"Tell your presenters not to talk during the songs because we want to hear every word of the music you play because your songs have meaning and we hate missing anything!" so says a tailor from northern Mozambique, who is a listener to Radio Nuru.

Wow, the local Muslim listeners even love hearing the presenters from their own community playing Swahili songs about Jesus! Mark Taylor, Feba’s International Ministry Director shares: “FM Radio Nuru is a dream come true, to reach the Muslim-majority Mwane people by radio.”

Policeman turned pastor and radio mission
Let’s go back to 1998 when Mark says he first heard of this people group.

“I was the new senior pastor at Northside Community Church in Harare, [Zimbabwe] and we were expecting some AIM [Africa Inland Mission] missionaries from Mozambique to come and tell us about their work in a remote part of northern Mozambique. Dudley and Janice Pate arrived, and knew many of our congregation.

"Thinking I did not know them, I introduced myself. Dudley told me we had met before and that the last time had been in 1977 when I was a policeman and had stopped him for speeding! Life had changed for both of us, and soon I was listening to amazing stories about AIM missionaries living on the northern Mozambique beach amongst the Mwane people. As a church, we supported this work in a modest way, and provided them with a satellite phone – then a huge help in keeping them in touch with the outside world.

"In 2007, I made my first ever visit to northern Mozambique, and visited other missionaries now working amongst the Mwane. There are about 150,000 Mwane, and almost all of them are Muslim. A relationship between Feba and AIM missionaries Paul and Karen Zimmerman started because we had heard of their dream to reach the Mwane using radio. Long story short, the radio station was planned, constructed, and went on the air in August 2009."

The dream goes on air
"Just before Christmas, I stood in the simple Radio Nuru studio with waves of emotion – laughing, crying, high-fiving – so blessed to hear some of the few kiMwane-speaking believers live on air – so thrilled to have the much older connection to the Mwane via a church I once pastored – so delighted at what partnership has achieved.

"Radio gives life, rings in real change, and gives hope to the Mwane – and Radio Nuru is but a single example of many other good things God is doing in Africa, the Middle East and Asia through what each one of us do in Feba. To God be the glory.”

More from the listeners:
"No longer are we tuning in to the national radio channel. We prefer Radio Nuru and it is OUR radio."

"Sometimes I can't sleep at night because I think about your programmes on the Holy Scriptures."

"I won't even go to eat my dinner if it means I have to miss the Scripture study...if people are noisy or I have to walk away, I would prefer to stay by my radio and listen to the programme."

Find out more about Feba's Community FM Radio projects. Not all our community stations involve overt Scripture studies or Christian songs. It depends on the community's needs and the freedom that exists in their area. But all are opportunities, in different ways, for us to serve and give life-changing hope to communities of hard-to-reach people.

Read more:
Frequency given to Radio Nuru in Macomia, May 2009
Radio Nuru, August 2009