Dedicated as Rimmer Memorial Hospital on October 12, 1955, Hospital Vozandes has dispatched Ecuadorian healthcare professionals to other parts of the world.

After nearly six decades of operating a hospital in Ecuador’s capital city, HCJB Global has announced that it is selling the 76-bed facility to an Ecuadorian buyer.

On Friday, May 31, in Quito, Dan Shedd, executive director for the mission’s Latin America Region, announced the sale of Hospital Vozandes-Quito (HVQ) to Ginsberg Ecuador, S.A.

Speaking in a packed auditorium, Shedd revealed his initial doubts in 2012 about meeting stiff board-established qualifications for a potential buyer. He credited God’s provision in encountering a like-minded buyer to carry forward the hospital’s historic ministry.

Shedd recounted that he sensed an abiding peace as the mission’s board members unanimously approved the sale. He read aloud a letter from President Wayne Pederson stating that “the process of seeking a new owner has been disciplined, complete and bathed in prayer. It was managed by an independent broker in Ecuador.”

“Options were considered, taking into account objectives set by the board during their May 2012 meeting,” Pederson’s letter continued, listing their desire that Christ-centered ministry continue even as the sale would allow the mission to fulfill its legal and financial obligations to employees.

Marco Serrano, Maira Mancheno and Shedd

Representing the new parent company at the Quito announcement were Dr. Marco Serrano and his wife, Maira Mancheno. Serrano pledged to continue the hospital’s Christian philosophy and values. He said this would include its chaplaincy services, medical education and assistance to the poor. Foreign missionaries will be allowed to continue serving at the hospital after the mission concludes its ownership on June 30, 2014, Serrano said.

Ginsberg manufactures pharmaceuticals at laboratories, according to the website, ekosnegocios.com, and Serrano not only specified the plant locations but invited the HCJB Global staff for a visit at the one north of Quito. One of the company’s products, Gladox, is provided to the country’s top athletes under a 2012 agreement with Ecuador’s Olympic Committee.

Interviewed later, Pederson explained that handing off to Ecuadorians the daily workings of HVQ shifts the mission’s strategies. He compared it to the HCJB Global metamorphosis from a single shortwave radio site in Ecuador to an agency that has played a role in seeing more than 400 FM stations established worldwide. So, too, selling the Quito hospital can help the mission become more nimble and global in spreading healthcare resources elsewhere, including Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, Pederson said.

Shedd told his listeners during the announcement that Ecuadorian staffs have already accompanied clinical and emergency response in several countries. As two screens portrayed a map of HCJB Global’s ministry regions, Shedd listed Pakistan, Ghana, Malawi, Haiti, Peru and Lebanon as places where they have gone. He said he finds it very gratifying to see that God has guided the hospital’s Ecuador ministry to a new point of expansion on a global scale.

Oswaldo Vásconez

At the same meetings in Quito, Dr. Oswaldo Vásconez acknowledged to the crowd, “We know many of you have been anxious, tired and discouraged, all this time wondering in the last months, ‘What is the decision? What is going to happen?’”

“You have to understand that the timing is in the Lord’s hands. I am totally convinced that we have kept to our word from the beginning of this project. We wanted to be fair, straightforward and honest, trusting completely in the Lord,” added Vásconez, whose deceased mother, Lois, was a longtime HCJB Global missionary who served in Ecuador. A pianist and music teacher, she regularly accompanied the Vozandes Choir at annual concerts celebrating the founding of Quito.

Sheila Leech with a Ghanaian patient

“Throughout the process, God closed doors while opening others,” Vásconez said. “I want to thank each of your for you commitment, faithfulness and patience.”

Pederson, in the letter that Shedd read, offered that “we must focus forward on the great work awaiting us—that of caring for the neediest people in Latin America and in other parts of the world. We believe that without the restrictions of managing a hospital, we will be more effective.”

“We have found that our strategy of working with our radio partners around the world has served well,” said Sheila Leech, the mission’s vice president of international healthcare. “We engage with our partners who are working at a grassroots level in communities where the stations can be heard. We add an incarnational aspect to their ministry as we work … to address felt needs, that is, the needs that the communities feel they have.”

