fire that starts at our dryer.  And I put one in our bedroom near my bedside table in case I have to supress the fire to exit the house to get out safely.

   I remember in elementary school we had to work with our parents on a fire safety plan.  And when I took CERT training we had to create a map of our home and the rooms where fire extinguishers were and plans of exit and meet up points.

   Also in CERT training we all got the oppourtunity to extinsih a controlled fire with a fire extinguisher.  A few good peices of advice came from that training.

   1.  Do not grip the trigger so tight that you cannot pull the pin.  There’s a safety pin that does not allow you to pull the trigger while the pin is engaged, you have to remove this pin to be able to use the fire extinguisher.  In the heat of the moment people can have such a tight grip on the handle that they are squeezing the pin in the trigger and basically working against themselves.

   2.  Aim for the base of the fire, sweep left and right and USE THE WHOLE extingushier up.  Meaning keep spraying even if the fire looks out, until there is no more liquid left.

   I put out a camp fire with a aresol extinguisher once, got the fire out and kept spraying.  I got the fire out but as soon as the extinguisher was done, the coals were still so hot that it flared right back up.  So keep spraying!   Those cute little extinguishers are nice, but I’d buy as large of one as you can carry.

   3.  Fire extingusihers have experation dates as well.  Check those and replace as neccesary.

   4.  If the fire has already spread and has been burning for more than a few minutes you are not going to be able to extinguish it.  Do not risk your life to try and extinguish it, get out of the building.

4.  Know where your electrical panel and gas shut off is.

   If you can SAFELY turn off the source of the fire do so, if not don’t risk it.  If the fire is already raging, then get out, smoke can overwhelm you so fast.

    

5.  Stay on the 5th floor and lower

   A friend of ours mentioned this this past week at church.  She travels a lot for work and her company has told her that she needs to stay at the 5th floor or lower because ladder trucks only go up 5 stories.  That’s something that I hadn’t thought of.  Also take a few seconds to look at the exit plan if you’re staying at a hotel or anywhere new for that matter.

6.   Bonus tip, clean out your lint traps and vents and be careful with frying.

   If you can’t remember the last time you shop vacced out your dryer vent then go do it now.  Be careful with frying things, I had a friend start a small fire on accident on her stove because of the built up bacon grease.  And I’ve heard of other fires starting because people were leaving things unattended on the stove.

The idea is to do your best to prevent fires and have a plan in place that you’ve thought through and practiced in case of a worst case scenario.

Can you think of any other tips?  Comment and let us know.

Here’s some other blog posts I’ve written on practical safety tips.

How To Help The Police At The Scene Of A Crime

Are We In The End Times? How Can We Prepare

CERT Training

What a 911 Operator Wants You To Know

5 Driving Tips

Lessons Learned From Calling 911 | An Elderly Lady Falls Down The Stairs

I’m not sure when i started getting interested in History, because I wasn’t always.

When we lived in Honolulu from 2012-2015 near the end of that trip I went to the Bishop Museum, and learned so much about the history of the place I had been living.  And I regretted not learning more while I lived there.

I also regret not taking more time to visit all of the Smithsonian Museums when I grew up living so close to DC.

When we moved to Tennessee in 2015, I knew I wanted to know more about the place I was going to be living.  So we met up with a friend and went to the Tennessee museum.  I don’t think we even got half way through so I need to get back there and finish it.  But something I really questioned was:

How was it possible that Europens were so much further advanced in their technology, that they could travel oceans in boats, and had firearms while the Native Americans had none of these things.

I think I asked this question on facebook and someone suggested I read Guns, Germs and Steel.  I think someone else mentioned that there was a movie made out of it too, so I opted for the movie and found it in 3 parts on youtube.

My big take aways were that if getting your neccesities takes up a lot of your time, you don’t have time to advance.  So people who were able to farm could develop faster than people who were hunting and gathering.

The author mentioned 3 things for development.

• Advanced technology
• A large population
• A well organized work force.

Pretty fascinating stuff.

