HCJB Global engineer Steve Sutherland plans to help make repairs to a partner radio ministry that suffered severe damage in a hurricane that slammed into Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, on Sept. 4. Sutherland, who directs HCJB Global Voice's international transmitter site near Quito, Ecuador, will head to Nicaragua's capital city, Managua, later this week.

Puerto Cabezas was hit almost head on by Hurricane Felix, a category 5 hurricane. Convincing authorities to restore electrical power to the station, staff members at Radio VECA (La Voz Evangélica de la Costa Atlántica-Christian Voice of the Atlantic Coast) in Puerto Cabezas quickly restored the station to the air.

Felix's winds sent the station's tower crumpling to the ground, but in four days of downtime "they've welded the tower together and got it standing back up," Sutherland said. However, the power of the station's signal has been reduced to 600 watts, down from the optimum level of 900 watts following work accomplished in mid-2006 by Sutherland and a team of volunteers from Great Plains Christian Radio in Meade, Kan.

Sutherland arranged for a mission friend to find parts in Miami even as a Radio VECA staff member has been attempting to find coaxial cable in Managua. But making contact with the station manager, Pastor Salvador Sarmiento, poses a major challenge. Success in reaching Sarmiento by telephone represents dozens of attempts by Sutherland, and "sometimes it was over a hundred [attempted calls]," he explained. "It's been hard getting in."

Some 150,000 people live in jungle settlements around Puerto Cabezas, many of them descendants of Indians, European settlers and African slaves. They live by fishing and farming. "It is amazing the various groups of people who are listening to our radio," said Sarmiento. He mentions people in jails and at military posts.

"The miners take their radios to listen to Radio VECA while they work and the farmers do the same," he said, adding that Mískito-language programs are popular with the indigenous people.

Programming from the ALAS-HCJB satellite network "is an important source of Bible teaching," he explained. "But also other programs such as 'Ciudad Médica' (Medical City) are considered a source of updated health information by nurses and doctors of the region."

Others have expressed interest in helping the station, including Bill Lurwick, production director and announcer for Great Plains Christian Radio which itself lost 250 feet of tower for KJIL and KHYM (FM) to an ice storm in late 2006.

Lurwick has led work groups to Radio VECA in the past, including a trip in conjunction with HCJB Global. KJIL was named "Religious Station of the Year" by the National Association of Broadcasters (NRB) in 2006. Lurwick and a team of about five people hope to travel to Radio VECA in October to encourage the people and make any additional repairs to the station.

Américo Saavedra, director of Apoyo, a joint ministry of HCJB Global and Leadership Resources International, added that eight members of the key Trainers of National Trainers (TNT) pastor's family died, and the home and church of another TNT pastor in Puerto Cabezas were destroyed. Apoyo is conducting this three-year pastoral leadership training program in Puerto Cabezas and the surrounding area.

Felix caused more than 130 deaths while nearly 10,000 homes have been destroyed and another 9,000 severely damaged. An additional 120 people are missing, and an estimated 50,000 people have lost everything they own.

Sources: HCJB Global, Missionary Journalist, Radio World, Reuters, Mission Network News