“We encourage, enable and empower our radio partners to engage in holistic ministry—ministry to the whole person through providing counseling services, clean water, sanitation and primary health care,” Leech continued. “In countries that are not very open to the gospel we find that healthcare gives us an entry to engage with local people and model Christ through kindness, compassion and professional healthcare and development services.”

Sources: HCJB Global, El Universo, ekosnegocios.com

Becky and Germán Rhon

Nowadays, fast friendships and firsthand mission field experience are packed into short-term trips lasting days or weeks, but Becky tells a far different story. Though limited by serious health challenges that confine her at home in Quito, she joined with other staff from HCJB Global for a March meeting. During a segment that featured Becky and her husband, Germán, she was asked, “How old were you when you arrived in Ecuador?”

“I was 1 year, 9 months old,” was her immediate reply. She grew up as a child of SIL missionaries who translated the Scriptures into Tsáfiqui, the language of the Tsáchila people who live in Ecuador’s coastal jungle.

As Becky and Germán, who is Ecuadorian, were interviewed after announcing their retirement from the mission, the story emerged from a lifetime of obedience to the Lord to help spread the gospel of Christ.

After graduating from high school, she studied for a year in the U.S. Then returning to Ecuador, she was living with her parents in Santo Domingo where her parents had ready access to many Tsáchila communities. The Tsáchila are often referred to as the Colorado (or “red”) for the vermilion coloring that men of the tribe use to adorn their hair. (Brethren mission work among the Colorados described in an audio interview. It is 10 minutes into the program.)

“I had only been back for a couple of months when Germán was passing through Santo Domingo,” Becky explained. “His older brother—in cahoots with my mom—persuaded him to stay over instead of going on to Guayaquil.” In 2½ months she became Germán’s bride. They began their marriage—which has since passed the 40-year mark—in Australia.

“We didn’t have the goal of working in missions per se. But everywhere we went, we both always helped out in the churches or wherever we could be useful,” Becky said. “For example, in Australia we worked with many Spanish-speaking immigrants, but it was always after hours.”

Upon returning to Ecuador, where Germán had studied at Bible institutes, he was a good candidate to work at Hospital Vozandes-Shell (HVO). Serving as the hospital’s maintenance director, he showed an aptitude for pastoral work and counseling. In his own heart—as well as in the eyes of the hospital director, Jim Estes—Germán was a pastor.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s as they worked together in Shell, the Estes and Rhon families formed a friendship that continues to this day. Estes recounted to fellow missionaries at their staff meeting that on various occasions in those eight years that Germán worked at HVO, his advice on both cultural and spiritual aspects of solving problems proved invaluable to the administrator, Estes.

“Germán always has had a pastoral heart and has encouraged many to be involved in local church work, including me,” concurred Roger Reimer, another administrator at that time.

Rhon would always greet Reimer upon his arrival from Quito each month for administrative meetings in Shell and to meet with the hospital staff. “Germán would meet me at the parking place and ask if the car I was driving needed any maintenance,” said Reimer, who now lives in Oregon. “In those days the Shell-Baños road was a rough, narrow dirt ledge along the side of the mountains. Vehicles really took a beating from that road, and I was always so grateful for Germán’s care for our cars.”

After HCJB Global’s candidate committee approved the Rhons to begin raising finances for full-time missionary service, the couple traveled to the U.S. to speak to individuals and at churches to share their vision. In the early 1990s they returned to Ecuador as full-fledged missionaries.

In the last 21 years, Germán has served in various administrative roles, ranging from facilities manager to director of human resources. For several years he headed a corps of chaplains at Hospital Vozandes-Quito (HVQ). His weekends for the last 16 years, meanwhile, were filled with the responsibilities of pastoring a Quito church, Nueva Creación (New Creation).

“He would ask me periodically to pastor with him,” Estes said, “Finally, God spoke and I agreed,” Estes related. For 10 years they have collaborated in helping people in central Quito find the Savior and then keep their feet on the narrow path that leads to eternal life.

Confronting serious health challenges after the onset of fibromyalgia—later complicated by arthritis and heart problems—Becky has spent much less time in the public eye. From home she ministers to women of the church. She has also written dozens of poems about the Christian life, specifically regarding her own walk with Jesus.

