The Tide®

Christmas is a great time for Christians to celebrate the wonderful gift from God of Jesus our Savior. It doesn’t matter where you come from; Jesus is the perfect gift for you. The mission of The Tide is to make known Jesus throughout the world and to help to point people into His loving embrace. During this season, The Tide also celebrates generosity. All of the financial support is what makes it possible for The Tide to continue its ministry in different countries around the world. Without the continued support of people like you, The Tide would not be able to continue proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to people who otherwise may never hear! The continued support re-enforces our visions and goals of how to reach more people with the gospel. The Tide’s newest goal is Vision 2015 which is our goal to add more evangelistic radio programs in 15 different heart languages by 2015. In order to make this goal a reality, we have or will be doing the following things: -T

How do you feel about the name your parents gave you? In North America most people are quite happy, and maybe even proud of, their given names, but for a significant number of girls throughout India, that is not the case. The cultural mindset of many Indian parents values the life of a male child over that of a female. A common perspective there is that boys are assets and girls are liabilities. Consequently, girls in India are commonly given names that convey the meaning of “unwanted,” causing them to feel worthless and to struggle with self-esteem. Recently, efforts to address this issue in India resulted in a renaming ceremony in which hundreds of Indian girls were given the opportunity to choose new names for themselves. It is encouraging to see that district health officials, recognizing the detrimental and potentially devastating health effects of living with a negative label, were willing to confront cultural tradition by allowing girls to choose names that expres

These children in Zimbabwe represent a great need for outreach among the younger generations. Th e 65 th Anniversary of The Tide© makes it one of the longest-standing media missionary organizations in the United States . Founded in 1946 as the Gospel Tide Broadcasting Association, The Tide ministry has since transitioned from a domestic English-speaking radio program to a versatile multi-national outreach focusing on the least reached regions of the world. Through the current radio broadcasts in 14 languages which feature indigenous pastors preaching a culturally relevant Gospel in their own people’s heart languages, thousands of lost people are coming to know Christ’s love and redemption. Building on the momentum of over six decades of radio ministry, The Tide board of directors has set an aggressive goal to introduce evangelistic radio programs in 15 additional languages by the year 2015, approximately 4 new languages a year. This new campaign has become known as Vision2015 . Re

This week we want to encourage you to pray for the indigenous pastors and leaders in India , Nepal , Nigeria , Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe . They are in need of education, resources, encouragement, and support as they take on the important task of reaching out to their own nationalities and share the important message of God’s love to their own people. The Tide works hand in hand with indigenous church groups, church planters, and evangelists to plant and nurture new congregations. One issue we are facing today is a need to provide indigenous pastors and spiritual leaders with the education and resources needed to reach their communities with the Gospel of Christ. Did you know? • There are 196 countries in the world. 86 of those countries prohibit or restrict western missionaries. • There are appx 285,000 indigenous missionaries serving in the world, making up 2/3 of the world’s missionary force. • 99% of people in the US, Canada, and UK can read at write by the age

The end of September completed our 2011 Partner Appreciation Banquets season. Four successful banquets were enjoyed by a total of 289 attendees in four of our support regions near central Pennsylvania. Each dinner hosted an evening of fun, food, and fellowship while guests learned more about how lives are being changed through the ongoing international radio ministry of The Tide. Director, Don Shenk, gave a report of the happenings around the world, unveiling an exciting new direction in the Vision 2015. Read entire article here

Do you have a passion for international media-based missions work, a commitment to your local church, and a desire to join a team of people to promote the ministry of The Tide in your community? Then we are looking for you! The Tide is seeking a representative from each local church congregation who would be willing to make a one year commitment to serving the ministry of The Tide by acting as an Ambassador to their congregation and the local community on behalf of the work of the international radio ministry. For more information, visit our website !

