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St Francis Magazine Vol 9, No 4 | August 2013 RADIO MINISTRY OF ARAB WORLD MINISTRIES (AWM) Rev Dr Jos M. Strengholt 1 Arab World Ministries (AWM), now amalgamated with Pioneers, was an important Christian radio producer with a long history of mission work in the Arab world. AWM worked in North Africa from the 19 th century, but it was forced to leave during the 1960s. It found itself a radio production base in Marseille, France. AWM’s choice to use Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the preferred language and the reasons therefore are discussed in detail in this article. For AWM, radio was mainly a means to enlist people for its Bible Correspondence Courses (BCC’s). This article therefore describes the systems of enrolling people into those BBC’s and the numbers of North Africans who have been following them. This article addresses the increase and decrease of the audience response figures for the radio broadcasts. This was related to how the North African authorities tried to stop the relationship between AWM and its audience in North Africa. Until 1987, AWM was called North Africa Mission (NAM). Therefore, until the moment the name was actually changed, NAM is used as the name for the organization. Its media ministry, based in Marseille since 1964, was called Radio School of the Bible (RSB) until 1987. Then the name of that ministry was changed to Arab World Media, so also AWM. In order not to create confusion, the name AWM is used, after1987, for the mission organization only. For the media department in Marseille, this article uses the name RSB, even after its name had actually been changed. This article does not describe the present situation of AWM – Pioneers and its media ministries, but it aims to contribute to the memory and general knowledge of mission in North Africa. 1. History 1.1 Arab World Ministry’s Organizational Development The origins of Arab World Ministries (AWM) lie in the 1870s when George Pearse (1814-1902), a successful stockbroker from the United Kingdom, went to Algiers. Though Pearce and his wife Jane Bonnycastle were originally interested in reaching French soldiers with the Gospel, Jane was struck by the plight of the Kabyle Imazighen of Algeria. In 1881, with a team of other missionaries, the Pearses started the first mission station near the village of Djemaa Sahridj in Algeria. The work was called the Mission to the Kabyles. 2 In 1883 George Pearce, aged 69, handed the organization over to a council in Barking in the United Kingdom, while he and his wife moved to Algiers to continue their work with the Kabyles. The name of the organization was changed to Mission to the Kabyles and Other Races. In 1888 the name became North Africa Mission (NAM). 3 NAM grew fast and had multiple posts in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Egypt within ten years. In 1884, for instance, the organization started a medical work in Tangier, and shortly thereafter the organization opened the first ever hospital in Morocco in the same city. The smaller Southern Morocco Mission decided to join NAM in 1961. The Algiers Mission Band, begun in 1888 by Isabella Trotter, grew to thirty workers, mostly single women, and merged in 1964 with NAM. 4 In 1987 NAM changed its name into Arab World Ministries (AWM) as recognition of the fact that it did not only have missionaries in North Africa, but also in other parts of the Arab world. 1 Jos is an Anglican priest in Egypt. This article is adapted from chapter 15 of his doctoral thesis entitled Gospel in the Air: 50 Years of Christian Witness Through Radio in the Arab World (Utrecht University, 2008). gospelintheair.blogspot.com.au ; www.strengholt.info/images/stories/Table_of_Contents.pdf 2 Francis R. Steele, Not in Vain; The Story of North Africa Mission (Pasadena, 1981), pp. 15-22. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., pp. 59-60, 135. St Francis Magazine is published by Arab Vision and Interserve 1