“Anyone receiving the Rhons’ prayer letters through the years has been treated to her poems,” Estes told the missionaries at the Quito meeting. Afterwards, Becky read aloud a few selections, including the poem, “But I Do Know,” which begins as follows:

I don’t know all your storylines, blueprints or plans,
Nor how all of infinity flows through your hands.
I can’t grasp all your mysteries, your methods, your mind,
Or your thoughts so impossibly higher than mine.

Then revealing lessons of dependence and trust upon the Savior she’s learned in the school of suffering, Becky continues with:

I can’t always perceive that “all things work for good”;
When in pain, it’s not easy to think that they could.
So I don’t know why at some times I bask in your grace,
While at others it seems like you’ve hidden your face.
And I don’t know why some days bring smiles, some days grief;
Some hold fears and delays, others grateful relief.
But I do know you love me—through smooth seas or rough.
I know that you are—and that’s more than enough!

To illustrate that the bonds of Christian friendship with HCJB Global remain vibrant, Germán reiterated his longstanding appreciation for the mission. “Ever since I’ve come to know HCJB, my prayer for each of you has been for God to guide you and for God to have mercy on this mission because there are many things to keep doing,” he said.

Although some paths into their future are not yet clear, Becky told the crowd that as the mission shifts from a direct ministry model to facilitating local ministries, she and Germán felt it was time to leave. They feel called to continue volunteering as HCJB Global retirees, serving the people of Ecuador or wherever else God leads them in future. Germán plans to continue pastoring and counseling with hopes that on occasion his own work will prompt collaborative efforts with the mission.

Which One Will You Be?

Some men build bridges where no rivers run,

While leaving the lifelines o’er chasms unstrung.

Some flaunt their fasting, but food that they shun

Never reaches the hands of the ones who have none.

Some claim they open their hearts to all men,

Then grow high their hedges so none can see in.

Some kiss for silver – traitor’s expertise –

Thus mocking the trust of a greeting of peace.

Some tune their time so their lusts are well fed;

Their kids go un-lullabied, lonely to bed.

Some pray for pow’r and wealth, cost what they will,

Ignoring those broken by dreams unfulfilled.

Some, loud and lusty, will scarce spare a glance

For the one who would speak . . . but is given no chance.

God spans the canyons and fills hungry men,

holds open His Heart and begs all to look in.

He is restoring the trust of a kiss

and singing the love songs the children have missed.

God hands His Hope to the ones who despair.

He listens to souls who’ve had no one to care.

Now God looks for builders and singers and friends,

Restorers and listeners to help serve His ends.

Each of God’s children can say, “Here am I”;

The vision He grants comes alive in reply.

So which one will you be? Which task will you claim?

With which labor of grace will you honor His Name?

-Becky Rhon

Commentary by Roger Reimer

What kind of process landed you your present job? Would you say you invested all of your formative years preparing for it? Would you consider it a calling? And do you see an element of the will of God in it?

Please consider with me what people go through in the process of becoming a missionary and recognize the distinctions that go along with that walk of life. Grab a cup of coffee and let me share my own experience with you while giving you some things to think about.

At a missions conference during my college years, I made a commitment that I would be willing to serve as a missionary if God called me to go. That initial response was an important first step in the process that God chose to mold my thinking.

In the ensuing years, the Lord continued putting people and events in my life that encouraged me to explore avenues of missionary service. I attended church events focused on missionary presentations and found it interesting to hear of people’s journeys to becoming missionaries.

Another step in my journey was responding to a recruitment advertisement in a mission agency’s magazine. Even though initially this was more of an expression of curiosity, God used this tool to move me along.

HCJB Global archive photo of Reimer, a cardiac tecnician, placing sensors on a patient.

Once into the actual interview sessions with the mission’s candidate committee, my wife, Lois, and I faced questions about our sense of God’s calling in our lives. That key component was used as a determining point in our acceptance.

Soon after we were appointed by the mission, our home church planned a commissioning service with a longtime family friend and veteran pastor who encouraged us. With that step completed, we were ready to go!

Learning to depend on the Lord’s provision through the others—voluntary financial support rather than earning a paycheck—was and continues to be a significant adjustment. For us it’s a way of thinking that continues to this day.

