Since its beginnings with just one small radio station in Tangier, Morocco, in the 1950s, TWR has grown into a media movement that speaks hope to more than 3 billion people in 230 languages every day.
Trans World Radio (TWR), an organisation using mass media to reach people for Christ, receives story after story from listeners about how the radio programmes reached into their lives in an intimate way at the moment they needed it most.
One listener in Nepal said the radio became “like a close friend” after she became sick and was abandoned by her family. Through the programmes, she found acceptance and hope in Jesus.
A listener in Indonesia said he felt like God was speaking directly to him through the programme. Since he started listening to TWR, the radio has “become my new friend,” he said.
A listener in China said the “voices of your presenters share the Word of God in an intimate manner. It is like meeting with the Lord face-to-face! It feels as if the Lord is upholding me and leading me forward, step-by-step, via the radio during times of trials and tribulations.”
For TWR listeners, the radio programmes become a source of hope and encouragement. That’s the goal of TWR — to assist the church in speaking the hope of Christ to the world over the airwaves and on other relevant media platforms.
Sixty years of speaking hope
Since its beginnings with just one small radio station in Tangier, Morocco, in the 1950s, TWR has grown into a media movement that speaks hope to more than 3 billion people in 230 languages every day.
Over the radio waves, TWR’s programmes cross distances and reach people behind closed doors to deliver God’s message of salvation through Jesus. They reach people isolated from the gospel by geographical and ideological barriers.
TWR seeks to find the best medium to share the gospel to ensure it is relevant to the people it is reaching. While radio is the main platform, the organisation also uses SD cards, audio devices, mobile phone applications and online streaming.
It also has an extensive field ministry with on-the-ground partnerships offering personal spiritual support to thousands daily.
Partnerships are important to the DNA of the ministry. TWR collaborates with churches, ministries and content owners to fulfill the Great Commission. It partners with organisations such as Thru the Bible Radio Network, The JESUS Film Project, and Cru, to provide content to listeners as well as for on-the-ground ministry.
Reaching the unreached
Much of TWR’s work is to bring the gospel to the unreached, to the hard-to-reach and to areas with restricted access, including North Korea, China and what it refers to as the PANI region, which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan and Northern India.
In China, TWR is working on the second phase of the SON-Lift project, which is a five-year integrated media outreach to two-thirds of the country’s unreached people groups (UPGs). China has the second-largest number of UPGs in the world and most live in inaccessible places, and many don’t or can’t read.
In the PANI region, radio broadcasts are an important way to share the gospel. Churches in many parts of this region are not allowed to openly share the gospel and Christians are often discriminated against.
Responding in disaster
TWR also responds by offering hope in the midst of disasters. Following the recent earthquakes in Nepal, TWR produced a 15-minute trauma programme that is being broadcast in Nepali over 15 FM stations in the 15 most affected districts. The team is also distributing relief aid to survivors (pic below).
“Though it is related to Christianity, I have been greatly influenced by this programme,” said one station manager in Nepal, who is not a believer. “And as the demand of listeners for this programme is also very high, I have been broadcasting this programme free of cost thrice a day. If such a programme is broadcast in the days to come, then it is for sure that the whole district will be drastically influenced.”
TWR also responded after the 2011 Japan tsunami. Following the disaster, radio was re-evaluated and became a critical channel to alert, update, and evacuate people in the event of a tsunami or earthquake. This resurgence of radio gave TWR an opportunity to begin broadcasting a counselling programme to minister to the survivors. In 2014, TWR began daily FM radio broadcasts of three outreach programmes.
Whether using high-powered radio, streaming content to the Internet, or visiting face-to-face, TWR leaves a lasting spiritual footprint.
In China, TWR is working on the second phase of the SON-Lift project, which is a five-year integrated media outreach to two-thirds of the country’s unreached people groups (UPGs).
Photos courtesy of TWR
Rachel Mehlhaff is a missionary journalist with the Trans World Radio Asia office in Singapore.