Caring across the airwaves

Letting someone know they are not alone can make a big difference in people’s lives, especially when they are facing pain or trauma.

John wasn’t well so he decided to see his doctor. The doctor ran some tests and the results revealed that John had cancer.

On hearing the news, not surprisingly John’s heart sank. He put his head in his hands and cried. The doctor went through the next steps with him but all he could hear was the word ‘cancer’.

Driving home from the appointment, John didn’t know what to do. How was he going to face cancer? Was he going to survive?

The news was on the radio in his car and there wasn’t any good news in that either. But then he heard a one-minute Messages of Hope broadcast. John was hooked into the message. He heard that he was not alone, that God loved him and that Jesus would always be with him. He pulled over to the side of the road and rang the phone number given out from Messages of Hope.

We answered John’s call and listened to him as he poured his heart out about how he had just been diagnosed with cancer. He asked, ‘Who is this Jesus and how do I find out more about him?’.

We sent him the book of John from the Bible and a booklet on cancer. We also let him know where his nearest Lutheran church was and how to contact the congregation so that he could receive more support. John called us a week later and asked for the whole Bible.

Through devastating circumstances and a message of hope on the radio, God gave John hope in Jesus Christ.

Messages of Hope goes out on more than 800 radio stations across Australian and New Zealand to give people like John hope in Jesus Christ.

Popular radio stations play the messages as free community service announcements, as they understand how these messages of hope can make a positive difference to the lives of their listeners. Through media, we can care for people in our community.

You can hear and watch these at messagesofhope.org.au and messagesofhope.org.nz

The 90-second radio messages are made into videos and you can watch and share them from YouTube.com/messagesofhope. These and many more messages of hope are shared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can use these to care for people in your community.

Pastor Richard Fox is Director of Lutheran Media.