Pam Kudiwa and Walter Malskis in the control room in Lilongwe, Malawi.

(Aug. 31, 2012 - by Ralph Kurtenbach and Harold Goerzen) Imagine using what looks something like a metal ruler to transmit Christian television programs.

That's what African Bible College (ABC) in Lilongwe, Malawi, recently put into operation to kick start test programming on a new TV station.

In 2012 Malawian authorities granted just four TV permits from a field of 40 applicants. The frequency regulatory agency issued one of those licenses to the school, which first received official recognition in the small East African country in 1991.

ABC also operates campuses and accompanying broadcast facilities in Liberia and Uganda. In Yekepa, Liberia, ABC University received a license for radio broadcasting in short order. In some African countries the licensing process can take months, or even years, but the broadcasting license request by ABC's Liberia campus was granted in just three weeks in early 2011.

In all three countries, national staff and HCJB Global engineers collaborated on setting up the initial broadcast facilities. Additionally, the mission's media specialists have given ongoing university-level instruction to communicators and journalists in Liberia and now Malawi.

Longtime colleagues Dwight Lind (left) and Jim Heck who led the project to launch a TV station at African Bible College in Malawi.

Jim Heck, an HCJB Global engineering retiree who led the Malawi TV project, quickly recruited Dwight Lind of Sierra Vista, Ariz., to help. The two were colleagues who worked together for decades in Ecuador-Heck at Radio Station HCJB (La Voz de Los Andes), and Lind in television production for Televozandes.

Patrick McGuire of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Ken Van Prooyen of Grand Rapids, Mich., rounded out the team. Conference calls helped them determine the best equipment to fit ABC's budget, then order it and await its safe arrival in Lilongwe.

"Dwight's training and degrees are all in TV-related areas," said Lind's wife, Susie, who has ministered in Cape Town, South Africa. "In fact, he had taught TV skills to college students at the mission's Christian Center of Communications (CCC) in Quito, Ecuador, since its inception."

As the Linds considered Heck's offer, Susie said questions emerged like, "Could he take time so close to retirement for a trip so far away?" and "Would he remember enough after 12 years of doing other things?"

But the niggling doubts that maybe he was "too rusty" were brushed aside by their faith in God. At Susie's encouragement that Dwight grasp the opportunity before him, he set about translating an instructional manual he'd composed decades earlier in Spanish. He finished the translation in time for the team's Aug. 1 departure for Malawi.

Lind tests special fluorescent lights designed for TV.

Upon arriving in Lilongwe, they thought that everything was ready, but as Dwight recounts, "the carpenters were still putting on Formica and painting. Toward the end of the project they were still installing air conditioning ducts."

McGuire's expertise in television and Van Prooyen's experience in broadcast systems proved vital during the group's three-week visit at ABC. Then, with just a week left before the government's Aug. 16 deadline to be on the air, the four men made McGyver-like adaptations to the equipment on hand.

"Because of technical problems with the video equipment that didn't quite jibe with the country's PAL video system, we either had audio with a black-and-white picture or beautiful color and no audio," Dwight explained. "The government had the same problem when they first put a TV station on the air 10 years ago."

"We opted for color and no audio with a crawl at the bottom of the screen, but we were on the air as required by the government," he continued.

Students learn lighting concepts from Dwight Lind.

In the final week, as the others confronted problems with the signal, Dwight spoke to Ashley Chinchen, station director, and Walter Malskis, a television expert who became a second-career missionary, about the best use of his last week. He then agreed to teach Malawians the art of television programming, providing practical hands-on experience.

Again facing limitations, he was amazed, nonetheless, at how quickly the Africans could manage hands-on experience and assignments. "Without being able to have access to Speed Edit, they improvised and produced six video clips on trial versions of Pro-Vegas Video Editor downloaded on their own laptops," said Susie.

Since its founding in 1976, African Bible College has been training Christian leaders by providing university-level education across the continent. The ministry opened campuses in 1978 (Liberia, reopened in 2008), 1991 (Malawi) and 2005 (Uganda).

Update: At 4:30 p.m. Malawi time, Monday, Sept. 3, all ABC-TV broadcast systems became operational. "The final step was opening holes through two walls and bringing the coaxial transmission line in over the ceiling of the room holding the TV broadcast transmitter and connecting them together," reported Heck. "This initial phase of broadcasting an analog TV signal will continue until it will be replaced by a mandated change to digital transmissions by Dec. 31, 2013."

Sources: HCJB Global, africanbiblecolleges.org