Posted: 6/25/04
Pastor helps missionaries in remote areas stay in contact
By Janelle Bagci
Staff Writer
VALLEY VIEW–Danny Shaver wants to make it easier for overseas missionaries to stay in touch with their families, supporters and colleagues. And he knows how to make it happen.
Shaver, pastor of Pioneer Baptist Church in Valley View, serves on the board of Radio Ministries–a nondenominational, nonprofit Christian ministry that provides communications equipment, training and technical support to missionaries working in remote areas where they lack easy access to conventional communications.
Missionary safety and morale are crucial for an effective ministry, and radio equipment helps. But people do not know the technology is available, Shaver said.
| Danny Shaver, pastor of Pioneer Baptist Church in Valley View, works with a ministry that makes communication easier for overseas missionaries. |
High-frequency radio e-mail often is the best option for missionaries serving in isolated areas, he explained.
The radio equipment works in conjunction with a computer, a terminal node controller–which serves as a substitute for a conventional external modem–a tuner and an antenna to connect to receiving stations located throughout the world.
The system uses an amateur radio service and does not cost users anything. There are no fees or airtime charges. The capability of this technology for missionaries is extensive, with telephone service, e-mail access, position reporting, weather and bulletin services, and emergency communications.
In some areas where communications has involved sending a messenger to the nearest town, response time to requests by missionaries has been shortened by up to a month, Shaver noted.
“I finally made connection today and received our first batch of e-mail. How excited we were! I had to hold back the tears. … My wife is so happy to be in touch with her family,” a missionary serving in Haiti said.
Evangelical missionaries who serve where telephone or Internet access is unreliable or unavailable can be candidates for radio assistance from Shaver's organization. They can write or call to express their need and describe their ministry.
Radio Ministries provides missionaries with radio equipment and training while they are on furlough or makes arrangements for the equipment and training materials to be sent to them.
Radio training depends on the country and its radio regulations.
“Usually it involves studying and taking a test,” Shaver said. “We help the missionary. Here's what you study, and here's the book.”
Shaver's ministry helped missionaries in the jungles of Guyana who run a medical clinic–the best-equipped facility with the best-educated personnel within a 70-mile radius.
They now are able to e-mail pictures of patients to doctors in the United States to get treatment advice.
Instead of waiting two months–as was the case previously–they receive a response within the day and can treat the person accordingly.
When “the physical needs of a person have been met, they are more open to spiritual nurturing,” a Guyana missionary said.
“I have long been praying that God would show me ways to use my interest in amateur radio and the skills I've developed along the way to serve him and his work,” Radio Ministries founder Scott Thile said.
Radio Ministries accepts donated radio equipment and financial gifts.
Equipment and money are used entirely for equipping and supporting Christian missionaries in the field. All gifts are tax- deductible. Radio Ministries is a nonprofit ministry, and all workers are volunteers.
Shaver transports the equipment in the back of his truck to do churchwide demonstrations.
He can be contacted by e-mail at n5nbk@ntin.net or by phone at (940) 727-1150 or (940) 668-2689.
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