Finally arriving on our field of ministry and becoming a part of the missionary community gave us a sense of arrival, joining a team, being a member of this adventure of God’s leading.

When I was appointed as director of healthcare in Ecuador, one of the mission’s board members talked with me as Lois and I dined together with him and his wife in our home. Had I been anointed with oil to serve in this leadership position? This was the question posed by this wise Christian man.

When I responded that this had not happened yet, right away after the meal he led in a time of prayer and anointing with oil. Even this simple ceremony in our home became another significant step in my formation as a missionary.

I am grateful for each of these steps along the journey that God has led us through. In reality, they have been foundational for us as we have served in times of testing, as well as some very positive and enjoyable years. This is an integrated view of all of the pieces that form a life of commitment, obedience to God’s calling and faithfulness.

At the same time, anything that appears to derail this journey requires handling it with real discernment and wisdom so that those involved can clearly see evidences of God’s hand and be at peace.

Finally, hear me clearly, for I in no way want to diminish the value of working in the marketplace and having a strong sense of ministry in that context. However, recognize too the process a person initially went through to become a missionary.

Then when you hear about a missionary coming back to their country of origin, pray that their adjustment would reflect that process and now needs to be dealt with in a way that shows meaning and God’s loving, caring, guiding hand.

Reimer and his wife, Lois, have served with HCJB Global since 1975. Twenty-eight of those years were in Ecuador, primarily in healthcare leadership and guesthouse hospitality. Now based in the U.S., they continue to serve by encouraging others to get involved in Christian missions. Roger is working on a book about his experiences at Hospital Vozandes-Quito.

Reimer instructing pastors on leadership in Guatemala

David Russell

With a remote corner of the Amazon rainforest as his playground, David Russell might surprise even himself at the role technology has played in his life and career as a missionary.

Growing up as the son of missionaries translating the Bible into the Amahuaca language, little David found the flora and fauna of the Peruvian jungle fascinating.

“I had my own bow and arrow since I was probably 3 years old. I liked to hunt lizards and go fishing every day,” he said, adding that dangers often lurked. “You never knew what was in the river when we went swimming—whether huge anacondas or little piranhas. One time a piranha nearly bit off my left pinkie!” The Russells also faced disease, bandits and isolation in an area accessible only by light plane, on foot or by canoe.

Now overseeing efforts at sharing the gospel via numerous technologies, Russell, 52, recalls his parents’ use of just a few devices to share the gospel with the Amahuaca of southeastern Peru. He recalls Robert and Delores Russell’s painstaking analysis of biblical passages late into the night beneath a single light bulb powered by a small gasoline generator. Then Bob would record the translated passage on a wind-up, reel-to-reel tape recorder with a built-in speaker.

“He would translate a portion of Scripture; then record it over and over again and play it back to the Indians in the hopes that it would be intelligible to them,” Russell said. “That recorder was part of the first wave of technology that I have experienced in my lifetime in terms of tools for sharing the good news with others. It was just a simple tool, but it had a big impact.”

With just 15 families in the village, the content of the message was highly customized and contextualized for this very specific group of listeners, according to Russell. He also saw technology’s advantages each school year when he and his siblings would commute between the village and Wycliffe Bible Translators’ boarding school.

At the school in Yarinacocha on the Ucayali River, Russell’s wonder for technology thoroughly took root. “My interest in technology was really sparked when I was 8 years old and my parents were preparing for a visit by my paternal grandparents,” he recalled. “I went with my dad to the JAARS (formerly Jungle Aviation and Radio Service) hangar where we called by ham radio to an operator in Ohio who patched the call through to my grandfather. I knew he was thousands of miles away, yet the signal was clear. I’ve had a fascination with long-distance communication ever since.”

The elder Russell’s response was to help his son build a primitive crystal radio—a coil of copper wire on a toilet paper roll with a crystal diode and a strip of aluminum that slid up and down the coil of wire to select stations. “There were almost no radio stations in the area, but I fell in love with radio. That became a passion of mine, and it did a lot to drive my career.” In Russell’s life, long-distance listening ranks as the second wave of technology with an almost unlimited audience and programming of general interest to listeners worldwide.

