by Shelley Nolan Freesland
Communications Director
Last week, Adventist World Radio's board of directors voted the
ministry's 2013 budget, which includes a significant increase in
shortwave airtime for the new broadcast season, at a cost of well over
half a million dollars. Currently, AWR is scheduled to broadcast for
27,177 hours in 2012; next year, the schedule will expand by 5,200
hours – an increase of nearly 20 percent.
"We are able to make this welcome change thanks to several years of
solid financial stability," says AWR president Dowell Chow. "In years
past, we were forced to reduce the frequency of programs for some
languages, due to financial constraints. We are very, very pleased
that now we will be able not only to restore some of those programs,
but also add new languages for some key territories."
The additional broadcasts will be spread over 21 languages – such as
Amharic, Somali, Panjabi, and Urdu – for listeners in Africa and Asia.
These languages were chosen in close consultation with AWR's Africa
and Asia region directors, who identified the areas of most need and
highest priority. In some cases, the frequency of some programs will
be increased from half an hour per day to twice a day, while for other
languages, the program length will be doubled from half an hour to a
whole hour.
"Delivering as many programs as possible to listeners every day is the
core purpose of AWR," Chow says, "and we are very grateful to God that
we are able to expand this ministry wider and wider so that more
people can hear the gospel in these languages."
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