May 7, 2010
New Media Applications Expand Opportunities to Share the Gospel
Source: HCJB Global (written by Ralph Kurtenbach and Kay Burgi)
Online chat messages blend with the on-air chatter of three young Latin American hosts on a popular ALAS-HCJB radio program, "La Telaraáa" (The Spider Web), each afternoon in Quito, Ecuador.
New media applications such as Facebook play an integral part of the program which airs via satellite network affiliates throughout Latin America.
Fingertips on the sliders of the studio console, Ofelia Díaz steers the conversation with her co-hosts, Sofía Maldonado and Bryan Rubio, a student at HCJB Global's Christian Center of Communications.
Rubio's laptop computer screen displays who is writing on La Telaraáa's newly established Facebook account while another website collates all SMS (cell phone text) messages that listeners have sent to the program host.
"We are seeing an increase in activity with our fans on all of our pages, especially HCJB La Voz de los Andes, HCJB-2 and La Telaraáa," said Doug Weber, who is researching new media and dovetailing local radio with new Internet-related communications.
"Our fans are beginning to ask us questions about things not necessarily related to the programs that are on the air," he added. "Also, many, many people are writing testimonies about how the radio ministries have blessed them over the years."
"I remember listening to devotional stories in English as a young missionary kid living with my folks in Yarinacocha, Peru," wrote Susan Wacker Nordin, reminiscing of times when La Voz de los Andes reached a worldwide audience. Another listener wrote, "It gives me comfort when I listen to you. I keep learning more about our Lord."
Some 400 individuals became fans of HCJB La Voz de los Andes (Voice of the Andes) in March alone (a 46-percent increase) with four other sites (HCJB Voz Global, HCJB-2, Centro Cristiano de Comunicaciones and La Telaraáa) also enjoying growth.
Two age groups (ranging from age 18 to 34) represent from 40 to 65 percent of fans of all these radio ministries, Weber said. Another age group (35 to 44) does not lag far behind with Voz Global's fan base fairly equally distributed among five age groups (ranging from age 18 to 55 plus).
Frontiers are being crossed as Radio Station HCJB probes opportunities via new media, even as national boundaries are eclipsed by a love for Jesus Christ and a passion to evangelize via the airwaves.
Both Díaz, a Mexican, and Rubio, a Colombian, have lived in Ecuador for more than a decade. They, along with Maldonado from Ecuador, bring a pan-Hispanic perspective to topics discussed by guests invited in for interview segments.
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