“High-powered shortwave radio reached a huge, diverse audience,” he explained, specifying that HCJB, the Voice of the Andes, brought friendly voices and messages of encouragement into the Russell home. When the family moved to Lima for medical reasons, the unrationed use of electricity and wider access to broadcast equipment fed Russell’s interest in technology.

He went on to earn a degree in electrical engineering from LeTourneau University in Texas and eventually landed what for him was a dream job at Hughes Space and Communications. In 1984 he married Giselle Gotelli, a nurse from Southern California.

Giselle learned at an Urbana youth missions conference of HCJB Global’s need for both nurses and engineers in Ecuador. Their exploratory trip to Ecuador served to confirm for both of them that God was calling them to serve with the missionary organization. The Russells left their rewarding jobs in the U.S. and began work in Ecuador in 1991. They transferred to the Technology Center in Elkhart, Ind., in 2000. Russell was later appointed as the center’s executive director.

The Technology Center has worked to put more than 400 partner radio stations on the air in some 100 countries. “This third wave of technology is more of a hybrid,” observed Russell. “Using local FM or regional shortwave, the stations operate on a much smaller scale than international shortwave. They air programs that are more contextual, and relevant to the local environment and social needs.”

Earlier this year, for example, engineers from the Technology Center helped missionary Ray Rising, Radio Logos and local believers at Chazuta, Peru, put a regional shortwave station on the air.

Radio training at Radio Logos in Chazuta in August, 2012.

At this Christmastime, several jungle communities will hear the story of Christ’s birth in their mother tongue for the first time by radio. There are 19 indigenous language groups within reach of this new station in northeastern Peru.

Tribespeople from these groups are operating the station and serving as the program producers. Currently, broadcasts are being aired in Achuar, Bora, Junicui, Ticuna, Pastaza Quechua, San Martín Quechua and Spanish.

Of a fourth wave of technology, Russell surmised that “as an organization, we are just beginning to harness it,” but described some aspects of it. “It’s heavily Internet-based and uses a lot of video content. It’s also tailored for consumption over smart mobile devices.”

“The concept here is using emergent technology where people can choose content that is relevant to them,” Russell explained. “You can reach an unlimited number of people, but the content can be contextualized for specific listeners or viewers.”

Another aspect of the Technology Center is the Jack and June Nikkel Media Center, opened in 2011, which serves the staff and media interns in Elkhart. It is a laboratory for learning how to make the most of the new communication tools, and for sharing that knowledge with others who are also eager to reach the unreached with the gospel.

“We haven’t abandoned the second and third waves of technology,” Russell said, citing examples of the Technology Center’s work in shortwave radio and helping plant FM stations worldwide. “But we have to come up to speed on the fourth wave. I trust that we will be guided by the Lord and not just by human fascination with technology.”

María Teresa Ramón, Mauricio Patiño and Martha Claudia Mosquera on mic at the school, Luz y Libertad.

by Geoff Kooistra

The crowd of onlookers burst into song as Duval Rueda struggled with emotion to find the right expressions of gratitude to the radio listeners of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, who had come for a daylong broadcast. After they finishing the song, Rueda read aloud from notes he had prepared earlier, helping him contain his emotions.

“We thank God for the opportunity He has given us to be here in Esmeraldas,” Rueda began, then thanking those who had come. Some had two hours to spend time with the staff of Radio Station HCJB. Two rural families related earlier how they listen on battery-powered radios since they have no electricity.

Broadcasting to Esmeraldas—known as the “green province”—the FM repeater station carries programming by Rueda and others several hours away in Quito. The provincial capital, also called Esmeraldas, has some 200,000 residents—about a tenth the size of Quito.

Sixteen station staffers organized and carried out the live event on Friday, Feb. 22, in an effort to leave the four walls of the studio and better connect with various segments of the audience. The event followed closely after the annual Misión Compartida (Sharing the Mission) radio event in Quito in December 2012 when listeners pledged or donated US$218,000 for the station’s operational costs.
The Esmeraldas event was the first “mini-Misión Compartida” with plans for more as well. HCJB-FM has repeaters and large listener followings in Esmeraldas and Manta at the coast and Ambato in the highlands. Interviewing some of the attendees, a local television station reporter was surprised to learn that Radio Station HCJB can be heard not only in Esmeraldas and Quito, but across much of Ecuador.

