***News Release***
Gospel Programming from The Tide® Ministry Gives Listeners Strength to Declare Their Faith in Jesus—Even in Buddhist Thailand
After a Lengthy Stay in a Hospital, a Bible-Believing Couple Returns to Their Village Changed People, No Longer Afraid to Share Their Faith
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa.—The mission of The Tide® (www.thetide.org) global radio ministry is to creatively share the Good News of Jesus Christ worldwide through media and partnerships. This is exactly what’s happening in Thailand, where The Tide ministry shares the Gospel in the Isaan language, spoken by 19 million people.
Although The Tide ministry focuses primarily on radio, the avenues to share the love and hope of Christ are varied in Thailand and include portable media players, audio and video, and social media.
“Even though Thailand isn’t one of the countries currently being watched for Christian persecution, we know from the feedback of our listeners that they are facing some difficulties because of their faith in Jesus or even their interest in Christianity.”
For example, partners of The Tide ministry in Thailand shared that a Bible-believing husband and wife were among only about five Christians in their entire county. They had been very vocal in sharing their faith until their extended family joined together to pressure them to recant of their faith at a family funeral.
“At that time, they succumbed to the pressure and said that they would ‘quit’ being Christians and stop attending the house church,” reported The Tide ministry partner in Thailand. “Over the next number of months, we gradually were able to connect with them on an occasional basis and found that they still had a level of faith, but they were afraid of declaring faith in Jesus because of their extended family. We also found that they were becoming synchronistic in their faith, incorporating facets of Buddhism and animism. We had been praying for them to come back to strong faith in Jesus.”
When the wife was in the hospital for about three months due to a serious infection, The Tide partners gave her husband an Envoy media player so he could hear the truth of the Bible through the “Life’s Answers” programs.
“He listened to each program many times a day,” the partner shared, “and by listening to the testimonies, reviewing the Bible stories he had heard in the past and listening to the Isaan worship music, his faith began to grow. When they returned to their village, they came home changed people. Their faith had been restored and strengthened. They are no longer afraid to say that they are Christians.”
Besides Isaan in Thailand, The Tide also offers Gospel programming in 24 additional heart languages in regions of Albania, Bhutan, India, Kosovo, Nepal, Nigeria and Zimbabwe—in the languages people were born to speak.
For more information about The Tide broadcast projects, its history, radio programs around the world, the new “Every Knee, Every Tongue” campaign, the “Have You Heard?” initiative, the weekly Global Update radio features or other news, visit its website at www.thetide.org or its Facebook page. Read more about The Tide ministry and Don Shenk here.
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