Freddy and Friends

Freddy and Friends is a Radio show that Freddy does on Latvian Chrstian Radio in Riga (yes, there is actually a Christian radio station here). The third anniversay show just aired on the first Sunday in February. This is a weekly show, in English, of Contemporary Christian music. Mixed in with the music is a sprinkling of odds and ends to make the show more fun and interesting. There are such things as information about the songs and artists, Bible trivia, Scripture reading, occasional special guests, talks about living the Christian life and even quiz questions where people can call in live and win prizes.

The radio station started broadcasting in December of 1993. When it first went on the air, there was no special programming. They simply turned on the CD players and broadcast music 24 hours a day. Then they began to work on developing programming. Someone came up with the idea of doing an English program. I was around, so they asked if I would consider doing it. We discussed a what kind of show it would be, I agreed to do it, and have been on every since.

I must say, this was a new thing for me. Mass media was not in my background, but I thought it would be fun to try it out. The show started out live. We did two shows a week (Saturday and Sunday night) for 30 minutes. Later I began recording the show and the taped programs were broadcast in the usual time slots. Finally, however, we went back live, changed it to Sunday night only, and expanded it to 45 minutes. This is the situation now.

Little did I realize that it would continue as it has. Currently it is the most popular English language program on Christian radio (of course it doesn't hurt at all that it is the only English language program on Christian radio). On a more serious note, it is the longest continuously running program on the station.

My goal for the program is to glorify God and have fun, in that order. Judging from listeners' comments, it does provide an uplift for many people. And I know I have a lot of fun with it, so I think it is accomplishing it's goal. Tune in some time (if you can come up with a radio powerful enough to pick it up in Latvia). It runs every Sunday night at 10:15 PM on Kristgais Radio, 101.8 FM.