SAT-7 PARS, the Christian satellite TV channel for Farsi speakers in the Middle East, celebrates its third anniversary today.

Since it began broadcasting in 2006, the small team has expanded to include a number of staff now based in the UK, producing programmes and co-ordinating audience relations.

For the PARS team 2009 has been a difficult year, with the situation in Iran following the elections causing much concern for those staff with family members still in the country, not to mention the upheaval and anxiety experienced by PARS viewers.

The channel began a campaign of broadcasting scriptures and messages of support and encouragement in on-screen text crawls throughout this period.

A spokesperson for the channel commented, “Although we are living in difficult times for our region, we are also living in exciting times and our responsibility is to grab each opportunity the Lord puts before us to help expand His kingdom! Together we can achieve many things for the Lord’s glory!”

The SAT-7 PARS team two live programmes scheduled for the remainder of the month, one on Christmas Eve and one on New Year's Eve. These will be the first ever live programmes on SAT-7 PARS.

The broadcaster said the live programmes would be technically challenging and has asked for prayer as they finalise the details.

The shows will be in a teaching format. SAT-7 said it hoped they would lead to a lot of good discussions about the channel, Christmas, and about starting a New Year with God as the focus!