Radio Show

by Simon
Each Thursday night between 8 and 10 there is a program on one of the local Christian radio stations designed exclusively for Ovambo men. The Ovambos are the biggest tribal grouping in Namibia and make up more than half of the population, as well as a significant part of the Angolan population. Tuhafeni, one of the students at NETS, has been co-hosting the program for a period and he invited me along to be the guest speaker.
It was my first time in a radio studio and quite a different experience. The three of us (Tuhafeni, the host and me) locked in a sound-proof booth and going live to air for 2 hours. There were three songs played but apart from that, we had to fill the space.

Introductions are very important in most African cultures, so I took a deal of time sharing my story and the way that God has worked in my life, not just to save me, but also to shape and mould me as a man. I had prepared and spoke on being a husband and father to the glory of God. I made a focus of modelling our fatherhood on God's fatherhood of us, and modelling our attitudes as husbands on the Lord Jesus. Everything that I said had to be translated into Oshiwambo (the dominant tribal langauge) which of course doubles the time it takes to say anything. Even with all of that, I had used all of the material which I had prepared after an hour and twenty minutes... which left 40 minutes to fill!

I now have some appreciation of the unique kind of pressure that comes with live radio! For the next 40 minutes the host plied me with questions about the implications of what I had said for men who had been involved in adulterous affairs, and men who drank too much, and men who beat their children, and men who beat their wives... He was a good listener and had a great gift for being able to see the concrete applications of what I had been talking far too politely about. He also had a great way drawing me out to explain things that I had said in too complicated a way. It was a great blessing to be guided by him.

As our time drew to a close he asked me, on air, if I had a phone... and then what the number was. I wasn't quite redy for this, and didn't know what else to do other than give the number. Apparently they give out their mobile phone numbers every week. Almost immediately my phone began ringing and it continued as I walked out of the studio and the five minutes or so to home... and then it kept continuing to ring for until I turned it off some time after midnight. Mostly it was just a stream of encouraging text messages, but there were also requests for me to pray for people... and one lady called asking me to find her a husband who was like I was describing! The calls came mostly from northern Namibia... and I was really quite surprised by the number of them!

Talking to Tuhafeni afterwards he told me that they're not quite sure how many people the program reaches, but they often have untrained pastors contacting them to let them know that they rely on these kind of programs for their own spiritual input.

The radio station has a great ministry to people all over the country. They broadcast in English, Afrikaans and Oshiwambo, and have a variety of weekly programs aimed at discipling particular people groups. Praise God for this ministry to men and for the many men who seem to tune in. Pray for Tuhafeni and the others who regularly give input into their lives. As I have been invited back sometime, pray that I will be a better communicator of the truth of the gospel and all its implications for men in this context.