Recently, a man called Anum* has been listening to the broadcasts from our new partner station in northern Togo.

His child was suffering from a sickness that the local doctors had not been able to cure, and he was desperate. Although he was from a Muslim family, he tried fasting to see if God would do something to heal his child, but nothing happened; the child would cry and shout every night. He finally decided to go and find the new radio station to see if someone there could help.

Our radio partners, a local pastor and his wife, received Anum and his child, and they started to pray for both of them. Anum immediately chose to become a follower of Christ. From that day, the child became well and started sleeping peacefully. Anum continued meeting with the pastor to learn more about his new faith.

The pastor shared God's word with Anum; more about who Jesus is and how to pray through Scripture. He suggested that Anum should buy his own Bible, which he did. He gave him passages to read and invited him to Bible studies in the evening.

During these conversations, he learned that Anum's wife was involved with witchcraft, and that she had left the family. The pastor taught Anum how to pray for his wife and helped him learn to forgive her. A short while later, his wife actually came back to him and asked Anum for forgiveness. Anum came to the station with his wife and child, and she also decided to renounce her witchcraft and accept Jesus as her Lord and Savior!

Our partners are continuing to disciple this family in the evenings. Now Anum has started to share the Good News that he has learned with his wider family, and he wants to also bring them to the station so that they can also be discipled.

Our partner in Togo needed help expanding his evangelistic reach, and the new FM station is already making an impact. As areas of Africa become harder to reach, the Good News is being broadcast and changing lives one family at a time.

Over the years, Reach Beyond has had a hand in starting over 100 stations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. These stations have been a beacon of hope to people like Anum and an important tool for evangelists and disciple-makers like our partner, especially as circumstances in Africa deteriorate. The expansion of fundamentalist groups, terrorism, civil war, natural disasters, poverty, government corruption and disease have all taken a toll on ministries wanting to serve in Africa.

“We see that windows are closing for ministry in Africa, so there is an urgency to do what we can now,” says Alex, the new Regional Director of the Sub-Saharan Africa Region for Reach Beyond. “The issuing of new radio licenses has slowed down generally, but the demand for Christian stations has not. We are always looking for options to respond to needs, and to support our existing partners well in order to increase their reach and ministry impact.”

Although various parts of Africa are seeing missionary families having to pull out, our partnership model on the continent allows us to support national staff with training and resources so that they can continue to broadcast the Good News in hard to reach places.

“In one Central African country for example, we, as missionaries, cannot get in to a fundamentalist-dominated part of the country safely. So, we hold training in a different part of the region and train nationals who then can move around more freely to implement what they’ve learned in those difficult areas,” said Alex. “Our partners are grateful that we are keeping a presence on the continent, that we are here to support them.”

Please pray with us for Africa. Pray for safety for our teams as they travel. Pray for protection over our partner stations and ministries as they share the Good News in areas that are resistant to the message of hope. Pray for new believers, like Anum, that they would continue to have resources in their communities to strengthen their faith, and that they would have boldness in sharing the Gospel with their families. Pray for healing in Africa, and that windows that seem to be closing would open wide with renewed fervor.

*name changed for privacy and security