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Advancements in technology have allowed your media ministry to follow God’s lead in reaching millions more people.  Phase one of implementing the Lifeword Cloud on the Lifeword Network is complete, and soon listeners, affiliates, producers and anyone with Internet access can find a multi-language repository of programs and discipleship materials at lifeword.org.

Even as this endeavor is in the works, low power and low wattage (Lifeword Community Radio or LCR) stations are enabling highly populated but difficult-to-access areas of the world to hear the gospel, sometimes for the first time. These local stations, run by indigenous leaders, pastors and church planters, are growing in number thanks to the relentless work of visionary leaders around the world. Once local-language programming has been created in these areas, it can be accessed by anyone in the world on the Lifeword Network at lifeword.org.

We call these men who are dedicated to searching for unreached people groups, establishing LCR stations and training personnel “visionary leaders,” and we would like to highlight their efforts in three areas of the world: Central/South America, Europe/Africa and the Philippines.

Appropriately, the first visionary leader and region we would like to highlight is Bro. Pedro Etabag in the Asia-Pacific/Philippines area. He was a visionary leader at Lifeword before the term even existed, and for four decades he has been Lifeword’s Ilonggospeaker and regional coordinator. When Lifeword Community Radio was first introduced, he immediately

understood what LCR could mean to a local church’s ministry and passed it on to the church he pastors in Bacolod. He and his team, which includes his son-in-law Jhun Santos, helped establish ten other stations in strategic, and often remote, areas, and they use the internet to share broadcasts on LCR’s very first network.

Pastor Pete, as he is called locally (even by his family), has trained many broadcasters and stations managers to effectively use LCR, often troubleshooting and fixing problems with incredible resourcefulness

Next, Central and South America’s visionary leaders also travel to hard-to-find places searching for unreached people groups in their respective areas. Dense jungles and flood-swollen rivers complicate travel for them, but they are establishing stations so quickly that the following LCR number counts are likely incorrect:

• Name: David Flores Perez
• Country: Bolivia
• Bio: David is the visionary leader who ministers along the Mamoré River. He envisioned LCR helping BMA Bolivia reach a dozen more villages on both the Bolivian and Brazilian borders.

 

• Name: Denis Eduardo Lopez Aguilar
• Country/Region: Central America
• Bio: Denis is BMA Missions coordinator and Lifeword’s visionary leader. He helps oversee Lifeword’s work in Central and South America and has facilitated LCR and multimedia training in his home country of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

 

• Name: Javier Muñoz Ruiz
• Country: Nicaragua
• Bio: Javier is associate pastor of a BMA church in Nicaragua and visionary leader for Lifeword. He has trained at least a dozen young people in the use of media and led in the installation of three LCRs so far.

 

• Name: Paul Esteban Tinoco Lopez
• Country: Perú
• Bio: Paul came to the BMA and Lifeword via Lifeword’s Spanish broadcast El Contacto Christiano.He pastors, runs a radio ministry, and has led Lifeword Peru in installing thirteen LCR stations and training the personnel to run them.

• Name: Ricardo Herrera Ramirez
• Country: Honduras / Garifuna
• Bio: Ricardo is of Garifuna origin and came to know Christ in 1992 under the preaching of Bro. David Dickson. He is a key leader for Lifeword in leading broadcast efforts and LCR initiatives among the Garifuna people, who run six LCR stations.

 

The following men are visionary leaders in Africa, and their job of establishing new LCR stations is further complicated by restrictions and government interference in the licensing process. Living in an area where religious practices center on animism and superstition, they have a burden for sharing the truth of the gospel with their people:

• Hayford Jackson
• Country/Region: Ghana, West Africa
• Bio:Speaker on Lifeword’s Twi broadcast and engineering producer for nine other African-language broadcasts, he was the first person outside Lifeword’s home office to catch the vision of what a Lifeword Community Radio (LCR) station could mean to a local church. Hayford has worked diligently on the idea for the past few years and led his church to build studios and apply for a commercial license. He hopes to be LCR’s very first licensedradio station.

 

• Name: Abraham Cheyee’
• Country/Region: Liberia
• Bio:Speaker on the Western Krahn broadcast, when Ebola ravaged Liberia it literally came to the entrance of his subdivision.  Abraham saw firsthand how radio became the information lifeline for people trapped inside their homes, and it changed his pastoral values: He moved his family from the comfort of a big city church to live among his native people far away and win them to Christ. His church’s LCR station was the region’s second to be licensed.

 

• Name: Renatus Kanunu
• Country/Region: Tanzania
• Bio: Renatus is lead pastor and producer of the new Swahili broadcast. Only recently introduced to LCR, the first Tanzanian station is not on the air yet, but his transmitter is already being used to draw attention when evangelistic teams arrive in a new village. During set-up for the evening’s open-air meeting and showing of the Jesus Film, announcements, interviews and invitations are broadcast to the entire village.

 

• Name: Bogdan Bilav
• Country-Region: Romania
• Bio: Bogdan and his wife Daniela have a heart for Eastern Europe’s most despised people group—the gypsies. He supervises the recording and distribution of Lifeword’s Romany-Kalderash broadcast, heard across a network of Romanian-language Christian radio stations. The Bilavs see great potential for introducing Jesus using LCR stations to unite the tiny Gypsy villages that are spread all across Eastern Europe.

 

 

Lifeword’s Director of Operations Luis Ortega manages visionary leaders’ efforts, addresses their needs and coordinates training. Director of Programming Rick Russell conducts training around the world as well. Please pray for these visionary leaders as they travel, minister, train and lead. You’ll find all of them on Facebook, where you can keep up with their immediate prayer needs and praises. Pray that through the Lifeword Cloud internet users will find the message of Jesus at lifeword.org and respond.