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Allen GrahamHCJB World Radio Prayer Letter
April 2014
Allen, where are the tortillas? As I told you in December, for years I've wanted to bring together the team of colleagues that help with radio training throughout the Latin America Region. This dream came true the last week of January as we met in Quito for a week of development, planning, brainstorming and fellowship. The purpose was to prepare ourselves in order to better respond to requests for training in the region. Colleagues came from radio stations and ministries in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador. It was a special time together, and with a lot of laughs too. Our brothers from Central America kept asking, "Allen, where are the tortillas?" Tortillas, you see, are eaten at every meal in this region. But we don't have tortillas in Ecuador! They survived, but we did have a lot of laughs about it. Erick Herrera is one of my colleagues from Honduras. After the event he said, "My desire is that every broadcaster be trained so they can share the Good News to the unreached in a clear and professional manner. My commitment is to give my life over in service to the Lord, as the Apostle Paul mentioned, through radio training." I'm excited to think about how God will use what came out of this time together to mobilize us for His purposes among Christian broadcasters in Latin America! Thanks for making it possible for me to be here to invest in the lives of young men like Erick. On February 8, we held an appreciation breakfast for the pastors and leaders from the different congregations that closely work with HCJB-2, our FM station in Ecuador's largest city of Guayaquil. Praise God for the more than 100 representatives that attended this event. Our local broadcast team was so encouraged! Please continue to pray for the government to approve the move of our transmitter and antenna to the new broadcast tower which was completed in late 2013. We've also launched a new website for HCJB-2. If you want to take a go at your Spanish, please check out the new site at hcjb2.org. I then went to eastern Paraguay to work with members of the Aché tribe who are producing Bible studies and discipleship programs to be distributed on solar-powered MP3 players. We were able to finish building the studio, train on the recording and editing software, and complete a test recording for evaluation by the folks at In Touch Ministries, our partner for this project. My colleague from Brazil did an introductory training here about 18 months ago. It was fun to be with a group that had been trained by one of my former students, which is why I call this newsletter Generation to Generation. Please pray now for the translation and recording of the programs in the Aché language. I was back in Quito less than 48 hours when it was off to East Africa. I was in Kampala, Uganda at the request of Reach Beyond's Sub-Saharan Africa Regional office in partnership with the ministry Every Village. I trained colleagues from two radio stations in South Sudan. Because of the political conflict in their country, we held the training in Kampala. Please pray for the safety of these men and for the healing of their country. In the evaluation of the workshop, one of the students commented on the value of our time together. He said, "this now allows us to be more creative with our own ideas instead of waiting for someone else to come along and do it for us." Thank you for your gifts and prayers that made it possible to serve these dear brothers. From Uganda, I went to southern Spain to meet with my counterparts from Reach Beyond's regional offices around the world. We have met regularly on-line, but this was the first time for us to come together face-to-face. Each region has developed materials to meet the training needs in their area. One of the purposes of our meeting was to see how can we share these materials and our different expertise to be more effective in our media training ministries. Please pray as we implement several action items that came out of our time together. I stayed in southern Spain to do a week of training with the staff and volunteers of Radio Vida. I was last here in September 2008 when we visited the local prison to investigate the possibility of doing a radio program to allow prisoners to communicate with their families. The response to this program has been overwhelming with some family members waiting on hold for more than three hours in order to be able to share an encouraging word to their loved one in prison. The program is called "Yellow Ribbons" and brings together ministry by radio, in the prison and in the homes of the family members. It involves several local churches working together with Radio Vida. Please pray for the continued impact of this team and for their spiritual protection. “Always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:4-6 NASB) Coming up: April 9-11 Training at HCJB-2, Guayaquil April 15-17 Training at Radio Interoceánica, Shell, Ecuador May tentatively scheduled for a radio workshop in Cuzco, Peru July 19-August 2 Ecuador Summer Team, Chinese Grace Bible Church, Sacramento August 5-9 COICOM (a regional conference of Christian media) in Cali, Colombia August 19-November 27 serving in our Asia-Pacific Region Thanks so much for your prayers for me and for the work with Reach Beyond. Thanks alsofor your gifts to support my ministry with Reach Beyond. The year is off to an incredible start! Thanks for walking alongside of me as we serve and minister together. Allen |