In early 2012, HCJB Global helped install the 6th community FM radio station in the country of Ghana. Working with four partners, the six stations reach a variety of unreached language groups, mostly Muslim and animist, throughout the country.
Theovision International
HCJB Global began working with Theovision International in Ghana, West Africa, in 2008 when the organization was granted three FM radio station licenses. We provided studio equipment for the radio station as well as technical assistance during the installation and training for the studio staff to help launch the three “missionary radio” ministries in late 2009 and 2010.
“On the eve of the launch the whole town was like one big radio station,” a station manager reported. “Radio sets in houses along the streets were tuned in full blast while all public places, including guesthouses, had mounted loudspeakers in their compounds for people to listen to the ongoing programs. The youth who were out on the streets were not left out. As they moved about, they listened to the station on their mobile phones. Several people called in from more than 60 miles away to contribute to the programs.”
All three community stations, operated by local believers, are now seeing great Kingdom impact in their towns of Assin Fosu, Asamankese and Saboba through their radio ministries. Producers create special story programs for children, topics on healthy families and marriages, advice for business people. Programs like “Time with the Doctor” offer health education and hygiene teaching. Programs that provide evangelistic messages and discipleship teaching speak to the spiritual needs of the region.
Each FM radio ministry focuses on both the physical and spiritual needs of the surrounding villages. HCJB Global partnered with Theovision to conduct village medical outreaches and install clean-water wells in nearby communities. The stations have sponsored blood drives for the local hospital, advocated for an elementary school that desperately needed repairs and trained village healthcare educators.
Word FM in Bolgatanga
A 35-year dream by a Ghanaian pastor, serving in one of the least-reached areas of the country, was fulfilled in July 2010 with the official launching of a community radio station in the remote city of Bolgatanga, a city of 60,000 in a predominately Muslim area.
HCJB Global supplied the station equipment, trained the radio staff and completed installation to launch Word FM. In February 2010, HCJB Global President Wayne Pederson visited the station when it was still being built and was named an honorary “co-chief” by the local village chief.
Word FM makes Christian broadcasts in both FraFra and English available in northern Ghana and across the border into Burkina Faso. The community radio ministry is the only Christian media presence in the region, mostly populated by the FraFra, an ethnic group with little access to any Christian influence. The FM station also provides community development programming such as basic health education.
HCJB Global has also worked with Word FM to initiate several rural healthcare outreaches to show communities God’s love and provide physical and spiritual care for those who live in the area.
Medical Outreaches Complement Radio Broadcasting
HCJB Global’s vision is serving with global partners as the voice and hands of Jesus. In 2007 we began to work with several of our radio partners to initiate integrated media and healthcare ministries in reaching the least-reached peoples of their listening areas.
Our partners caught the vision immediately. “Our calling is to meet physical needs of the poor in the neighborhood, not just the spiritual,” explains Rev. Asare of Theovision International “It is our prayer for our immediate community where we live and work.”
Together we installed latrines, clean-water wells and spring-capture projects in chosen villages, and the ministry blossomed into a mobile medical outreach and the training of village healthcare educators.
Lives are being transformed as individuals hear the Good News on six partner radio ministries throughout Ghana.
“Lives are been touched and changed through the messages they hear on Word FM -- the youth, the elderly, traditionalists, educated and non educated, men and women,” the station manager wrote. “Under trees, churches are being formed through this radio station. The programs are really touching lives and making difference.”
