Our low-power FM Radio 18-watt transmitter and other accessories, including meters for our solar power back-up.
While working on the camps during the summer, another area of ministry that kept us busy was our ongoing radio ministry.
By God’s grace this ministry has continued to expand and improve and is now proving to be reaching a lot more households on our island than we originally thought.
Radio antenna mounted a bit over 70 feet up. Our weather station wind vain and aeromometer can also be seen attached to the bamboo tower.
For over a year now we have been broadcasting for 17 hours per day, hosting 4 daily teaching programs (each repeated once), news twice a day, an evening children’s program, and a ” Verse of the Day” airing each hour. The Lord has also given some of our youth interns the creativity to produce a number of “spots” — short 30 second – 1 minute “commercials” where we share Bible verses or other important teaching in creative ways. It’s been a great learning experience for us all.
Hanilyn & Babet editing program “spots.”
As the summer came to a close and the school year began, we took another step of faith to expand the radio ministry further.
Raul and Babet host “Lunchtime, our noon program for students at the local high school.
Challenging our youth interns to really step out, we began a new one-hour program each noontime called “Lunchtime.” This program is co-DJ’ed by two of our youth interns and is aimed specifically at the high school population during their lunch break. The program consists of top Christian songs, as well as other songs upon request, jokes, Bible verses explained, trivia, and a daily student tip that I work up to give advice on how to get better grades.
High schoolers playing games during their lunch break at our campsite.
The main focus of the program was to supplement a ministry at our campsite wherein we open the campsite at lunchtime for the students to come up and eat. While they eat, we sit down and get to know them a little, provide games for them to play, and let the radio program play in the background. Students are given the chance to send greetings to one another over the radio or make song requests.
Campsite lunchtime Bible study
Each Wednesday it all culminates in a lunchtime Bible study which is usually attended by 40-50 students.
“Lunchtime” has proven a much bigger hit than we expected, and we are finding that even adults around the islands are tuning in to listen!
In addition to this, we have also begun a short program called “Karanungan Para sa Buhay” (Wisdom for life) in which I take a Proverb each day and do a short teaching from it. We play this six times during the course of the day in-between our playlist of songs. Of course this is in addition to our other four main teaching programs. My primary teaching is called “Parola,” or “Lighthouse,” which is a chapter-by-chapter study now through the book of Acts done in a question/answer format. I continue as well to do an early morning devotion commentary called, “Simoy ng Pag-asa” or “Breeze of Hope.”
Our Home Weather Station, which helps us monitor and report the weather conditions of our islands.
It’s really a blessing to run the radio ministry. However trying to keep up with all that is quite a challenge. Besides the 4 other programs I have to prepare every day, I have also been recruited to be the radio station’s weather forecaster!
There is no specific or detailed local weather forecasting for our area in the Philippines, and since so much of life here on the islands depends upon the weather, getting accurate forecasts is quite important. Thus, through a friend who loaned me a book on meteorology, some success in locating some informative websites, the chance to befriend a local weather enthusiast who is always willing to answer questions — and a lot of mistakes at the beginning! — little by little we are by God’s grace improving our accuracy. In fact, in a couple instances we even shockingly preceded the forecasts aired on the main Manila TV stations by 1-3 days. That was fun!
Besides being an encouragement to the brethren on the islands, we have found that the radio ministry seems also be opening more doors for sharing the gospel. In our recent door-to-door visitation around San Miguel, we found a surprising number of people who listen to the station, and as a result it seem to be giving us a greater acceptance by the people than we used to experience. Not everyone we share with prays to receive Christ right away, but nearly everyone is willing to listen with interest when we share. This is quite different than before.
Preparing the weather forecast using NOAA satellite photos along with our weather station data. What a challenge!
We really praise the Lord for the amazing tool of radio and for the guys in the US, who through prayers, support, technical advice, and donations of equipment have helped us so much in getting this going and keeping it running up to now.
So, please keep praying for Island Breeze Radio! We need all the prayer we can get, for though it is a great ministry, it is also a very demanding in that it carries unending deadlines, requires constant monitoring, and consumes hours and hours of time putting programs together each day. Yet by God’s grace we press on, believing that He granted us this ministry for a reason, and we want to be the very best stewards possible.
News from the Islands 