Christian Radio Station Planned for Muslim Area of West Africa

Christian Radio Station Planned for Muslim Area of West Africa
Source: HCJB Global

HCJB Global Voice recently signed a final partnership agreement with another organization in West Africa, to start a radio station in the area. HCJB Global Voice expects construction to be completed in the next few weeks with plans to be on the air by Christmas.

After “Pastor J” and his team complete the building of the radio tower, HCJB Global Voice will donate the radio equipment needed and will also assist in the installation of the equipment. When the radio station is in place, the mission plans to help train the staff on the technical and programming aspects of the radio station, giving local partners the ability to run the facility on their own.

Pastor J, born in West Africa, was raised and trained in Islam. As an adult, he became a science teacher at an Islamic school. During that time, a Christian couple led him to the Lord. In 1983 he dedicated his life to reaching out to Muslims and has been serving as a missionary and strong spiritual leader ever since.

Christian Fellowship Church in Ashburn, Va., describes him as “a unique visionary and a strong Christian leader of exemplary faith … an effective evangelist with a heart of compassion for Muslims…and an astute, entrepreneurial businessman who continually applies his skill to spreading the gospel.”

Pastor J’s ministry focuses on providing schools, water wells and small-business opportunities for local communities. The station will be the first Christian outlet in this primarily Muslim area of West Africa, and will reach out to people who may otherwise never hear the Christian message.

HCJB Global is also involved in other community development projects that integrate both the voice (media) and hands (healthcare) aspect of ministry.

Death of former HCJB broadcaster

Longtime HCJB Global German Radio Broadcaster Dies at 82
Source: HCJB Global

Sally Schroeder Isaak, a German broadcaster at Radio Station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, for 30 years, died of cancer in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, on Monday, Jan. 19. She was 82.

The daughter of Mennonite parents who emigrated from Ukraine to Canada in 1925, Sally was born in St. Françoise Xavier, Manitoba, on Feb. 19, 1926.

Sally graduated from Teachers College in Winnipeg and also attended Regent College in Vancouver and the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, Calif. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan., in 1956. She later studied at Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg, completing a bachelor’s degree in religious education in 1964. She also received a master’s degree in communications from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., in 1978.

In her 20s, Sally worked as a schoolteacher, but she began to feel “restless” and spent one year on a special project under the Mennonite Central Committee, working among Mexican migrant workers in Modesto, Calif.

Sensing a call to full-time missions, Sally applied with Mennonite Brethren Missions/Services (MBM/S) in 1956 and was assigned to HCJB Global’s German Language Service in Quito, a department that began just three years earlier.

After five months of Spanish language study in San José, Costa Rica, Sally arrived in Ecuador in February 1957, serving with HCJB Global under the auspices of MBM/S. The German programs she produced aired to listeners across Europe and South America via shortwave on Radio Station HCJB.

“I derived a lot of satisfaction from producing programs for non-Christian Germans,” she said in an interview several years ago. “It was especially gratifying when listeners to the programs wrote in to say they had accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. I also enjoyed every minute of Spanish study, and I had a very good relationship with the 10 churches that supported me as their adopted missionary.”

In addition to producing radio programs, Sally worked at HCJB-TV, helping in music and teaching English intermittently for nine years. She was also involved in the Iñaquito Evangelical Church in Quito, helping primarily in Christian education, teaching children, youth and adults and directing the church’s educational program. In addition, she worked with Ecuadorian women, teaching Bible classes and helping new Christians grow in their faith.

Throughout the years Sally took a number of listener follow-up trips in German-speaking Europe and South America. In 1967 she spent five months in West Germany in an effort to learn and understand more about the culture and situation so she could present radio programs from Quito that better met the needs of German listeners. In her time on the field, Sally was privileged to interview two Ecuadorian presidents, Osvaldo Hurtado and León Roldós.

A gifted linguist, Sally was fluent in three languages: German, English and Spanish. HCJB Global retiree Tom Fulghum, said she was “amazing in her cross-cultural skills. Besides all the work she did in German, she was extremely well connected in the Latin community in Ecuador. Her Spanish was impeccable, and she often did simultaneous translation work. She had an enormous heart for people, both for the German people to whom she ministered as well as the Ecuadorians. It was a joy to work with her.”

John Adams, staff and office care manager at the HCJB Global Ministry Service Center in Colorado Springs, agreed. “I wish each of us as missionaries in Ecuador could have been as culturally sensitive and as highly efficient in Spanish as Sally was,” he said. “Add German and she was truly trilingual. She set a great example of what it meant to reach out to and identify with our host nation.”