Broadcasting without a studio and in the open air brought logistical challenges. The live broadcast took place on a large patio that a school had made available for people to congregate and watch the event.

With the breezes blowing things over at times and threatening wind noise in the microphones, the outdoor setting posed challenges to members of the radio staff who made do with a simple, mobile console. Also providing problems was the public address speakers. People could take in the on-air show, but volume adjustments were needed on those speakers to diminish an on-air echo as the sound fed back through the microphones. Even accessing the Internet was not easy for Jimmy Sarango, the station’s social media coordinator, as well as for program hosts.

Some 200 people, ranging in age from 3 years old to a woman named Laura almost 100-years old, came to say hello and watch the live event. Laura said she has listened for 60 years, dating back to within two decades of Radio Station HCJB’s first broadcasts in 1931. FM was added in 1973 in the provinces of Pichincha, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Manabí and Esmeraldas. Laura told of having an inoperable broken leg and God’s miraculous healing. Others too came up to chat for a while, meet the producers, tell their stories of what God has done in their lives, give donations or make pledges to the station.

A 46-year-old man, Edwin Pozo told how he served a year in prison and listened faithfully to Radio Station HCJB, especially the biblical teaching, and soon began leading small Bible conferences with his fellow inmates. Even a prison psychologist asked Pozo for help.

People found new life in Christ through his teachings and the advice he offered when asked for it. Much of it came from listening to Al Oido (A Listening Ear), the afternoon counseling program hosted by Marco and Martha Claudia Mosquera. Found innocent of the charges against him, Pozo continues to minister at the prison, telling the staff at Radio Station HCJB, “God had a purpose when He allowed me to be jailed, and HCJB helped my complete that purpose.”

Duval Rueda, in the shirt emblazened with “HCJB” pauses for a photo.

In his closing comments, Rueda said it was inspiring to meet many of the listeners face to face. “Before this we only had a general idea of our audience in Esmeraldas, but now we see faces—faces of friends who are our family in Christ,” he said, to which someone in the crowd cried out that the people in Esmeraldas were just as glad to see the people they listen to every day.

“We hope we’ll have another opportunity to see you,” he added. “But if we cannot return to see you here, we will see you in heaven. That I assure you.”

Photos by Irene Schirmacher

Story by R. Kurtenbach

The coppery faces captured by Irene Schirmacher’s camera lens reflect the struggles of living in Capulispungo. As she observed following an afternoon there, “You can see their lives in their faces.”

Some 164 families were represented as people gathered on Friday, Oct. 12, to inaugurate the new clean water system. At the occasion marked by music, preaching, dancing and food, an elderly Quichua couple displayed in a palpable way their long struggle for community’s clean water. On their backs were a ceramic jug and an old rusted tank previously used to carry pure spring water for their families.

Perhaps the water system’s biggest beneficiaries are the little ones. The risk to children is great when diarrhea sets in after contracting waterborne diseases. Dehydration can quickly take a child’s life. Shy, smiling children trailed Irene and Hermann Schirmacher’s daughter, Tamara, throughout the morning before working up the courage to talk and eventually be photographed with her.
Community development staff members provided the technical help needed, coordinated purchases and raised the majority of the funds required. Capulispungo residents built the reservoirs and hand dug the required 11 miles of four-foot-deep trench.

Two HCJB Global work teams participated in the manual work, including a team formed by the mission’s employees. Spiritual formation is an important part of the work and is integrated with the health and hygiene teaching led by Tannia Lascano and Ecuadorian staff members from the community development team.

Mennonite churches in Germany contributed pipe and materials and were represented at the ceremony by the Schirmachers’ friends, Ernst and Kathy Unrau of the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region. Hermann joined other dignitaries on the speakers’ dais in a ceremony that featured primarily Spanish and Quichua, but also some German.

After the crowd enjoyed a sumptuous meal, the piñatas spilled out treats for the children. The festivity began winding down—too quickly for Irene, hoping for a breakthrough into the lives the community’s mothers and children. She was thankful, however, for the invitation into a Quichua woman’s home.

