With Fifty Natives Listening

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 50, 27 June 1930, Page 2

With Fifty Natives Listening

hurch Service from 2YA Reaches Gilbert Islands

Ww -who listen, as it were, under the shadow of our stations, seldom realise jus¢ how far the transmissions we regard as commonplace reach. Only this week we have received from a correspondent a copy of a letter received from a member of the London Missionary Society stationed at Beru, in the Gilbert Island group. ‘The letter tells of the conditions the listeners have to.contend with, and of the joy our New Zealand stations bring to them :- [= is Sunday evening, and we have been listening-in with my new wireless receiver, Which I built a few months ago to the’ design worked out for me by an expert whom I came to know while on short furlough in Australia. Static is always bad on the Bquator, and for some months past it has been so prevalent that it has not been possible to vise our wireless for

ordinary listening-in, though we have used it for business communications every week in the daytime, when the -atmospherie conditions are better. I tried it the other night, and found conditions were improving; we decided to try to listen-in to a chureh service. To our delight we heard a service which, came through very well, And where from? From the Terrace Congregational Church, Wellington. The preacher was the Rev. W. .W. Newell, M.A., and his text was "A bruised reed He will not break," etc. We were not alone in our pleasure, for we had with us some

46 or 50 Gilbertese friends, inckuding some of. our teachers, a few senior students, the deacons of one of our Beru churches, the Magistrate of the island of Beru, and some of the island Church council. A few had their wives with them. We translated the various announcements to our Gilbertese Christians, and they were greatly interested and impressed. I think it is a real help to then: to hear their fellow-Christians in a land far away across the seas, joining in worship of the one God and Father of us all. Some of the hymns sung were known to them, aS we have them translated into Gilbertese. They especially enjoyed "O God our help in ages past." ‘ Our little congregation has now dispersed, with minds not only full of wonder at the marvels of wireless, but with many stimulating thoughts in

their hearts, which will, we feel sure, be a help to them in their Christian life and fellowship. I thought it might be of interest to you, to know that among your fellow-worshippers was this little company of Gilbertese Christians and their missionaries on an island some 2600 miles away in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. Please give 2YA our. grateful thanks and our congratulations both on their transmissions and-on the general excellence. of their programmes. ‘ ‘ We can hear American and Japanese stations, also Sydney, Brisbane, Mel-

ne pourne, ete, but 2YA' comes in best of all. There:is some fading at times, but the transmission ‘is often so good we hear the toots of the motor-cars pass~ing the street below the studio. I think it will be of interest to Welling-. ton friends to know that we-in the Gilberts are making a- big effort to do what we can to raise a local fund toward the’ cost of the new ship John Williams. Our people are very poor, and: have nothing to give but their "copra" (dried. coconut) or money obtained from the sale of same, On our head station and on this island of Beru our teachers and students, boys and girls, together with ourselves,’ .j have succeeded in raising: over "£70. Our people in the islands are making sopra which we hope to send to Sydney by the old'ship on her last voyage in June or July. We hope sincerely ‘to raise 2 total: of not less than #£500.,-G.H.H. (Beru Island).