(May 20, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) With a tenuous peace settling in Burkina Faso after recent rioting, radio partner Étienne Kiemdé has set his sights on continuing to share a message of peace through Christ on an expanded network of eight evangelical Christian radio stations.

Tensions erupted in a mid-April with a mutiny by members of the presidential guard in Ouagadougou, the capital of the impoverished West African country. It represented the most serious outbreaks against the rule of President Blaise Compaore who had taken power in a 1987 coup. When the soldiers received their back pay and Compaore appointed new security chiefs and a new prime minister, the uprising dissipated and calm returned.

Kiemdé's passion since 1993 has been to offer the gospel to a population of which only 26 percent of the population can read and write. His Radio Evangile Développement (RED) network began with a single station in the capital in 1993.

The eight-station network now covers 60 to 65 percent of Burkina Faso. Broadcasts emanate in French, English and 13 indigenous languages in the country of 16.3 million where 8.9 percent of the residents are evangelical. For the last few years, Kiemdé has been in partnership with HCJB Global which has responded by sending two medical teams to conduct clinics with RED.

Kiemdé has been asked by pastors to establish a station at Kaya where two nongovernmental stations exist. One is a Catholic station; the other is private. Some 70 miles from Ouagadougou, Kaya is the provincial capital of Sanmatenga province. Of more than 220,000 residents, 62 percent are under the age of 20. The city's population is a mix of Muslims (40 percent), animists (34 percent) and Christians (25 percent).

The Fulani people around Fada are able to tune in to the messages by Pastor Laampo. The pastor related a story about greeting a Fulani Muslim man.

"When I introduced myself," the pastor recounted to Kiemdé, "he said that he knows me by what he hears-my messages on the radio. He personally appreciates them due to the truths that are disseminated."

Pastor Majo Lankoande, an itinerant evangelist, told Kiemdé, "In my travels, people say to wait for someone to better explain to them the Word of God-the same message that they hear on the radio."

"Without a doubt, God works powerfully through radio," Kiemdé concluded in a letter to HCJB Global. "Radio is a medium for us and support on the ground."

An international medical team from HCJB Global, including staff from Ecuador, also helped with a mobile medical clinic and community development projects in Burkina Faso in March 2009. Another medical team from Ecuador visited the country in late 2010.

Source: HCJB Global