That led me to World History Crash Course, which are around 15 minute videos on youtube about history.  That’s what I was looking for was a big overview of history.  I was skeptical that these videos would trash Christianity, but they were pretty fair about it.

I drew my own timeline and put BIG events on there so I could see where things overlapped.  I realized that history is a lot smaller than I thought it was in my mind.  And I also realize that either I was NOT paying attention in our history classes or, our history classes didn’t teach us much.

History is fun because it’s almost like a conversation, with lots of different layers.  You ask a question and find it in history, and while learning more about history you get more questions.  Each layer peeled back you find new things to explore.

It’s also fun to think about the different ways you can look through history.  Through which lens you want to view it from.

I remember watching the History Of Us when it was on netflix and really enjoying that as well.  I was amazed at how technology was such a big part of history and how those technological advances really helped propel the US forward.

My friend Mike has read a biography on every president, I think he’s on George H Bush right now.  That’s quite the endevour and a fun way to go through US history.  Bigoraphys are such the opposite of a broad overview, you get to see history through the lens of one person.

I’ve been listening to Bonhoffers biography on audible.  I might pick up the abridged version because the full version is just to long.

I keep getting drawn back to WW2.  I went and visited Punchbowl Cemetary last week with some friends.  And I realized I had so little knowledge of the pacific theater, my friend suggested I watch World War 2 In Color.  So I’ve been watching that too and learning a lot more about what was going on during the war.

It’s interesting how museums spark the questions that lead me to want to learn more.   What’s your favorite museum?

Coins are another fun way to look at history too.  

Do you enjoy history?  What time period fascinates you?  Let us know in the comments.

 

 

Man oh man, I finally got season 3 of Doing Ministry Well episode 44 posted!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to publish and for some reason or another just couldn’t get it done.

Even this morning I ran into all kinds of technical problems.  The last few times I tried to export from garage band it just would not export.

A huge thank you to Bryan Entzminger from The Engaging Mission show he has been a constant podcasting encouragement to me.  Honestly, without his encouragement Doing Ministry Well would have died a while ago.

I got reinspired recently by the how productive Andrew Huang is.

He also has a video that he posted recently about batch processing, which helped me a lot.

I’ve realized that I need “systems” in my life.  Things need to be orderly and make sense and be effecient.  I remember learning the word erganomics and enterpenuership in elementary school, 2nd grade I think and just loving both of those words.  That and propaganda… which is marketing.  Interesting how I can remember learning those concepts and liking them even at a young age.  So things like batch processing help me make more sense and reduce the chaos in my work flow.

I’ve also realized I need encouragement to keep going.  That sounds lame and immature, but it’s true.  I function best if I feel what I’m doing is appreciated and it matters.  I almost feel guilty for saying that, guilty because the voice in my mind says things like “I need to be working as unto the Lord.”  And “I shouldn’t have to thank you for doing your job.”

These kind of statements make me think I’m less than, because I’ve acknowledged that optimal Jim works best when what I’m doing is appreciated.  Which leads me to wonder if others feel that way.  And if that’s the case, imagine if there was a culture of encouragement and appreciation, how much more productive everyone would be.  Oh gosh, am I a milenial?

I think the difference here is the self esteem generation wants affirmation for showing up, I’m saying it’s nice to be affirmed when we produce something.  Eh… who knows, maybe I do have some milenial tendencies.

If you’re one of those work horses who can keep your head down, and do what needs to be done, and don’t ever need a word of encouragement, well done.  I hope I get there someday, but for now, I’m just being honest about where I’m at.

The hardest thing about vulnerability is… the fear that when I’m most vulnerable, that thing will be used against me.

Anyway, I think the one thing that I will regret most on my deathbed is that I’d didn’t “produce” more.  I’m so inspired by Andrew Huang and the videos that he puts out.  For people that can consistenly put out creative content.  I want to be pumping out more good content on a regular basis.

Here’s to hoping the inspiriation continues, and the motivation keeps flowing and that when those two fail the discipline pushes me through with a little sprinkle of encouragement from you guys.

What helps keep you going?  Lemme know in the comments.