‘Seventh-Day Adventist Radio, the Voice of hope’ that is the motto for Adventist Radio. A radio that has blessed, inspired, empowered, encouraged and strengthened many listeners in Malawi and beyond. In March every year the Seventh Day Adventist Church world wide commemorates Hope TV and radio. This is a time to reflect on the role of the TV and radio in different countries and how these two can be used to effectively channel the gospel and bring hope to a hopeless world. It is a day to look back at the challenges faced by the TV and radio while exploring opportunities to promote the radio.

On such a day this year, the department of communications in the Central Malawi

Conference planned different activities in different churches. Several churches in Lilongwe and other surrounding areas conducted communications promotional activities. Among them was Area 3 SDA church. As part of the commemoration, church members were given a chance to ask questions and suggest ways to improve transmission and programming.

A presentation made by Henry Kopa revealed that there are a lot of challenges hampering efficiency and effectiveness of the TV and radio. The radio operates on low budget all the time and this has continuously affected transmission. The money that is collected from churches is not enough to run both the TV and radio. The radio is sometimes forced to be off air and at the moment, it cannot transmit to other areas within the Central Region because transformers are few.

Prior to the commemoration the Communications department had a training workshop for all communications position holders in the Central Region and it was during this meeting that Pastor Charles Thangalimodzi who heads Hope TV and Radio in Malawi acknowledged the poor transmission of radio in central region. He attributed the situation as a direct effect of underfunding. He further revealed that the station is now relying on one transmitter in the central region, yet, there are supposed to be at least two or three transmitters. Pastor Thangalimodzi informed the meeting that almost all the equipment being used was donations from well wishers. He also revealed that there are some high tech equipment that have been denoted from the USA but need funds to be cleared by Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA)

As a way of financing the radio and television, the church introduced a special offering towards the radio where each member is has to contribute K100 per month. If every Adventist was to fulfill this pledge the station would have been collecting K 50 million per month – this is more than enough to sustain the broadcasting unit. The Adventist church has a membership of about half a million in Malawi

Adventist radio role in Malawi cannot be under estimated, it has brought hope to the hopeless. A story is told of a father who has a son and had dishonored him because of his bad behavior. The son was a drunkard and a thief. While staying with a friend who was an Adventist the young man started to listen to Adventist radio. One day he went back to his home village to visit his father. When he arrived home, everyone was worried. They hid their all their precious items and money, but alas, the young man had completely changed. On Saturday they saw him going to church and this continued for several weeks. His father observed that he was not the same. He got interested to find out what made his son completely change to a better person, and it was non other than the Adventist radio. From the day the father realized that the radio changed his soon, he made a commitment to give the radio K5, 000 every month. Without the radio his son might have been lost forever.

The TV and radio stations need assistance from all church members and other well wishers to fulfill Gods plan of preaching the gospel to all the nations

For donations for the radio and TV please CLICK HERE