2002 Overview

Posted: May 05, 2017

La Roca 95.5 FM (Radio Station in Sarmiento, Argentina)

Soon after his second trip to El Salvador, the Lord instructed Greig, along with other believers, to set up a non-profit ministry corporation. Karen Glennon, an experienced person dealing with government issues, was the key person the Lord used to make it happen. A Board of Directors was set up and Amor Ministries International (AMI) was registered with the government. It was decided then that all funds donated to Amor Ministries International would be used directly to aid in the preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

At the end of 2001, the Lord confirmed to Greig that he would be taken out of El Salvador and going to Argentina in June of 2002. Greig kept having dreams of a place that looked a lot like Oregon, the place where he grew up. He bought a map of Argentina and was drawn to a place about 100 miles west of the coast in an area known as Patagonia. After several confirmations through prophetic words from others, Greig left for Argentina on June 1, 2002.

After arriving in Argentina, Greig traveled 1,200 miles by train and bus from Buenos Aires in the north to Comodoro Rivadavia in the south. From there, he had clear direction from the Lord to go to Sarmiento, a small town about 75 miles west of Rivadavia.

As opposed to El Salvador, where he felt like he was to make contact with several churches, in Argentina he felt he was to avoid any church contact until he had clear direction from the Spirit of God. While getting to know the town, he scouted out the various churches and the Lord gave him direction to go to one particular church about ten days after he arrived. That church was the Movimiento Cristiano y Misionero (Christian and Missionary Movement) fellowship.

The Movimiento Cristiano y Misionero operates one of the three radio stations in town out of the church. The pastor has sacrificed much of his own family’s comfort to keep their station on the air. Its transmission goes a little beyond the city limits and it reaches about 15,000 people. Many of those people do not have telephones and depend on that FM radio station to deliver news and community information. Most of the air time is taken up by Christian music, everything from folk to rock, along with programs each day spreading the message of Jesus Christ. They have a list of ten rules to make sure that they only preach the gospel, avoiding references to their own church and divisive denominational issues. There is no such thing as Christian television in Patagonia so all Christian broadcast media is through radio stations like theirs. They have been asking the Lord to provide what they needed in the way of expertise and equipment. The pastor says God sent AMI as an answer to their prayers. At the time, Argentina was in the middle of a severe economic crisis. What was affordable a year earlier was currently out of reach for most of the Argentine population. However, for people with dollars, prices were rock-bottom. They knew it was going to take a miracle to keep their station on the air. To God’s glory, this ministry was able to be a part of that miracle.

Greig took note of their equipment over the following days and gave them some format change suggestions that seemed to work in the US. They have a very gifted volunteer staff but were very much in need of equipment to bring them up to the level of a professional radio station. They needed a computer, sound mixer board with telephone feed and some good microphones. This all comes to about $8,000. Because of the devaluation of their peso and their high unemployment, that $8,000 looks like $80,000 to them. Greig felt strongly that part of his mission was to help them with these upgrades.

The day before Greig left Sarmiento to return to the US, he thought he had everything figured out that the Lord wanted him to work on. However, in his hotel room he received a vivid vision. He saw a large radio tower with lights on it the church property. He ran back to the church and told the pastor about his vision and that he believed the Lord wanted them to build a tower. The station only had an antenna on the roof of the church building at the time.

The pastor told Greig that they had been praying for a tower that would allow them to reach a much wider area and serve an additional 20,000 people. He also said that they had all the plans drawn up but did not think it would be a reality for at least 5 years. Greig told him he was sure that the tower was God’s number one priority and began gathering data from him on what it would take. Bottom line, a 150 foot lighted tower with the additional amplifier and cable would run about $5000 installed. That same installation in the US right now would run about $20,000. Greig told the pastor that he did not know how the Lord was going to provide for it but he knew it was His plan.

An e-mail from a friend arrived the same day that Greig had the vision, which stated that some people he had never met wanted to meet with him. Due to scheduling, the day he returned would be the only time he could get together. Miraculously, within 2 hours after returning from Argentina and landing in Phoenix, those wonderful Christians were giving him the $5,000 he needed for the tower equipment. Hallelujah! The Lord instantly took a burden off!

On the Central American front, Greig received a video tape from his contacts in El Salvador from the first multi-church rally in the town square. It brought him to tears. He is still amazed by what is happening in San Juan Opico knowing what the atmosphere was like when he first arrived there more than a year ago. Simply obey and the Lord will cause amazing things to occur. Well, Greig did…and He was faithful!

The Christian radio station La Roca (The Rock) 95.5 FM is now the most powerful radio station in Sarmiento thanks to your prayers and financial support. AMI purchased the new 80-foot radio tower on September 11th, 2002. The tower was operational by the end of October with new dipole antennas and a 250-watt amplifier. Combined, this gives the effective output power of more than 1,000 watts and reaching a 50-mile radius. Many volunteer laborers have been transforming this garage studio into a professional broadcast station. We also added a new mixing board capable of broadcasting call-in programs, a CD deck, sound room and microphones.