“Dad, I want to build a radio station.”  At first we thought Philip, then age twenty-one, was kidding.  We were sitting on our back porch in our rocking chairs when he approached us.  One look told us he was not kidding.

“Son, do you realize what kind of money you are talking about?”  Bob finally asked.  “You’re talking about thousands and thousand of dollars.”  We had no response to Philip’s next words, “But, Dad, you have always lived and done everything by faith.”  What could Bob say to that?  His son had seen that in his dad’s life; now he was convinced that the Lord wanted him to build a radio station.

We had always believed in the power of radio.  One of our first ministries in Nicaragua was a daily thirty-minute program on a secular station.  That’s how the man in Light of the Jungle church heard the Gospel and was saved, which had convinced us even more that the Gospel could reach areas that the missionary would never be able to reach.  In Honduras, we had two thirty-minute programs on a secular station, but now our son was talking about the mission having its own radio station.  Impossible, we thought.

A few months later, sitting on the same back porch, we watched as donkeys carried equipment for the tower up the trail to the top of the mountain!  I think a book could be written just about the radio ministry; how God touched a colonel’s heart at the last hour to sign a permit for a frequency; how God touched the heart of a doctor, who wasn’t even saved at the time, to give Philip the top of his mountain on which to put the first tower; and how Philip was able to raise the money for the first FM station in the town of San Marcos de Colón.

Imagine how we felt at 6:00 a.m., September 28, 1991 upon hearing Philip’s voice as he read God’s Word on the Good Samaritan radio station!

As soon as this station was completed, work began on an FM repeater tower, this time on one of the highest mountains in Southern Honduras, called Bañaderos, near the town of Pespire.  With this 240-foot tower, the Gospel could be heard not only in Honduras but also in neighboring El Salvador––91.9 FM.

Realizing that many of the country people did not have FM radios, the third repeater tower, 1230 AM, was put up in the Choluteca Valley area.  It was while this tower was being built that Philip began to have headaches so severe that sometimes he passed out from the pain.

1995: Philip had been given an FM frequency in the state of El Paraiso, which has a population of 800,000.  The tower was being put up in the city of Danlí, the capital of El Paraiso.  After issuing the permit, the government had given 120 days to start construction: if not started, the frequency would be lost.  Philip had waited on this permit for fifteen months.

In the middle of the construction, March 1, 1995, Philip suffered the first series of mini-strokes.  He was hospitalized in the capital city where tests showed that he had had a total of five strokes in his brain.  Three were very small transient strokes, but two, a little bigger, had temporarily paralyzed the left side of his body.  He was sent from Honduras to Emory Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.  For six days some of the best doctors in the world studied and treated him.  All were fascinated when they heard of his missionary work and how, at the age of twenty-five, he was building his fourth radio station.

The doctors at Emory confirmed what the doctor in Honduras had told us––this was a very rare type of migraine, and the excruciating pain was causing the strokes.  Philip was told that it was very dangerous for him to be under stress, but from the hospital bed he planned to build more stations.

November 1995: The Danlí station was now on the air.

A donation was received to build a radio station in Nicaragua.  Land had to be bought for the tower, but the studios were housed in the same old building where Philip and Stevie grew up––our mission center that years before had been taken over by the communists.

The devil waged an all-out attack against the building of this station.  All types of vandalism occurred, threats were made to burn down the studio, and on and on.  On the night before the day the inspectors were to come, the electrical poles near the tower were sawed in two.  Philip, the engineer and the faithful preachers in Nicaragua worked all night.  At dawn the mayor loaned them a truck to go to the capital to buy more poles.  A few months later, the battle was won, and the fifth radio station of Good Samaritan Baptist Missions was on the air–– 1350 AM.

Five years––five powerful stations beaming out the Gospel eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. It sounds like it was easy, just one station after another––no problem.  Oh, yes, there were many problems, and I suffered every time my son suffered.  But his faith and determination throughout this time were such an inspiration to me.

The headaches really never left him; so on Wednesday, December 3, 1997, Philip walked into our house and said, “Dad, I can’t go any further.  My head feels like ten pounds are sitting on every strand of hair.  I want you to keep the radio stations going for the Lord.

Philip’s ministry in the radio ended, but his fruit remains.  All one has to do is drive throughout Honduras and northern Nicaragua and see all the towers standing tall and beaming out the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

From the beginning we knew that if these radio stations were to continue, it would be a miracle.  We had no experience running radio stations; but come to think of it, we never had experience in any of the areas God put us in!  We just offered ourselves to Him, and he did the rest.

God burdened the heart of our youngest son, Steve, to head up Samaritan Radio.

A permit for a station. 1090 AM, in Tegucigalpa had been purchased by Philip in 1999.  He only had a small transmitter and was operating this from his home.  When Stevie took over the management of Samaritan Radio, his desire was to move the studios to the capital city of Tegucigalpa.  I doubted this would ever be done because of the great expense in moving this station.  I thank the Lord for the faith of my sons, which they had always seen in their dad.  It took one year for this to be completed, and in 1991 Samaritan Radio went on the air with a 10,000-watt station broadcasting from the capital city.   Four acres of land had been bought on a mountain called Canto Gallo with two antennas  installed—a 220 ft. and 120 ft., enabling over two million people in the central parts of Honduras and Costa Rica to hear the Gospel.

In 2003, after renting for one year, the Lord allowed the mission to buy a house in Tegucigalpa and completely remodel it to house the main operations of Samaritan Radio, including recording and production studios.

In 2004, the seventh station, 1340 AM, was built in the city of Comayagua, which was the first capital of Honduras. A 200 ft. tower gives this station a potential listening audience of approximately one half million people.

In 2005 an eighth station was built on the northern coast of Honduras in the city of La Ceiba, Honduras, a population of approximately one half million enabling this station to reach the country of Belize.

On August 10, 2006, a 103.5 FM station went on the air on August 10, 2006 in Tela, Honduras.  This covers an area of about 300,000 people and completes all of the basic territory of the northern coast of Honduras and different parts of Belize.

Under Stevie´s direction, not only have new stations been built, but in every station the transmitter power has been raised and more powerful solid state transmitters bought.  At the present time, a 12,000 watt Nautel solid state transmitter is being installed in the capital city.

Over the years, a harvest of souls have been reaped through the Samaritan Radio Network.  It is amazing the number of telephone calls received daily, in addition to letters.  Souls have been saved in the U.S. and others countries through internet. Just in the last three years, over 25,000 have called or written that they have received the Lord.

Samaritan Radio Network has come a long way since the day Bob and I watched the little donkeys taking the equipment up the mountain in San Marcos de Colon, Honduras.  But this shows what our God can do.  There is nothing impossible for Him.

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