Anderson Times

This has been an exciting year for the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center. Our core ministry, radio planting, has had the opportunity to help with 49 transmitters and 29 antennas in 42 countries, and all this happened in just the 2003 fiscal year that ended in September.

We sometimes ask ourselves if radio is really reaching the people and changing lives. This letter from our partner in Mali answers that question for us.

One of the effects that the low-power radio stations have had in these areas is that the religious leaders have noticed a crucial decrease in the growth of the Muslim faith in most areas where the Christians have FM radio stations.

Many of the Muslim men who were once faithful in their rituals are no longer faithfully attending mosques to worship. They are not praying as prescribed by their religion, they are not fasting anymore, and many have abandoned their faith to become Christians.

The ARIEL (Automating Radio in Every Language) project is nearing a milestone. By the end of October, Dan, who is managing this project, and his development team plan to have the first system working in the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center. When the major bugs are worked out, the first complete test systems in the field (called beta systems by engineers) will be installed. We plan to have two systems ready to install in Christian radio stations in the midwest by January. The beta tests will require several months to shake out the bugs before we send systems overseas.

Pray that by this summer we will be ready to help our overseas partners improve their broadcasts of the gospel with the ARIEL system.

After 62 years of Christian Russian broadcast from HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, the final program aired on Saturday and Sunday, June 28-29. While Russian programming is no longer airing from Quito, broadcasts continue to emanate from England on a nightly basis. HCJB World Radio staff in Germany produce the programs and air them to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus from a leased shortwave site in England. Since England is thousands of miles closer to Russia than Ecuador, the signal to the listeners is much stronger.

HCJB World Radio has shifted its emphasis to preparing and developing a new generation of Christian Russian radio programmers who will carry on the work of broadcasting within Russian and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. HCJB World Radio’s Euro-Asia staff works to train potential broadcasters as well as develop studios and radio stations that local believers will operate.

HCJB World Radio helped to establish and continues to support a Russian language Christian radio distribution service. It operates 24 hours a day and is known as the New Life Radio Satellite Network. The studios are in Moscow.

Time has been flying by for our family since last spring. Between softball games with the girls, Jenny finishing up her senior year of high school, and Dan’s responsibilities at work there was always something to prepare or someplace to go.

A new team of five leaders has taken over the junior-high youth group at church giving Dan and Barb time to pursue other avenues of service. The new team is great and adds new life and enthusiasm to the group. Barb continues to work at Elkhart Baptist Christian School where John is a freshman and Emily is a junior. Dan is the manager for the ARIEL (Automating Radio in Every Language) project and also manages the office computer network and Internet connection. He has been encouraged by the young missionaries and apprentices who have come to help with the ARIEL development and computer systems at the Engineering Center.

Jenny (19) pitched softball in the spring, graduated from high school in June, spent the summer working as a camp counselor, and flew off to Buenos Aires, Argentina in September where she is a student at the World of Life Bible Institute. She is taking language courses in Spanish and Bible courses in English. Late this semester or early next semester, her Bible courses will be in Spanish also.

Jenny will come home in December and return to Argentina in January for summer camp and a second semester of school ending in July. So far she has had a great time at the school. Pray that she learns well and grows in the Lord.

Emily (16) began driving in January and can take John to youth activities, freeing Mom and Dad to have their own “dates.” Emily played second base on the softball team in the spring, continues to play her saxophone in the school band, and volunteers as a candy striper at the Elkhart hospital.

Emily loves her animals and recently got a dog, something she’s wanted since she was little. She also finds time to care for her 4-H rabbits that numbered 27 at their peak last spring. Now she is down to a manageable thirteen.

John (14) is now bigger than his mother. John plays his tuba in the school band and wants to be on the school golf team next spring. This summer he bought a shotgun at a garage sale and has also taken up hunting.

Pray for Emily and John that they will follow the Lord as they mature.