“Professionally, as a radio producer and announcer, Sally was immaculate in her preparation and presentation,” added Adams. “She was a pro in every sense of the word. She had a compassion for the lost that was palpable and a rapport with her Ecuadorian friends and acquaintances and fellow staff members that exemplified what it means to be an ambassador of Christ.”

German program producer Esther Neufeld said, “Up to the end, Sally was interested in the ongoing ministry of HCJB Global and prayed regularly with [retired German programmer] Maria Hubert. She had a tremendous impact on many lives. Her life and ministry has been a model for me.”

After retiring from missionary service in July 1987, Sally returned to Canada where she married Frank Isaak in Abbotsford on Aug. 22, 1987. Although retired, Sally never sat down, keeping active in her church until she was no longer physically able to do so. She also helped in the ministry of HCJB Global-Canada wherever possible. And she reached out to the Hispanic community in Canada, teaching Bible classes in Spanish. At one point she led a class composed mostly of refugees from El Salvador.

Sally documented the impact of the German Language Service and her personal ministry in her book, Some Seed Fell on Good Ground, published by Windflower Communications in Winnipeg in 1994.

A funeral and memorial service will be held at Bakerview Mennonite Brethren Church in Abbotsford at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27.

Towers come down at Pifo

Tall Towers Removed from Radio Station HCJB’s Site in Ecuador
Source: HCJB Global

Crews removed the last of the tall antennas and towers at Radio Station HCJB’s international transmitter site in Ecuador, the height of which would obstruct the flight path of the future international airport for the capital city of Quito.

Under earlier agreements between the Quito Airport Corporation (CORPAQ) and HCJB Global, the towers were removed prior to a December 31st 2008, deadline.

“The last of these tall towers were taken down on Dec. 24 at 9:30 a.m.,” said Geoff Kooistra, operations and engineering director for the station.

Christmas is noteworthy in the station’s history as its first program went on the air on Christmas Day, 1931. The first broadcasts from the international transmitter site in Pifo, just east of the capital, began in 1953.

With 14 other shorter antennas and towers still standing, the transmitters at Pifo continue to broadcast 60 hours per day with targets throughout the Americas. Trade languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and German still air, as do indigenous languages such as Quichua (Ecuador), Waorani (Ecuador’s Amazon region), Cofán (Andean highlands, Amazon region and northern Ecuador) and Kulina (Brazil and eastern Peru).

HCJB's Pifo site has previously delivered the stations programming to locations all over the world.

“We also continue digital shortwave broadcasts both to Brazil and to Europe,” Kooistra said.

The station transmits 56 hours of analogue signal and four hours of digital shortwave, according to Steve Sutherland who manages the Pifo site and staff.

However, all shortwave broadcasts from Pifo are projected to end no later than April 1st 2010.

Christian Radio Fosters Unity

HCJB GLOBAL RADIO BROADCASTS FOSTERED UNITY ON EVE OF ECUADOR'S CONSTITUTION VOTE

Ecuador now has its 20th constitution in the nation’s history. Leading up to a referendum on the matter, HCJB Global Voice emphasized the need to seek God’s will in matters of governance.

Doug Weber of Radio Station HCJB said instead taking a side, his staff provided airtime to pastors to pray for the Sept. 28 referendum that determined whether or not Ecuador would adopt the charter.

About 64 percent of Ecuadorians voted in favor of the new constitution.

Weber believes the programming on Radio Station HCJB built church unity. He said the station’s apolitical approach to the election spoke volumes to the government.

“There was a lot of media outlets in the country that were taking a very distinct position one way or another, and we have always tried to maintain a neutral position, even in our news broadcasts and our daily programming,” Weber said.

He believes this puts HCJB Global on a more solid footing for ministry in the future, and he’s hoping this will allow HCJB Global to accomplish its future goals.

“One of the big things we want to begin doing is mobilizing and helping mobilize Latin Americans to move into missions in other parts of the world. We’re trying to figure out our strategy. We don’t want to duplicate what other people are doing, but we want to complement what other mission and church groups are doing.”

Christian radio engineer goes to be with his Lord

Source: HCJB Global

Duncan Bell, an HCJB Global missionary engineer for 18 years before retiring in 2006, died of an apparent heart attack at Hospital Vozandes-Quito in Ecuador on the morning of Friday September. 26th at the ago of 77.

Born in Hamilton, Scotland, on Aug. 4th 1931, Duncan married Wilma Chapman in Washington state in 1974 and have two children, Duncan and Shona, 28.

