What's Going On? February 2023

Expanding our production, broadcasting, and digital media brings so many talented people together. I am blessed in my partnership with Jose Castillo Jr., who continues to build out our network of production talent in Latin America. We have been working together for the past 11 years. Now, he has begun to discover new talent for our daily shortwave broadcast to Latin America in partnership with World Christian Broadcasting. Our partnership also reaches audiences through AM and FM broadcasts and digital media streaming on YouTube and Facebook.
The following is a special report from Jose about some of the new talent that God is providing.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford
One of my goals throughout last year, and part of my five-year plan for the Spanish service, was to be able to have a team that would share the same vision to reach the masses for Christ in Latin America. My team-building’s initial goal was to share the vision with different people in different countries that were already working in radio broadcasting or have the talent to do so in the near future. Most of them would be volunteers. Their role would be to share with us the content they had already created, create some new original content, and provide their expertise and knowledge to help me continue developing cutting age programming. So, in the last few months of 2022, after much prayer, I set myself the task of challenging a few people to join me in this soul-saving venture.

I am happy to report that a few of them did accept the challenge with much enthusiasm. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. But then, I should not be. Those are the things that God does on a regular basis. In this, and the next couple of articles, I am planning to share briefly what God has done, so far, in this new year.

Not surprisingly, the first country where I found a good reception was Cuba. In the past few years, I have traveled to Cuba with Rex Morgan and a group of other Christians to do benevolent work, to share with and encourage the Christians there and to share with those that were interested in what we have learned about radio broadcasting. As a result, some of them, occasionally, have recorded programs for our broadcast, among them are Noilys and Alicia Pérez, who are always willing to share their talents with La Voz Alegre. We also have Roberto Pino, who is the director of the Bible Institute in Havana. He does the follow-up with our contacts in Cuba. We are blessed to have benefited from their talents and service and are an important part of our team.

At the end of October, I called Jesús Blanco, a minister from Provincia Artemisa, whom we had already known for a few years. Even though he is relatively young he has plenty of experience working as a broadcaster in at least two secular radio stations in his town. He also has a radio ministry called “Palabra Fiel” (Faithful Word). He has a team of amateur broadcasters that he trains to help him carry out his radio ministry.

He immediately embraced what we are doing at World Christian Broadcasting and committed to allow us to use his programs entitled “Como Jesús” (Like Jesus), and Juventud Divino Tesoro” (Youth, Divine Treasure), for our broadcasts. But more than that, he and his team are committed to creating new content for us on a regular basis, all year long! These new programs will go by the title, “Conéctate” (Connect). It will be 15 minutes long, filled with short segments of music, a variety of information and notes of interest for non-religious listeners with a spiritual application. According to him, “it will be contemporary, fast moving and catered for younger audiences in Latin America.”

In addition to Jesús and his amateur helpers, the team will be supported by Francisco Blanco who is a professional sound editor in a local radio station and Michel Alberto Guerra who is a professional script writer. All of them are members of the Church of Christ.

Needless to say, I am extremely excited about the potential of this partnership. But this is only the beginning. There is a lot of work to do. The plan is to keep the lines of communication open while we work together, since I could benefit immensely from the expertise and knowledge of Jesús, Francisco and Michel. Such is being accomplished thus far.

Next month, God willing, I will continue to share about yet another exciting partnership achieved in December of last year. God is good!