Previous | Next 

Winnipeg, Man.
Family Life Network conducts ministry tour in Germany, France


Jacob Funk, German radio producer at Family Life Network in Winnipeg, together with the Gospel Light Singers presented programs in 23 churches in Germany and in two churches in France June 15–July 9.

The tour was planned in response to invitations that came as a result of two tours that the Gospel Light Singers had previously made to Germany. The German newspaper Westphalische Presse carried a report remarking on the rich sound of the singers and on the high attendance at their programs.

German church leaders expressed fear of losing their young people to Germany’s highly secular society, reported Jacob Funk. Here Alfred and Anne Dyck of the Gospel Light Singers sell Christian music to youth in the Neuwied Gladbach Church.

“One of the purposes of the trip was to explore how FLN can best serve the German people,” said Delbert Enns, executive director of FLN.

Funk reported, “The media in Germany is strongly secular, and it’s very difficult to place an evangelical program on the radio. We met Rudiger Klaue, former director of the German department at HCJB radio, and he encouraged us to look into broadcasting into Germany via satellite, which is quite inexpensive.”

Peter Wiens, editor of the Low German magazine Plautdietsch Frind in the city of Orlinghausen, told the ministry team that there are about 100,000 Low German-speaking people in Germany who are not Christians. Another contact encouraged FLN to broadcast its Arabic programs into Germany, where there are millions of Arabic-speaking people.

During the trip, the ministry team sold about 2400 copies of three FLN-produced German albums entitled Jacob’s Lieblingslieder, a collection of favourite songs sung throughout the history of FLN, and two recordings by the Gospel Light Singers, Wir Preisen Deinen Namen and Bie die, Jesus, well, ekj bliewe.

 – Dorothy Siebert, Family Life Network

Previous | Next 

Last modified October 10, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.