Delivering Radios to South Sudan

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to fly thousands of solar-powered radios up to South Sudan for Every Village. There were actually so many radios that we had two of our planes flying them up that day. We loaded the planes the night before, and repositioned them to Entebbe International Airport so that we could leave at sunrise, and fly directly to Juba, South Sudan on the first leg of the long flight. Here's a shot of the sunrise just after I departed Entebbe.

As you fly from Entebbe to Juba you cross the Nile river several times. Here's a shot of the Nile, shortly after it enters South Sudan.

Together, our two MAF aircraft delivered about 10,000 radios that day to three locations, Mvolo, Tonj, and Aweil. Here's some shots capturing the joyous offloading of many boxes of radios from my plane.

Each box contains 100 radios. Every Village estimates that each individual radio reaches a bit more than 7 people (they tend to listen in groups and/or families). Based on these estimates, the radios we delivered that day will reach over 70,000 people in their heart language!

Every Village is currently operating three radio stations in the locations I mentioned above. They train local pastors and staff in radio, and then they record and broadcast everything locally. Here's some shots of some of that stuff.

And here is what it's all about...
This is a typical sight in the morning and evening, when the radio stations are broadcasting  throughout these remote parts of South Sudan.

People carry the single-channel, solar-powered radios with them everywhere (like to this water bore hole below) as they listen to the songs and messages in their heart language. 

I've done several other blog posts about Every Village.  If you're interested in seeing those, then you can type "Every Village" into the search bar above. Also, if you want to find out more about who they are, and what they do, you can visit their website here.