A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

or many years. Two Mennonite Brethren laymen in California have owned and operated their own private radio stations for years, broadcasting only good musical and religious programs. Egon Hofer established the KRDU radio station at Dinuba, and E. J. Peters founded his own station at Wasco. The conference schools, Tabor College and Pacific Bible Institute, have also sponsored broadcasts. Conference Radio Programs In both Canada and the United States the desire for a united voice and a concentrated and coordinated thrust in gospel broadcasting came to fruition in the late sixties. In Canada the Gospel Light Hour has come to be recognized in several provinces as the voice of the Mennonite Brethren Church. It came into being in 1946 as a venture of faith on the part of three students — Henry Brucks, Henry Poetker, and Bert Loewen — all of the Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg. In 1954 the Gospel Light Hour affiliated with the Manitoba Mennonite Brethren Conference which began to subsidize the work. 38 In 1966 the Gospel Light Hour was broadcast over nine stations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. At the Canadian Conference that year the Committee on Evangelism presented the following recommendation: That we provide a Canada-wide radio program by integrating the English Gospel Light Hour on the basis suggested by the Manitoba Conference. . . . That the program be called the Canadian Gospel Light Hour and be identified with the respective province where aired At the 1967 convention in Coaldale, Alberta, the chairman of the Committee on Evangelism was able to report that the provincial conferences of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario had decided to air the Gospel Light Hour in their constituencies, and to assume financial responsibility. In 1969 the program was also released over a station in Nova Scotia. It should be noted that the German program Licht des Evangeliums, its Low German counterpart, and the Russian Gospel Light Hour were not affected by the above recommendation. The Russian program on which D. B. Wiens, Vancouver, is the speaker has been beamed to the Soviet Union for a number of years now. Sub- sidized by the Board of Missions, this program penetrates Russia from the Philippines and Korea on the east and from Ecuador, the Dutch Antilles, and Monaco on the west. 40 It may indeed be the most significant witness of the Mennonite Brethren in the present day. 322 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH In the United States the Words of the Gospel program, sponsored for a number of years by the Pacific District Conference, was eventually accepted as the radio-voice of the brotherhood. At the 1968 conference the Coordinating Board presented the following recommendation which was accepted by the delegates: Because of our commission to use every means available to effectively present the Gospel; because of the overwhelming need to meaningfull