Dear Friend,
I spent part of a day in July with a married couple who produce and follow up FEBC-supported programming for people in Yemen.
For security reasons, I can’t share their names, location or photographs. But they generously shared something of their own journey with me.
The woman told me she had been asking difficult questions about faith from an early age. Those questions continued when she entered the workforce and found herself working alongside Christians.
One of those colleagues was the man who would later become her husband.
He had grown up Christian, but her questions prompted him to look more deeply at what he believed. Together they found a church where she could continue searching.
She slipped away from work one morning to attend a service and told me that she wept for hours. She knew there was no turning back.
What followed was extremely difficult. Their lives were threatened, the church helped them marry and leave Egypt, and they sought asylum in another country. Years of uncertainty followed, including separation from family, imprisonment and violence.
They now look back and see how God met them through circumstances they could never have imagined.
That journey shapes the ministry they share with people in Yemen today.
This faithful woman told me that because she had tried for years to help her own family understand her faith, “when I work with people in Yemen, I feel that they are all like my family”.
Her husband produces the daily radio programming, while she focuses particularly on listener follow-up.
An hour of programming in Yemeni Arabic goes out each day by shortwave and online, with a longer live program on Thursdays. The team has also increased the amount of content spoken in Yemeni dialect so it feels local to the people listening.
Shortwave remains vital where internet access is weak and mobile data expensive. Facebook opens another doorway, allowing chat conversations that can move to private messaging apps to increase confidentiality, and may continue for years.
The couple told me about one Yemeni woman whose first conversation with them began in 2014. She did not tell them she knew Jesus as her Saviour and God until 2019.
Five years.
That gives you some sense of the patience this ministry requires.
The couple I met know what it is to search for answers over time. Now they generously give that same time to others.
Your prayers and faithful support help make this patient, deeply relational ministry possible. Thank you for standing with people in Yemen who are listening, asking questions and discovering they are not alone.
Until all have heard,
Janet Cousens
CEO, FEBC Australia