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WMTC • Vancleve • 99.9 FM | WBFC • Stanton • 1470 AM
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“He’s Everything I Need” Spring Sharathon
Come with me on a journey. It’s a journey of faith, a journey of challenges, and a journey of miracles. Perhaps you’ve been receiving my letters for many years and you know pieces of the story. Perhaps I’ve just recently started writing to you and you haven’t heard yet. The WMTC story started over seventy years ago. But this isn’t that. The WBFC story started over forty years ago. But this isn’t that. I want to share with you today’s story, a journey that started five years ago.
Mountain Gospel Radio has been a journey of great faith and great miracles!
Mountain Gospel has always operated on a very small budget, and a very big vision to reach Eastern Kentucky with the message of Scriptural Holiness. Five years ago, we heard that a struggling Christian radio station two counties away was for sale, and likely would no longer be a Christian broadcast after that, or perhaps might shut down completely. The results of such on the community would be devastating.
The results on the community would be devastating!
We went to prayer asking God if we were to be a part of His plan for Christian radio in this community. He gave us the vision to move forward. But we faced many obstacles. We didn’t have the money or the personnel to purchase and operate another station. Through a one and a half year process, and a series of miracles, God opened the doors and we purchased WBFC. The miracles God provided in this endeavor are too many to share here!
Through a series of miracles, God opened the doors.
But this just sets the stage for the journey I want to share with you. WBFC is an AM station, and with the decline and challenges facing AM radio, we knew that it would need to add an FM to continue into the future. It’s this journey to an FM broadcast that began five years ago and that we are walking today.
Our first challenge to an FM broadcast was the license itself. Radio licenses don’t work like driver’s licenses where you just take a test and get it. They are extremely limited and regulated. We had no way to get one and were praying that God would open the door. Less than two years ago, the FCC (governing body that regulates radio) created an opportunity for a select group of stations to apply for FM licenses. This option had never been available before, and we were one of the eligible stations permitted to apply. We received our license last year and cleared the first major hurdle in our journey. Praise the Lord!
We cleared the first major hurdle in our journey!
Our next challenge is acquiring property and raising the funds needed to complete the project. Our approval allows three years to begin the new broadcast. It must be operational by the end of the year 2020. The cost for this project is extensive, and is the largest fundraiser we’ve ever undertaken. For a ministry our size, it is truly a humanly impossible feat. But the God who opened the door will led us through it. We are trusting Him, the One who has worked miracles in our past, to do so once again! Our trust and dependence on God is highlighted through our Sharathon theme, “He’s Everything I Need.” And He is enough for you, too.
He’s everything I need. And He is enough for you, too!
We are naming the translator (our new FM broadcast) in memory of Ernest Crabtree, who passed away in December 2017, and in honor of his widowed wife, Betty. Ernest was an Army Veteran and the Powell County Sheriff from 1966-1970, being the first Sheriff to wear a uniform. He was a retired State Highway Foreman, working for 23 years, and was also named a Kentucky Colonel. He was a wonderful man, a strong Christian, and the best neighbor anyone could wish for.
Ernest and Betty were early visionaries for Gospel radio in Powell county. Ernest believed in WBFC and put his time and money into Gospel work through radio. They were the largest supporters of the station for over 15 years and Betty continues faithfully today. If it weren’t for their investment, the station would not be a Christian radio station today.
In his later years, Ernest fought a hard battle with Alzheimer’s. One of the few things that brought him peace and comfort during that time was sitting by the radio listening to Gospel music on our station. We believe it is a fitting tribute for such a great man in the history of the community and in the history of our station, to name the broadcast in his memory and his wife’s honor: The Ernest & Betty Crabtree Translator.
Whether or not you knew Ernest, would you please consider a generous gift toward this ministry he loved so much, as a tribute to his legacy?As a part of the project, we also have additional named memorials available, with a gift of $5,000 or more. Please contact me if you would be interested in remembering your loved one through a named memorial toward Project 2020.
I have asked a lot in the past, and we need your support now more than ever before: Not for survival, but to do something bigger than we’ve ever done! We are trusting God for a miracle. Will you be part of that miracle?
Click on this link to send in your gift online: https://mountaingospel.org/online-giving/
Please join us in the festivities of Sharathon all week from Tuesday, April 30 through Friday, May 3 with special guests throughout the day, live singers from 7-9 each evening and our annual fish fry and concert on the Vancleve studio grounds Friday from 4-8pm. Featured groups are the Sons of Liberty, the Gilberts, and the Trinity Heirs. We’d love to see you! You can also listen on 99.9 FM in Breathitt and surrounding counties, 1470 AM in Powell and surrounding counties, online at www.mountaingospel.org, or from any cell phone via our apps or by calling 712-432-3223.
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