As the calendar changed from spring to summer on June 21, I received a letter from a man, a surgeon, who told me that it was forty-two degrees in this hometown of Zhengzhou, China.  Whether forty-two is chilly or hot depends on whether one is using Fahrenheit or Celsius.  The good doctor was using Celsius, which means that the temperature in Zhengzhou was about 108 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale!  Welcome to summer, folks!

Whatever the temperature, the sun has not yet gone down in China when we begin our daily broadcasts.  We’re on the air for ten hours in Chinese, with the first transmission at 4:00 p.m., China time.  This single hour of uplifting messages is repeated every hour until sign-off at 1:59 a.m. the next morning.  During the nine p.m. broadcast slot, however, both Alaskan transmitters air the Chinese program, so we are heard in two parts of the country on two different azimuths between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.  China is eight hours ahead of UTC/GMT (Universal Time Coordinated / Greenwich Mean Time), so our Chinese language broadcasts begin at 0800 UTC.  This in turn corresponds to 11:00 p.m. in Anchor Point, Alaska, where our transmitter is located, and 2:00 a.m. at our production studios in Franklin, Tennessee.  Now you understand part of the reason we prepare our broadcasts ahead of time, instead of doing live programming.

Not only do we broadcast over shortwave, but our Chinese programs are also available on-line:  www.smzg.org.  People practically anywhere in the world can listen to us if they have an Internet connection.  Indeed, according to our Internet provider, in June we not only had website visitors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, but also from Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, Hungry, Brunei Darussalam, Argentina, the Czech Republic and Israel, as well as a number of other countries!

Current programming:  Ed Ho is writing a series of radio scripts based on the gospel of Luke.  So far, these have included topics such as Confession and Repentance, How to Face Untruthful Accusations, What is the Kingdom of Heaven?, as well as a number of other timely scripts.  We believe these lessons are both helpful to and appreciated by our audience.  Additionally, they can be accessed around the world via the Internet on our Chinese website.

I recently began a series of lessons on the family in which I encourage people who face marital problems to work through their problems rather than file for divorce.  This series is based on the reasons that Chinese give for divorce—poor communication, personality differences, abuse, in-law problems, infidelity, childlessness, etc.

We encourage you to visit our Chinese website!  Go to www.smzg.org