This ministry originally reached all of the area in the Central, Western and Shikoku areas of Japan. As prices rose and the value of the dollar went from 360/1 to 98/1 and budgeted support from the PCUSA disappeared, the number of stations went from 5 AM Stations and 2 Short Wave Stations to the present 1 AM station and 1 Short Wave Station.

We have a potential listener base of some 5 million people for the AM station. in the Central area. One of the stations we were forced to cut was continued by the Reformed Churches in the Western region around Osaka and Kobe. The station in Kochi (Shikoku Island) was picked up by the co-operating Christian Reformed Church, but the others had to be dropped for lack of funds.

We now have only a 15 minute slot of time at 6:30 AM on Sunday morning on the AM station in Nagoya. In addition to the AM Broadcast, we also broadcast twice weekly over the Short Wave Station, HCJB, in Quito Equador, which beams our program once a week to the Americas and once beamed back to Japan.

For the past 25 years, I have been working with this Radio Evangelism Project as part of my ministry in Japan. Recently, partly because of the recession in Japan and partly because key pastors in the United Church of Christ in Japan, (one of our partner churches in Japan) have moved from our broadcast area, we are in a period of financial crisis. I would like to share the problem with you so that you can pray that the Radio Committee will make the decisions God would like them to make in the following months.

Sibbett F. Sapp
Director

Following is the HTML Page for the Radio Evangelistic Ministry Financial Report for this year. (Use your browser to read this letter without seeing the code.) Please note our financial year is from April 1 - March 31.

Updated: 11/24/99

April 1 - September 30 Receipts (@ $1.00 = Yen 105)

Japanese Offerings - ------- 709,730 ($6,759.33)
Overseas Offerings - ------- 107,473 ($1,006.82)
Interest Received - ---------------- 96 ($ 0.91)
Text Sales --------------------------- 0 ($ 0.00)
Total Receipts --------------- 817,299 ($7,783.80)
Brought Forward ---------- -213,553( -$2,033.84)
Total Monies ---------------- 603,746 ($5,749.96)

April 1 - September 30 Expenses (@ $1.00 = Yen 105)

Broadcast Fees --------- 2,016,000 ($19,200.00)
Recording Expenses ------- 48,000 ($ 457.14)
Follow-up Expences ------- 71,215 ($ 678.24)
Correspondence - ---------- 30,500 ($ 290.48)
Bank Fees -------------------- 3,335 ($ 31.76)
Committee Expenses ------- 23,060 ($ 219.62)
Transportation -------------- 90,000 ($ 857.14)
Reports - -------------------- 72,250 ($ 688.10)
Utilities ----------------------- 5,651 ($ 53.82)
Office Supplies -------------------- 0 ($ 0.00)
Insurance --------------------------- 0 ($ 0.00)
Miscellaneous ----------------- 2,549 ($ 24.28)

Deficit -------------------- 1,759,751 ($16,759.53)

Total ------------------------ 603,746 ($5,749.96)