Excerpt from Brother Mayer’s book: “ONE SMALL VOICE”
Written By: ROBERT ALLEN MAYER (also known as: Brother Mayer).
“I have saved one of the best for last, as I call him my son in the faith. WYCLIFF SMITH: Brother Smith was born on the nearby island of Saba. His mother, whom I remember well, was a wonderful Christian lady. I saw her a number of times when I visited Saba to preach the gospel, and there is where I first remember seeing her little boy Wycliff. After awhile she sent him to St. Maarten to continue his education. She sent me a letter asking me to look after her boy, which I promptly did. I looked him up and got him attending church services regularly. After he went as far as he could go in his schooling, being a very bright and talented young man, he was sent to Holland to continue his education to the highest level. He returned to St. Maarten, became the Acting Lt. Governor of Saba for a number of years, he came back to St. Maarten , became the head of the Educational Department, became Chairman of the Board of Deacons of the New Testament Baptist Church and ultimately became the Pastor of the New Testament Baptist Church. I had the joy of conducting his ordination service. He is now doing a great job of leading this growing church which I founded, September 26, 1956 and I love him very much.
My heart is in the West Indies, therefore, should Jesus tarry his coming, and I pass on to heaven, my heart will be removed from my body and sent to St. Maarten, and Brother Smith has agreed to see that my heart is buried there.
Shortly after we arrived in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands in June 1952. I began a radio ministry on Radio Station WSTA. The AM station was small in power, probably 1000 watts. But since there were a few stations in the area there was little interference and the coverage was about two or three hundred miles and we received letters from many different islands. This small station opened my eyes to the possibilities of the ministry of radio in the West Indies.
Several years later during our ministry in St. Maarten, the Lord began to deal with my heart about somehow expanding the ministry or the Word of God. I decided to climb to the top of Mount William and stay there praying and fasting until God spoke to my heart. I hired a man with a donkey, on which we loaded some cans of water and a small folding cot for sleeping. There was a small tin shack that housed a small relay antenna on the mountain top, and there is where spent my nights.
During the three days of fasting and prayer, the Lord spoke to me the second time in an audible voice, “I am going to use you to reach the West Indies and beyond with the Gospel.’ I wondered how God was going to accomplish this mighty deed, of which I was to find the answer to in 1962. Every morning at 9am, I was to go to the edge of this mountain and wave a white handkerchief toward our rented home on the back street of Phillipsburg, which my wife Myrt would return with a wave. This signal between us was a mean that all was well.
After three days I climbed back down the mountain and assumed my duties visiting in the villages every day, and conducting the open air services every night.
In 1962 Chester Wathey a big businessman on the Dutch side of the island got a license for a small 100 watt radio station called PJD2. This station was on the air a few hours each night for several months. There was no advertising on this station so I knew that the owner, Chester Wathey, was not making any money on this enterprise, which I knew would not bode well for very long. Therefore, I decided to make him a proposition to lease the radio station to me for $500.00 per month. Now $500.00 dollars was a lot of money back then in 1962 on a tiny undeveloped island, so he agreed to the proposition in a contract, and I took over the operation of Radio Station PJD2.
I did not know where I was going to get the money or the Gospel programs for this endeavor for the Lord. However, I felt that this was God fulfilling His promise to me of reaching the West Indies with the Gospel, and he would provide the funds, the facilities, the broadcasters and the staff to operate this venture of faith. Nor was my faith unjustified, for God provided everything miraculously.
First of all, I had to find a new location to move the station, a site where we had plenty of land to erect a tower. We were given the use of a lighthouse on a hill over looking southward to the Caribbean Sea, where the vast majority of over a million people lived.
Next we wrote to a number of religious broadcasters and got contracts from them. Then we located an old 250 watt transmitter, studio equipment and a tower. We purchased the equipment, and had it installed at the Gospel lighthouse.
Soon we were broadcasting the Gospel from 5:00AM to midnight, and the letters from listeners came pouring into our mail box. I signed on the air every morning with the song “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name,” had prayer and read a portion of scripture from the Psalms. After which I conducted a Hymn portion, and then a Gospel song portion, called Morning Devotions until 8:00AM; during which time I played request songs that listeners sent from hundreds of miles away. Then Gospel Programs on tape recordings were aired by local Christian announcers we trained. At 4:00PM we returned to do another song request program called “Evening Devotions,” until 6:00PM, after which Gospel programming until sign off with “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name,” our Christian National Anthem.
After a year or two, I found another ancient transmitter, this one put out 1000 watt transmitter. Then we were heard not only in the West Indies, and upper South America, but around the world, especially in West Africa. We were astounded by the coverage and hundreds of letters poured in each week from listeners.
I also had my own radio broadcast, “Deliverance Time,” aired daily, during which I preached evangelistic messages. Many were saved, healed, blessed and some called into the ministry through this Radio Program. And believe it or not, I am still broadcasting this same program daily over Radio Paradise, a 50,000 watt AM station from St. Kitts-Nevis, and from two FM stations, one in St. Vincent that Pastor Errol Daniel operates, and who pastors a big church there, and has been a great friend whom we support; the other station broadcasts from the French side of St. Martin, which is operated by Pastor Rosmund Romney who has a very big church in Grand Case.
Sometime during the early seventies, I was notified by the government that I could no longer air Gospel programming 24 hours a day, which we did occasionally called “The Late Show.” This was a program of Gospel content, talk and humorous material. I usually did this on Sunday, with all the Sunday schools services and radio broadcasting.
Suddenly, the government wanted 50% of the programming to be non-religious. This I could not agree to, so we approached the government if of St. Kitts, about 50 miles South of St. Maarten, and they responded favorable to the relocation of this ministry to St. Kitts. The old equipment of PJD2 was sold for $25,000 and we purchased a new 50,000 AM transmitter on leased land from Northeast side of St. Kitts in a swampy area near the sea. We constructed a small building to house the equipment and transmitter, erected a tower and were soon broadcasting from our new facility we called: Radio Paradise.” So the moral of this episode is, that it was better not to compromise our convictions and be satisfied with half a 10,000 watt station, and end up with a 50,000 watt full-time Gospel station for the Lord Jesus!
We continued broadcasting over Radio Paradise for many years leaving a lasting impact for the Lord on the lives of many hungry hearts, being a friend and a source of comfort to many shut-ins, the sick in hospitals and even to many in prisons. We brought the message of deliverance and salvation. We received many letters from these individuals telling of their salvation, deliverance from Satan’s power and healing of sick bodies, for which we give all the praise honor and glory to God.
We celebrated our 25th Anniversary over the victorious results, then in the late 1980s a hurricane Hugo, struck St. Kitts and blew down our tower. We limped along a little longer, until we were unable to continue without financial aid. So we decided to turn Radio Paradise over to Trinity Broadcasting Network.”
