Dear friends

I would like to share with you some letters from African correspondents which I recently received by e-mail.  The first comes from Rwanda , and asks me – once again – when I think we can start broadcasting the programmes of Reformed Faith and Life on the national channel of this small country of Eastern Africa .  As you know, ten years ago Rwanda was devastated by the most terrible ethnical conflict, during which some eight hundred thousand men, women and children were mercilessly slaughtered.  Healing such a wound, bringing forgiveness, peace and reconciliation, is not a task that mere human beings could ever achieve on their own.  God’s divine and powerful Word of Grace in Jesus Christ is needed.  How can this Word reach Rwanda ?  Through the proclamation of the Gospel, which only can transform the minds and the hearts.  This proclamation is the heart of Reformed Faith and Life’s work, and our Rwandan correspondent knows it well, that is why he asks me, on behalf of his community, to try my best to find the necessary means to start broadcasting on Rwanda ’s national radio.  Unfortunately, these means are beyond our reach at present, unless a miracle happens.  On the one hand I must accept this state of affairs, sad as it may be; on the other hand, doesn’t this urgent request from my Rwandan correspondent constitute a challenge for Christians who take Jesus-Christ’s missionary mandate of Matthew 28 seriously?

A dear friend of mine who had to leave his home town in Man (Western part of Ivory Coast ) due to the rebellion which started two years ago and has divided the country in two parts, now lives with his family in Agboville, north of Abidjan .  He recently wrote to me an e-mail, telling me that this large urban area has some one hundred thousand inhabitants, who can be reached by Reformed Faith and Life.  A local radio station operates there, and I am asked to send tapes in order to start a regular broadcast.  Any new possibility of coming on the air in a region where French is understood, gives me reasons to rejoice and look forward to serve people through the making of radio programmes.  Most letters or e-mails addressed to Reformed Faith and Life actually come from Ivory Coast .  With the Democratic Republic of Congo (especially the region of Kinshasa ) that is also the country where most of the books which we send, are dispatched.  Unfortunately, ever since the country became politically troubled, we have been experiencing problems in getting this literature to our correspondents.  This very important part of Reformed Faith and Life’s ministry must continue though, for the sake of building up spiritually both individuals and churches.  I am looking for alternative channels to solve the difficulties encountered, but, as is often the case in Africa , it takes much time before being able to find and implement the right solution.

Another e-mail came to me from Cotonou , the largest city of Benin , a small West African country neighbouring Nigeria .  My very good friend and correspondent there tells me that a Christian station operating in Cotonou could accept to use the programmes of Reformed Faith and Life.  Here too, I am asked to send samples of CDs.  If we come on the air in Cotonou , a new point of ministering the Gospel through air waves will be added to the region of the Gulf of Guinea , where several big cities form a strategic axis of communication, a chain of urban centres stretching from Pointe-Noire to Dakar ( Senegal ).

If I were asked why am I continuing these efforts to produce new radio-programmes and trying to find new channels to air them, my only answer would be the words of Jesus-Christ Himself, who once answered sceptical and critical  “religious” people of his time: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”.  May none of us consider himself to be healthy and righteous, but on the contrary to be in need of the same Redeemer, Christ the Saviour, the Son of God.  Please keep praying for the ministry of Reformed Faith and Life, and keep supporting our work, for the sake of those other sinners who are sick and need repentance, healing and hope.

In Christ

Rev. Eric Kayayan