The Day the Airwaves Opened: July 4, 1991

35 YEARS AGO

Photo: Richard in center shaking hands with President Mobutu saying, "Mr. President, I have two communications projects held up in Kinshasa." President Mobutu turned to his right hand man and said, "See to this man's request."

For years, it seemed impossible.

Richard McDonald had met twice with President Mobutu and the Director of his Office, only to hear the same answer: the Constitution of Zaire gave a monopoly on public broadcasting to the state network, OZRT. There was, they said, simply no legal room for another radio voice in the country — let alone a Christian one.

But the story of Radio Kahuzi had never followed the ordinary path.

It began, unexpectedly, with a torn retina. A medical emergency sent Richard by helicopter to a mountain hospital, where he crossed paths with the President of the Far East Broadcasting Association — a meeting no one could have arranged, yet one that planted the first seed of an idea: what if the Gospel could reach eastern Congo over the air?

The very next day, before flying to the United States for treatment, Richard met with the Provincial Governor and asked for permission to use an abandoned radio studio to start a Christian broadcasting network. It was a bold request born out of urgency — and it turned out the Governor had, only weeks earlier, given his own life to Christ. His Administrative Assistant had done the same, just months before. The Lord, it seemed, had already been preparing hearts long before the request was ever made.

Still, the obstacles were real. For three years, Richard worked to complete the statutes required to establish Believers Express Service, Inc. (BESI) as a legal entity, all while the constitutional door to independent broadcasting remained firmly shut.

Then, in the early 1990s, everything changed. President Mobutu made the historic decision to end Zaire's one-party state and open the way for multi-party elections. Two days later, he signed a Presidential Decree recognizing BESI as a Congolese Association, clearing the path for its work.

On July 4, 1991, that vision became reality. Radio Kahuzi received the very first non-government broadcasting license ever granted in Zaire — a nation where, until that moment, no voice but the state's had ever been permitted on the air.

It was more than a license. It was the beginning of a National Network of Radio Broadcasting, and it quietly opened the door for other independent radio and television stations, and a measure of press freedom, to follow across the nation.

What had once been declared impossible by the highest office in the land became, through patience, faithfulness, and what can only be called divine timing, the first crack in a wall that had stood since independence.

Three decades later, Radio Kahuzi still broadcasts the Gospel across eastern Congo — a living reminder that when God opens a door, no constitution, no monopoly, and no impossibility can keep it closed.

"Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." — Revelation 3:8

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