Imagine living in a landlocked country where battling monsoons and crippling poverty, surviving on subsistence rice farming, and dealing with a serious lack of basic infrastructure is your daily reality.

The country is Laos, where communism rules and a mere 1 to 2 percent of the population is Christian. Of that percentage, only 677 people are Seventh-day Adventists. And Laos’ primitive telecommunication system makes it virtually impossible for them to connect to the global church.

“Most [citizens of Laos] have never heard about the gospel or have even laid eyes on a Bible,” says Benjamin Schoun, president of Adventist World Radio (AWR), the mission radio arm of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

All that is about to change with the establishment of a new AWR studio located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which will broadcast programs in Thai, Hmong, and Lao. These programs will reach people living in Thailand, Laos, Southern China, and other areas along the Northern outskirts of most Southeast Asian countries for the very first time.

The new Thai studio is one of several projects AWR leaders from around the world approved during recent autumn planning meetings at the Adventist world church headquarters.

While there have been a few small, localized attempts by Adventist missionaries to broadcast in the Thai language, this studio will be the first sustained, concentrated effort by AWR in the area, where Schoun says it will “fill a significant gap in AWR coverage in Southeast Asia” and will have “a major, widespread impact.”

When asked whether the recent military coup in Thailand will impact the project, Schoun says he anticipates a peaceful resolution and adds, “we do not expect [the current unrest] to affect a non-political production studio built on the grounds of the Adventist church in Chiang Mai.”

Akinori Kaibe, AWR regional director for the Adventist church’s Asia-Pacific region, expects construction of the studio in Thailand to begin this year. Radio producer training and initial broadcasts—focusing on basic Christianity and the rudiments of healthy living—are scheduled for 2007.

Schoun visited Laos last year and reflects, “people [there] are searching, asking, and are very interested to hear broadcasts. There is great potential in Laos and we have reason to believe if these people have an opportunity to hear the message of Jesus, they will respond positively.”

In addition to approving new programming for the church’s Asia-Pacific region, AWR planners also voted to establish a new AWR FM station at the South Malawi Field office in Blantyre, Malawi. Programs there will be produced in both English and the widely spoken Chichewa, another new language for AWR.

Samuel Misiani, AWR regional director for Africa, reports that governmental licensing and broadcast frequencies have already been obtained for the station. “With sufficient funding, we will begin broadcasting within the next four months,” he says.

Groundwork is also in place for another new FM station in Kitui, Kenya, where local personnel say programs in English, Kikamba, and Kiswahili will be on air by mid December, 2006, reaching an estimated half a million listeners.

Both of these stations are part of a new initiative to establish an AWR presence in every major African city. With its goal of establishing at least 10 stations within the next five years, Schoun says the projects “will contribute to the [world church headquarters’] goal of reaching the big cities.”