The Radio


I've been doing a weekly radio program at the Christian radio station in Ankara. The program is called "Yol Ayrimi" (Crossroads) and every week I address a different topic related to the basics of Christianity. It's a 15-20 minute program in Turkish that airs on Wednesdays at 11:00 and 18:00. Today I'm recording the 8th program in the series.

I write the text of the program a few days before the recording and send it to the station manager, who is also an elder at our church here. He edits my Turkish and makes whatever recommendations he has and sends it back to me. On Tuesday or Wednesday mornings I go to the station to record.

The station is on the sixth floor of a busy neighborhood in downtown Ankara. Outside the building there is a man selling lottery tickets at a small table. He's actually an undercover police officer. It's not very secret, of course, since everyone knows. In fact, the first time I saw him I guessed that he was there for more than lottery tickets. He's there both for our protection and to gather information.

In the station there's two big red "Panic Buttons," in case there is some kind of emergency or an attack. I'm sometimes tempted to push it just to see what happens.

When we go into the recording studio there are two people waiting on the other side of the glass. One of them is the guy who does the technical recording stuff on the computer. The other is the girl who goes listens to my Turkish and stops me whenever I make a mistake. This happens a lot. She'll stop me because she doesn't like the way I have pronounced a word or because the stress in a sentence wasn't natural. Today, for example I was half way through the program when she stopped me to say that I should start over... from the beginning. I'm grateful for them, but I was glad when I was done recording today!

We pooled money today at the station for lunch. They went to the grocery store, bought some pasta and ingredients for sauce, and cooked lunch in the little kitchen here. We crowded around the table, prayed together, and ate.

If you'd like to see the website for the station, or listen online, you can find it at http://www.radioshema.com/. You can even listen live online. I have also started a blog with the transcript from my programs. You can find that at http://yolayrimi.blogspot.com/.

Comments

The Stylite Reader said…
If she tells you to start over again after you have finished half of your recording you should push the button!
-Jonathan
August 3, 2008 at 5:14 AM
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