This week the ARMS spotlight shines on Claude Beachy, W9BNI. Claude received his Novice License in 1951 and today holds an Advanced Class License. He has been a member of ARMS since 1958 or 59, almost from its beginning.

Claude and his lovely wife, Edna, served as missionaries in Ecuador and Haiti for nearly twenty-four years. Today they continue their ministry by fielding many prayer requests via e-mail from missionaries around the globe.

Today, Claude remains active on the air using his Kenwood TS-430. He works mostly 75 meters and two meters FM on local repeaters.

The following is from an article about Claude that appeared in the Fall 2005 edition of The Beam.

"Edna and I retired in 1992 and we live in southern Indiana. I was married to Edna, a sweet Christian lady, at age 21 and over the years we had six fine children, three sons and then after five years, three daughters. Looking back from this point in life, I think there were numerous decisions that I made which directly affected the direction my life took. Some of these were dramatic and almost crisis experiences.

"One certainly was the decision as a youth to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and then later Lord of my life. This is perhaps to be expected with being raised in a Christian home but the decision actually came in my early teens while reading a book on the subject of dealing with my own uncontrollable desires. It was entitled, Conquering the Capital I.

"There were other decisions that were very significant. One was the decision to seriously take time for regular Bible reading and prayer. This came after I was married, had a family and was very active in church work as well as busy on my job. It was brought on by the realization that my life simply did not measure up the lives of the Christian believers of the early church. I realized that if I was absolutely honest I had to admit that my life as a Christian was powerless and I really wasn't having any answers to prayer. I was working as an audio recording engineer. Once, in a pastors' seminar session I was recording, I heard the speaker say, "If your life is powerless, and if you will take the time for daily spending one hour in reading of the Bible and prayer, I guarantee that in three weeks you will be seeing miracles happen." While I was about ready to throw in the towel on Christianity I took that challenge. This completely changed my life. The discipline required for that was not easy but well worth it.

"Another significant crisis occurred when I was doing a two-week work assignment at a Christian radio station in a third world country. This opened my eyes to the real condition of the masses of people without knowledge of the Gospel. In contrast I saw those who had found deliverance from the evil of witchcraft and superstition via the Gospel. I heard their testimonies. This led me to the realization that when I stand before God at the end of my life, He will not be asking what kind of car I drove, or what kind of house I lived in, but what I did with the Good News of the Gospel that I experienced and possessed. Here I was, a radio engineer and there was an acute shortage of Christian engineers in missionary stations around the world. This led to the decision to use the rest of my life and the training and talents I had for the spreading of the Gospel among those who have never heard it.

"This led to other major and far reaching decisions. One was to quit my job and trust the Lord to provide for me and our family so that we could go overseas to work in missionary radio work. The Lord provided and at age 44, in 1971, I went with my wife and three youngest children to the country of Haiti where for 16 years I was on the technical staff of Radio 4VEH a station broadcasting to Haiti and the Caribbean in four languages. This also meant that we needed to learn two new languages, French and Creole. While I was working with transmitters, antennas, studios and recording equipment, my wife was mother to our three daughters as well as working as a secretary in the radio work.

"One of my goals was to train a national technician to take over my job and after 16 years in Haiti it was my privilege to turn my keys over to a Haitien engineer whom I had apprenticed as well as helped get some professional training. At this point we left Haiti and were reassigned to Radio Station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador. This meant another new language for us. We spent time in concentrated study of Spanish upon arriving in Ecuador.

"The situation with HCJB was unique. While in Haiti I was for years the primary engineer. In Ecuador I was one of a staff of 25-30 engineers. Radio HCJB was a large facility, broadcasting the Gospel in more than a dozen languages and more than a dozen Indian dialects. Most of their broadcasting was on high powered, short wave transmitters and they had 32 different antenna systems beaming signals over three-fourths of the inhabited world. Their site in Quito is high in the Andes mountains and we actually lived at an altitude of over 9,000 ft. There were approximately 12 engineers working with transmitters and antennas alone. This was the area of my work. We continued there until our retirement in 1992. Though since then we have made numerous trips to both Haiti and Ecuador.

"The years in Haiti and Ecuador were very rich experiences. One was seeing lives changed as people accepted the Gospel of Christ and found deliverance from their voodoo enslavement. Another was the multicultural aspect. In Haiti we developed many close Christian friendships with the Haitian people. In Ecuador, there were HCJB staff members from the various nations to which the various language broadcasts were directed. We had many friends and while most could speak English we had friends for whom Spanish was also a second language but that was the only language common to both of us.

"One of my hobbies since early in our marriage has been Ham Radio. This has provided a means of communication to various parts of our country as well as other parts of the world. In recent years this has partially been replaced by e-mail which permits us to be in touch with many of our friends around the world.

"Since retirement, we have been able to spend more time with our children and 15 grandchildren. Also we have been able to pursue some hobbies like travel, gardening and now chickens. Since Edna's heart attack several years ago and subsequent complications, we are more limited in our activities and are doing less travel and concentrating more on things here on our hill, where two of our sons also live."

Thanks, Claude, for living a faithful life of praise to the Savior!

Claude's favorite Bible verse is Psalm 34:1. "A Psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed. I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."

[ POSTED ON 30-JUNE-2007 ]