An FM transmitter stolen by marauding soldiers from Radio Kahuzi, HCJB World Radio's partner station in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, 10 years ago, was returned to its rightful owners in time for the ministry's 15th anniversary.

Richard McDonald, a missionary with Believer's Express Service, Inc., who operates Radio Kahuzi with his wife, Kathy, said the 200-watt transmitter was returned on Tuesday, July 4, exactly 15 years after the station received a broadcasting license from the country's former president, Mobutu Sese Seko.

"Praise the Lord!" McDonald exclaimed. "Another answer to years of prayer and waiting. What an anniversary present for the Radio Kahuzi team and all our prayer warriors!"

Radio Kahuzi, the country's first non-governmental radio station, went on the air in 1992, making it one of the first stations in the "radio planting" outreach of HCJB World Radio that has resulted in more than 300 Christian stations going on the air in more than 100 countries. The transmitter was provided by the mission's Engineering Center in Elkhart, Ind.

The story of the stolen transmitter began in 1996 during the country's eight-year-long war. The king of the Bashi tribe of 2 million wanted his people to hear the "good moral teaching" that he was hearing on Radio Kahuzi, so he invited McDonald to bring the FM relay to his mountain home. Together they placed the antenna on his rooftop so the signal from the station could be picked up and aired to his people on the other side of the mountain.

"Shortly after they completed installing the equipment, there was a surprise attack and invasion by foreign forces," McDonald explained. "There was much pressure placed on the Bashi king to involve his people in the ongoing fighting, but he refused."

The soldiers then began using the king's home as their headquarters, forcing the king to go into hiding. When the soldiers decided to leave his home, they took the radio equipment with them.

As they were marching through the remote village of Walungu, the soldier carrying the transmitter and coax cable was tired and offered to trade it for an old man's goat. "The old man feared that the equipment had been stolen from the Bashi king, so even though he had no desire to have the equipment, he exchanged it for the goat, considering it an offering for his king," McDonald said.

Fearing the marauders would return, the old man abandoned his home and village and fled to a distant, isolated location to wait out the war. He carefully buried the transmitter in the ground beneath his hut. During the long years of war, the old man's wife died. The king remained in hiding, but the old man stayed faithful to his king, carefully guarding the transmitter during the entire time.

Now 80 years old, the man recently contacted the king, saying he was waiting for him to return to his home so the equipment could be returned to him. But the king had not come back to his mountain home. Instead, after years of hiding, he had gone to serve in the senate in Kinshasa and was preparing for federal elections July 28-31. He will continue to be an automatic member of parliament along with other tribal kings.

The king has offered part of his home near Bukavu to set up and test the transmitter. A new tower for the antenna has been erected outside his home.

Years of being buried beneath the hut had ruined the carton containing the transmitter, but the equipment itself only suffered minor damage, McDonald added. "With some external cleaning, we hope the transmitter will soon be back on the air, broadcasting [in Walungu] at 102.1 MHz!"

Mike Axman, the engineer in Elkhart who designed HCJB World Radio's FM transmitters and helped install a shortwave transmitter at Radio Kahuzi in 2001, said he's amazed the equipment was returned after being missing for so long.

"We're just happy that after all these years in can be put to good use again," he said. "We thought perhaps it had fallen into the hands of non-Christians and was being used in Tanzania. We've considered keying our transmitters with a password to keep them from being used in cases like this. There was a similar situation in Liberia where some of our transmitters were stolen."

Sources: Radio Kahuzi, HCJB World Radio