In early 2025, Communications Director Andrew and I had the opportunity to interview Aden, a native missionary from South Asia who runs a radio program. His ministry focuses on Tibet and the Tibetan diaspora, as well as other South Asian people.
Rebecca: What is on your heart for Tibet and the Tibetan diaspora?
Aden: Many years ago, my father started this Tibetan ministry with the aim and objective to have a Tibetan radio program that broadcasts Tibetan content into Tibet. We have a studio in South Asia with a small recording room and a few staff that develop content daily. We record in the studio and project that content through media networks, primarily FEBA radio, that broadcasts the content into Tibet. Every week we produce two 25–30 minute contents. The ministry has been going on for roughly 30 years.
There’s been a lot of crackdown on Christian organizations. Authorities have revoked their licenses. We are a fairly small setup and we have our license as a charitable society. We have our own board of management that helps guide us in all our activities to achieve our aims and objectives, which is what the government wants.
The main aim is to have a heart and reach out to Tibetans around the globe. We have a holistic approach, such as health content and other features to encourage positive change in communities. We have four main structures: radio program, follow-up, production of literature, and resources and distributions. Obviously the other part is training and discipleship.
The programming aspect, like I said earlier, is broadcasting about 30 minutes on shortwave radio three times a week. The radio program is broadcast in partnership with two different organizations. The shortwave programs can be heard in Tibet, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and sometimes even in the U.S. The radio programs are uploaded twice a week on our website and YouTube channel, which we started about a year ago. It’s something that’s unrestricted.
Listeners contact us from all over the globe and share their feedback. Receiving feedback like this helps us know that our broadcasts are clear. We pray over their responses and over all the programs that go out.
We also go to refugee camps, schools, and monasteries. A lot of our listeners are from Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and we never expected that. That’s been an interesting fact for us to keep praying about.
The main resources [we take] are health tracks in various languages and calendars. People especially appreciate the health tracts on smoking, drinking, eye care, and tuberculosis. Distributing health tracts helps us build friendships and opens the doors for us. We also distribute Christian tracts and Bibles in Tibetan. The Bibles aren’t given at random. People ask for them.
Andrew: What’s on the calendar?
Aden: The calendars follow the Tibetan lunar model. It has the new year, the Nobel peace prize, Dalai Lama’s birthday, [Tibetan] Uprising Day, and so on. Days that are important in the Tibetan context, as well as Bible verses for people to read. It’s a way for them to interact with Christianity and our ministry on a daily basis, and it’s a gift from us to the community. It’s a small booklet, it could fit in a pocket. It’s very interactive.
Rebecca: What is your vision for your Tibetan ministry this year and beyond?
Aden: Moving forward, the board needs to come and talk about the big vision for the ministry. The world is moving fast and maybe some of these models that we use need to be improved upon. We may need to do more digitally. We know that in Tibet there are many older people, so maybe right now the way we’re doing things is only catering to them and not so much the newer generation.
In the last year, we’ve started doing things on YouTube, but we need to sit down and talk about how going digital like creating an app could be done. Another idea is that the studio would be a good place for interviews, podcasts, and things of that nature. There’s a lot of things that we can think about.
Rebecca: What do you want American Christians to know about Tibetan people and ministry to Tibetan people?
Aden: It’s very difficult for Tibetans. Tibetans in South Asia outside of Tibet live in camps, and they’re a tight-knit group of people. They’ve organized to live in these camps over the years, and our ministry has given opportunities to young people with office and vocational training.
In ministry, it’s a hard group of people to talk to. A lot of them are set in their ways and younger Tibetans that we’ve worked with listen with their eyes. They’re very observant. To bring one person to Jesus, or for Jesus to use you to bring a person to Himself, that’s a huge deal. So often there have been cases where you feel like you’ve led someone to Christ and then within a year, that person ends up going back. That’s very, very common with Tibetans.
Part of the difficulty is the truth of Buddhism, which many people in the West don’t understand. In the West, Buddhism is a transcendental, meditative, inviting religion, but in its essence in the East, it’s full of the occult.
There’s a lot of spirit chanting and talking with spirits to the degree that even the Dalai Lama has a big disagreement with one of the sects of Buddhism for worshipping the wrong spirit. They don’t want people in the West to know this, they want to keep it very light. Very few Western people come to the East and realize what Buddhism really is.
That’s why I feel like we’re such a unique ministry. It has the ability to do something in one place and broadcast to global listeners. If we can keep diversifying and applying more layers to reach out to younger generations, that would be great.
We also want people in the West to know that it’s a dream for every young Tibetan to come to the land of opportunity. They work very hard and they collect a lot of debt to come to the West. They try very hard, and they may not always use the best methods. It’s very sensitive. If you have an opportunity to befriend a Tibetan in your country, I would encourage you to do that.
It’s about making a real impact and relationship with a person. You don’t need to befriend a Tibetan just to transform them. I think the end goal needs to be relational and what Jesus says, which is to love others as you love yourself. If that’s the end goal, then Jesus may convert that Tibetan person, but it definitely can’t be you trying to see yourself convert a Tibetan. It has to be what Christ did on the cross. Only He can convert.
Andrew and Rebecca: Thank you.
Join us in praying for Aden and his unique radio ministry to Tibetans. Tibet, and all of South Asia, is located in the 10/40 Window, where persecution is most prevalent. Download our free 10/40 Window Prayer Guide to start praying.