St Francis Magazine Vol 9, No 4 | August 2013 1.2 Radio Productions since 1955 1.2.1 The Pioneering Stage: 1955-1960 In 1955 NAM set its first steps towards radio production for North Africa. When NAM held its annual Field Administration meeting in June 1955 in its headquarters in Tangier, Field Director Harold W. Stalley minuted that ‘the situation of the Tangier [radio] station was reviewed. It was evident that even an experimental broadcast could not begin before January 1956, when the station would be in a position to cover the North Africa territories’. This radio station was Voice of Tangier, which had just begun its broadcasts to Europe. During the meetings the need for ‘recording machines’ was discussed. Though these were in the first place needed for language studies of NAM missionaries, it was recognized that they could also be used ‘for the eventual preparation of radio programs’. 5 In October 1955 Field Administration discussed again the possibility of involvement with radio broadcasting: The extension to [the station in Tangier] is expected to become effective before Christmas, and a close personal link is being kept with the Rev. Ralph Freed on developments. If we are to take advantage of the great opening offered us, we shall need to set apart someone as a programme director. Tom Wilson reports a personal contact with ELWA who have offered to broadcast tapes in Arabic beaming them to [North] Africa. 6 By August 1956, NAM had been offered French evangelistic radio programs by the Belgian Gospel Mission. NAM could add its own credits and announcements to the tapes. This offer was accepted ‘as an aid to beginning our own program of radio evangelism to [North] Africa, from WTAN, Tangier’, that is, Voice of Tangier. 7 At the same time, NAM was thinking of producing its own 15-minute program in French, supplemented by a French Bible Correspondence Course (BCC). The number of North Africans able to read and write in French was much larger than those who mastered Arabic in those pre-independence days. Stalley reported about these developments to the Home Councils of NAM: The [Field Administration] proposes a weekly 15-minute program over WTAN for a trial period of 6 months. The total cost, apart from the cost of tapes, will be just over $300. We have nearly $100 toward this, and need $200 more. […] We propose to get two months supply of programs from [Belgian Gospel Mission], and meanwhile [we] will complete the preparation for the remaining four months. We hope to start broadcasting in October [1956]. WTAN should have completed their technical tests for the area we want to cover, by then. 8 The enthusiasm of the NAM missionaries in the field was not shared by the Home Councils in the USA, Canada and England. Stalley’s wife Jessie wrote later that ‘no steps were taken, as the time was not considered right for the new venture’. 9 This was probably a financial matter, not a matter of strategy, as the next Field Administration meeting again discussed broadcasting to North Africa. In March 1957 it ‘reconsidered’ the ideas and minuted, rather vaguely, that ‘certain new arrangements [were] agreed for a further experimental period, this to be evaluated in June’. 10 In August 1958, Field Administration meetings discussed to ‘keep provision of programs […] under review’. NAM realized that someone should be set apart on a full time basis if advance in radio evangelism was to be made, but there was no one available yet for this ministry. 11 5 Harold W. Stalley, ‘Memorandum to Home Councils from Field Director, Report of Field Administration Meeting, Tangier (15-17 June 1955)’, p. 3, from the NAM/AWM files in Worthing (England). Those files were kept in some boxes without being ordered. 6 Harold W. Stalley, ‘Memorandum to Home Councils from Field Director, Report of Field Administration Meeting, Tangier (20-22 October 1955)’, from the NAM/AWM files in Worthing. 7 WTAN were the call letters assigned to the station by the authorities in Tangier. The ‘W’ has no meaning, while ‘TAN’ stands for Tangier. 8 Harold W. Stalley, ‘Memorandum to Home Councils from Field Director, Report of Field Administration Meeting, Tangier (30 July-2 August 1956)’, p. 5, from the NAM/AWM files in Worthing. 9 Jessie C. Stalley, No Frontiers: The Story of the Radio School of the Bible (Highgate, 1969), p. 46. 10 Harold W. Stalley, ‘Memorandum to Home Councils from Field Director, Report of Field Administration Meeting, Tangier (4-5 March 1957)’, p. 3, from the NAM/AWM files in Worthing. 11 Harold W. Stalley, ‘Memorandum to Home Councils, Report of Field Administration (29July-2 August 1958)’, p. 3, from the NAM/AWM files in Worthing. St Francis Magazine is published by Arab Vision and Interserve 2
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