Christian Radio & Video: Studio Elpizo - Be107FM

SINGAPORE. Our Christian Broadcasting Tour added a couple more visitors yesterday, and included a small core of those who made it to all three media ministry venues. Our last stop this week was for a visit with a dynamic, passionate and obviously multi-talented Faith Toh in the 3rd floor studio belonging to the Seventh-day Adventist Mission of Singapore on Upper Thompson Road between Caldecott Hill and Mt Alvernia Hospital. She packed a whole lot of information and inspiration into our short time together.

Incorporated in 1997, the mission of Studio Elpizo is: Enhancing your ministry through media content & services. They see their role through radio to broadcast a message of hope, healing, love and mercy. Their target audience is those who are "open minded to the Word of God" and makes their availability for prayer and counseling clear through their broadcasting and websit. The studio has a prayer-team network where they can forward calls and requests to the care of ministries serving and praying for specific groups (ie. children at risk, or counseling care for women's issues etc.)

The station incorporates media content from such groups as Focus on the Family, the Media team from Trinity Christian Centre, Loma Linda University, a Mandarin speaking pastor's wife (Jurong Chinese Seventh-day Adventist Church), as well as producing their own content and is looking for more partners. Studio Elpizo is programming for not only English, but Mandarin, Tamil and Tagalog as well!

With a transmission tower located on Indonesia's nearby Batam Island, they are able to broadcast on Batam, in Singapore and parts of JB. Broadcasting remotely via a tower in Batam has certainly gotten easier since the days when DAT tapes and equipment were carried by Sampan from the port at Batam to the little island Belakang Padang where the original transmission tower was; complete with it's own power generator! If something broke down at the site, it could take up to a month to complete repairs and get on the air again! In recent years the base has been on the main island where there is internet and stable electricity. But they still needed to hand carry programming via pre-recorded CDs to Batam. As we met with them this week we saw that they are on the verge of a huge change in the transmission their programs from Singapore via a WinMedia system. Not quite up and running, and with short term technicians Steve and Vlad still checking for "robustness" this will streamline the process, freeing the small two person staff to growing and developing new programs and projects.

Current Programs are as follows:

The aim of Studio Elpizo is to "echo hope to the community through 'beautiful music and inspiring messages.' We perceived a need for radio programs that offered hope in a world affected by broken relationships, loneliness and other social problems. The aim was to provide a positive alternative to the programs prevalent in today’s broadcast industry."

Sarah, and NTU Broadcast Media major nearly jumped up and down when Faith took us from the recording studios into their newest room and revealed that they have added a video production studio. "Over the years, we’ve evolved into media center, broadening our purpose to include producing Christ-centered materials for video broadcast and providing professional standard production services to suit your ministry’s budget." (website content). Faith told us they are currently organizing a short video production course where it will be a pay as you can, but ask those who attend to offer their new skills back to the studio of at least 10 volunteer hours. One of the many projects they've got going are with pastors who have their teaching in various languages made into dvds which are then sent in to other countries for Bible, Theology and other types of training.

Here's what the others had to say:

Ray Arsenault
107FM is a pioneering radio station delivering Christian music and talk formats to the people of 3 nations, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.  The idea for the station originated from Singapore.  Even though the Singaporean government has said "no" to any form of religious programming, with a little bit of ingenuity and direction from God, the Word can become flesh no matter how difficult the circumstances may be.  The physical radio station is situated in Batam, Indonesia and the office is located in Singapore.  The message is beamed from Batam towards Singapore and the signal makes it's way to parts of Batam Island and Johor Bahru in Malaysia.  I think that 107FM has already come a long way in the past 11 years, but I feel that there are many, many more chapters to be written in the future.


Adel
Really see how the different medias are used together to benefit the community. I am also very impressed byt the external partners and collaborative synergy with the local churches' outreach programs.... I want to thank Kimberly to organise these ministry visits and I especially like the way she closes the visits with a prayer for the people. I find that brings great comfort and encouragement to the ministry team in the various offices, it makes our visits all the more meaningful. I'd be looking forward to the future visits and events and courses and getting to know the people better.