In his application to join HCJB Global, Duncan wrote:-

“For most of my life I believed that Christianity was old-fashioned and that in this modern era that we had outgrown the need for superstition and religion,” Duncan wrote in his application to HCJB Global. “I believed in a god because I assumed that it all had to have come from somewhere, but the god that I believed in was one of my own imagination and certainly not the God of the Bible. I had no need for the person of Jesus Christ.

“Twelve years later [at the age of 43], I started attending church to please my wife, and after two years I was converted, having seen for the first time my fallen life, my despair and my need for a Savior, Jesus Christ.

“My almost immediate action was to serve directly then in the work of the church. Wisely, the pastor recommended that I wait on God and get involved in Bible studies. I rejoice to see the path the Lord has led us in the past 10 years.”

The Bells’ first exposure to missions and Hispanics took place when they got involved in an outreach with a missionary in Tijuana, Mexico. “The local missionary challenged us by asking what we were doing among the Hispanics in Los Angeles. We enrolled in conversational Spanish and completed the available three semesters.” Then they began attending Spanish-language church called Iglesia Bautista Bethany.

When the Bells joined HCJB Global in 1988, Duncan already had 28 years of experience as an engineer in Scotland and in the U.S. His last job before joining the mission was at Hughes Aircraft where he had worked for eight years.

Upon arriving in Quito, Duncan served on the development team in the engineering department, working alongside engineers such as Charlie Jacobson, now manager of engineering and development at the HCJB Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Ind. “I appreciate people like Duncan who, after serving in a career in industry, came to Ecuador to use their electronic skills in missions to make an impact for Christ,” Jacobson said.

After the Bells retired from HCJB Global in 2006, Duncan went on to serve with ASOMA, a Christian television ministry in Quito started by HCJB Global two decades earlier. He also taught at the Berean-affiliated Buen Pastor school in Pifo. He enjoyed bird watching, and he constructed at least two homes—one in California and one in Ecuador. He held passports from the U.K. and U.S. as well as residency status in Ecuador, and he never entirely lost his Scottish accent. His wit was quick and he enjoyed a laugh with friends.

A service to remember Duncan was held the morning of Sunday, Sept. 28, in Yaruquí, a small town near Radio Station HCJB’s international transmitter site in Pifo. Yaruquí is also where Duncan and Wilma made their home and had many friends and church family.

Radio stations continue sending Hope

HCJB

While many are struggling to get on the ground in Myanmar and China to respond to the recent catastrophes, HCJB Global Voice has been faithfully reaching these two countries via shortwave.

The mission’s ongoing media efforts are focused on reaching those beyond the reach of traditional ministry opportunities.

Broadcasts in the Rawang language, spoken by more than 140,000 people in Myanmar, began airing from HCJB Global-Australia’s shortwave station in Kununurra in 2007. Two half-hour programs in this language air daily -- one slot in the morning and one in the afternoon.

A voice of hope is also going into China as the Australian station broadcasts 18 hours of Mandarin programming each week. An additional five hours of weekly programming airs in Fujian, and 10.5 hours of English programming reaches China. The latter broadcasts are designed to help Chinese listeners learn English as a second language while presenting a clear gospel message.

TWR

As the beleaguered nation of Myanmar continues to suffer from the mass devastation caused recently by Tropical Cyclone Nargis, international Christian broadcaster Trans World Radio (TWR) plans to produce special radio programs offering critically needed health and social care information, emotional support and spiritual care for the hurting and hopeless.

TWR's announcement to begin airing these programs to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is especially timely given news reports indicating that the estimated death toll is upwards of 100,000 people, with another 1 million having been displaced from their homes.

A media release states that TWR's over-the-airwave assistance strategy involves offering a full year of dedicated 30-minute broadcasts that will provide biblical counseling and care five days a week.

The release says the programming will be specifically designed to help restore the lives and spirits of Myanmar's people. The need for these broadcasts is underscored by the reality that the country has no electricity or telephone connections. Consequently, solar- and battery-powered radio becomes a vital link to the outside world for storm survivors.

"We continue to pray for the Lord's intervention to comfort, heal and provide ways for scores of people in Myanmar who have lost loved ones or have lost their homes and belongings," says TWR's Andrew Sundar, ministry director for Southeast Asia.

"Currently, we are broadcasting existing shortwave programs to Myanmar in both the Burmese and Sgaw Karen languages, but the new relief-focused broadcasts will be vital when it comes to addressing the victims' ongoing needs."

"The people are desperate and broken-hearted and are going to need significant long-term help," says Sundar. "My hope and prayer is that Trans World Radio can provide a voice of lasting hope and comfort in the days ahead."