Part III

This is third in a three part series by Harold Goerzen

Radio School of Mission

In 2004 the Kealys helped form the regional office in Singapore, making that city their home base. A year later David was instrumental in launching the first Radio School of Mission, inviting partners from across the vast region for a week of training.

That led to the Global Voice Leadership Institute, a radio training course that continues to be held in the Asia Pacific Region nearly every year, gathering promising young radio producers from across Indonesia and beyond.

In 2007 David and Sharon relocated to their present home in California, helping various regions and country offices with a variety of administrative tasks. That fall found David in Ghana presenting a Leadership Development Institute (LDI) for the Bob Neff National Leadership Fund that he directed—yet another first.

The three-day event was held at Theovision International in Accra, Ghana, which would become one of Reach Beyond’s key partners in the Sub-Saharan Africa Region. Following the Institute David started the design process for Theovision’s new media compound.

Sub-Sharan Africa

“Ghana captured our hearts, and we gladly accepted an official invitation to join the Sub-Saharan Africa team,” David continued. His primary focus was to work with Lee Sonius, the regional director and Rev. Theo Asare, founding director of Theovision. The assignment included project planning, designing and developing property for the partner while Sharon helped in accounting and/bookkeeping, becoming the region’s financial officer.

In 2010 David designed and named the Tree of Life Health Post, Theovison’s medical clinic on the same compound as their radio production studios. Two years later he oversaw construction of the clinic, coordinating a work team from Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs.

In the next three years, David and Sharon continued to support the Sub-Saharan Africa Region in a myriad of ways. David designed four radio stations for Theovision in Ghana and the Media Center for the African Bible College in Yekepa, Liberia. The center includes a radio station and TV and radio production studios. Another design project was a complete radio station building for a partner in South Sudan. He stated, “this building is perhaps the best radio station I ever designed.”

New Challenges

In 2013 the Kealys officially “retired” from Reach Beyond, but this didn’t mean they were any less busy.

“We live in a senior community of over 5,000 people,” Sharon explained. “We’re involved in LifePoint church downtown. I’m chairman of the mission program that has blossomed into an active mission team that supports local and international missions. She and the team plan and host a Missions Conference every two years, a first for the 136 year old church.” 

In 2010 at a meeting in Ghana, West Africa with then president Wayne Peterson they discussed forming a ministry called Reaching People Far from God (www.rpffg.org). They volunteer using the website portal as a funding vehicle to raise and provide money for partner ministries they met during their service with Reach Beyond. ​

RPFFG has supported the drilling of water wells and water systems in Ghana, Liberia, Nepal and Indonesia, the establishment of media outreaches in closed countries, relief work in Nepal and Indonesia following devastating earthquakes, a Christian radio station in Liberia, and orphanages in Haiti—to name a few,

The first INTERN program provided support for a fourth year college student from LifePoint Church in Banning, CA to attend the University of Ghana. During his year he volunteered at Theovision’s Tree of Life Health Post and worked with youth at the Christian Life Mission Church.

“All these efforts help our global partner ministries share God’s love in culturally relevant ways that we could never do in a lifetime do,” David concluded.  “We feel God led us to meet them; each and every one and are blessed to have met them over the past 30 years and continue to have a small part in their ministries. They are reaching out to people living in spiritual darkness. They need God’s mercy and through various outreach ministries, lives are being changed for all eternity. This is God’s heartbeat.”

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What advice do the Kealys have for hundreds of alumni around the world? 
​“There’s no reason for any alumni to hang it up!” David exclaimed.

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