The picture at the top is the Bishop of the Mozambique BIC church and the picture on the bottom is all the pastors who where at the Mozambique seminar. We praise God for a safe trip back to the US. We had an absolutely wonderful trip and a great time with our brothers and sisters in Malawi and Mozambique. We had around 47 pastors at the seminar in Milange, Mozambique and all of them really seemed to enjoy their time. The seminar in Mozambique was a little different from the one in Malawi. We had to go through two interpreters, Portuguese and Chichewa. This made it a little interesting for the speakers. It really worked out fine and the speakers got used to waiting till both interpreters were finished. We stayed at a place called Biyostel Lodge. The man who owned the lodge was very kind to us and treated us so well. On the last day we were there he had his family come to the lodge so that we could meed them. I know if we ever go back to Milange

It has been a while since we have had access to the internet, so I have been keeping a journal on the laptop. Here is what I would have been posting to the blog; Let me give a quick update before we leave for our next venue. We had a really great day yesterday. It was our final day of the seminar and everyone really seemed to enjoy all the things that were presented. They gave words of appreciation and told us we needed to come back again. We are leaving now for Maone where Don will be preaching this morning. Maone is the BIC church center for Malawi. From there we will be going to Mangochi and that is where we will spend the next few days. I am not sure if we will have internet access or not, but if we do I will up date you on all the things happening. We arrived at Maone and the children were out having Sunday school class. They were singing when we arrived and I think they were singing the song, We are Marching in the Light of God.” We were then taken into the room wh

Well we finally made it to Blantyre after a long journey. When we arrived at the airport no one was there to pick us up. Don called the person who was to pick us up and they said they were 15 minutes from the airport. They then took us to a fast foods place for supper and the food was very good. After that we were taken to EBCOM, Evangelical Bible College of Malawi. We all had a good nights rest which we all needed. Today has been a full day of seminar sessions. Don, Ken Hepner and Orville Hade have been doing the teaching and the Pastor's have seemed to really enjoy the teaching. We just got back from supper which was, beef, rice, cabbage, nsima, and the intestines. Don really enjoyed having the intestines and Orville at least tried them. The rest of us decided not to give them a try. Tomorrow is another day of seminar sessions and tomorrow evening will be a free evening for the team. I will try and blog again tomorrow.

We were up early Tuesday morning and left at 4:00 AM. On our way to the airport we had a blowout on a back tire of the van. Fortunately Matt Heck was able to get us back on the road and to the airport in time to check in and make our flight. We praise God for watching over us! The time at JFK went fairly quickly and even though our flight took off later than scheduled the flight across to Jo-burg, South Africa went very quickly. South African airlines gave us a meal and hotel vouchers for our overnight stay. It is now 3:20AM. Why am I blogging at this hour of the morning you ask? We were rudely awakened with these words blaring through the intercom repeatedly, “this is not a drill, please evacuate the building immediately.” After 20 minutes in the hotel lobby with a host of other bleary eyed guests they told us it was a false alarm. Again we praise God it was a false alarm and not a real fire.

Well, it's 3:30 AM and we are waiting for the team to arrive. Matt Heck is driving the team to Washington. Thanks Matt for being willing to give of your time and do this wonderful act of service.

Praise the Lord!!! We now have our passports and visas in hand and are ready to leave tomorrow morning at 4:00AM. Don had to make a trip to Washington, DC this morning and is now safely back at the office. Thank you to everyone for your prayers.

Our passports were at the Mozambique embassy and were to be sent to us overnight by UPS and as of now they still have not been sent. Please pray that we get our passports on time and that our trip is not delayed in any way.

The work is done and the notebooks are ready. Now we need to pray for our passports to get back to us in time for our flight on Tuesday. Our passports are at the Mozambique Embassy waiting for the visas. Some how Becky's passport photo's got lost and we had to e-mail new photos to them. Don talked to the Embassy and was told the visas would be issued today. Praise God for that. Right now there is rioting in Malawi so please pray for the safety of all the pastor's traveling to the workshop. Also, please keep the team in your prayers as we travel and arrive in Malawi during this time. Don has all his lessons prepared, but now he needs to fine tune everything. Hopefully he will find time on the plane to get that done. We will try and keep everyone updated as we go. We will probably have at least one more post before leaving on Tuesday morning.

On August 16th a team from The Tide will be traveling to Malawi and Mozambique for a Leader to Leader training. The team will consist of Ken & Raina Hepner, Orville Hade and Don & Becky Shenk. We will try to keep you updated as we go. Please remember us in your prayers as we travel and as we minister among our brothers and sisters in Malawi and Mozambique.