New Tharu Language Broadcast



In 2004 The Tide© expanded its boundaries into Nepal with the start of the “Prasasta Jiwan,” The Tide’s Nepali language broadcast.  In response to the success of the Nepali broadcast and the great need among the people in Nepal, The Tide has decided to launch a new language broadcast in Nepal! Beginning in June 2013, a Tharu language broadcast will begin airing for 15 minutes once a week. Currently there are no other major Christian broadcasting ministries producing a program to target the Tharu people, so this is a much-needed addition.

The Tharu are a gentle and quiet people who have traditionally lived as forest dwellers in the Tarai, a narrow strip of land extending the southern boarder of Nepal and South-East India. They make almost everything they use themselves with a touch of art in it all. Even the walls of their houses are decorated with a relief plaster created from mud and cow dung. 

Traditionally of an animist religious belief, they have been heavily influenced by Hinduism. Recent studies project that Tharu speakers are 98% Hindu with a small 1% Buddhist and less than 0.5% professing Christians. For a glimpse of the sweet spirit in the Tharu people, watch this video of aChristian song being sung in the Tharu language.

You will notice in many of the testimonies shared fromNepali listeners, a request for the program to be lengthened. To pursue a longer program for the Nepali and Tharu broadcasts, The Tide is in need of additional support. It is your sponsorship that keeps these programs on air and reaching into the lives of people in Nepal. Would you consider sponsoring a broadcast in the Nepali or Tharu languages?

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