The modest home was adequate and—as with all Capulispungo homes now—boasted a water spigot offering cold mountain spring water 24 hours a day.

Tears streamed down the face of a man as he approached the main gate of an evangelical radio station in Quito, Ecuador.

“Am I too late?” he whispered, a sense of urgency in his voice. “Did I miss it?”

The man had arrived just 30 minutes before Misión Compartida, the annual sharathon and open house at Radio Station HCJB, concluded in early December. The man said he’d worked as long as possible that day so he could earn more money to give to the outreach. Then he walked three hours to Quito to make his gift to the station that he described as a “friend.” The staff assured him he could still give his donation and enjoy some of the worship music in the auditorium. He ran in with joy.

“We heard many such stories that touched us,” said Anabella Cabezas, HCJB Global’s director of media for Latin America. “As we saw donors give—not out of their abundance, but from a spirit of love and sacrifice—we pledged to continue faithfully in this ministry that God began 81 years ago.”

Radio Station HCJB began in 1931 as the world’s first missionary radio station and the first station in Ecuador with daily programming. In 1974 the ministry added FM broadcasts, complementing the AM and shortwave broadcasts. HCJB-FM broadcasts to the provinces of Pichincha, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Manabí and Esmeraldas. HCJB-2, an FM station celebrating its 40th year of operation, transmits from the largest Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, reaching much of Ecuador’s coastal region and extending into northern Peru. Both FM stations do live streaming of their programming via the Internet.

For decades, the operations of both radio stations were funded directly by the mission’s general fund, but in January 2000 the local stations held their first pledge drives. Since then the radio ministry has been funded more and more through the contributions of listeners, many of whom pledge support during Misión Compartida (Sharing the Mission).

Led by Tatiana de la Torre, director of local radio, the station’s team aired 14 hours of daily live programming from the ministry’s Larson Conference Center Friday-Sunday, Dec. 7-9. A two-day open house welcomed more than 5,000 people to the Quito campus where visitors could see and hear their favorite programmers—broadcasting live—and make donations and/or financial commitments for 2013. More than 2,300 listeners participated financially—half in person and half via telephone—during the event.

The sharathon’s spiritual impact was also evident as counselors at the station met with 150 attendees, at least four of whom made commitments to the Lord. Listener Cinthya Díaz recounted the story of a 90-year-old man who became a believer many years ago after hearing the programs. He initially commuted up to four hours by horseback from his home in Naranjito-Ibarra to attend the then-nearest evangelical church in Otavalo. He later founded the church, Cordero de Dios, in his hometown—a church that continues to preach a clear gospel message, touching countless lives for Christ.

Díaz said she listens faithfully to the station, both at home and in her car, because she “loves to praise God every day and feast on His Word. I support the station financially because I want other people, who can only be reached by radio, to come to know the Lord.”

A blind girl from northern Ecuador pulled on her mother’s hand to rush toward a voice she recognized. It was that of Marta Claudia Mozquera who produces the counseling program, Al Oído (A Listening Ear) with her husband, Marco, taking live calls from listeners. “I know you, even though I can’t see you,” enthused the girl. “I listen to your voice every day!”

Seventeen Christian musician groups from surrounding areas donated their talents, performing live throughout the two days for the radio programs and for the guests who constantly filled the room and rejoiced together when financial milestones were met.

A separate studio hosted live broadcasts in Quichua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language. Programs in this language air via partner Vozandes Media’s shortwave ministry. Many Quichuas, including entire congregations, had traveled to attend the open house, and the studio was constantly full of onlookers taking i+n special performances by choirs and small vocal groups and bands.

José Bustamante chats with an elderly couple in the prayer and counseling room

Many families arrived at the donation center, children clutching plastic bags full of coins they had saved for a year. There were lines as listeners waited to give and tell stories of the impact that the broadcasts have had on their lives. A room full of volunteers took calls from those who wanted to donate by telephone.

“I want to help the radio which has been a blessing to my life,” posted one supporter on HCJB-2’s Facebook page. “Maybe it’s not much, but I’m going to give $10 per month.”

Not everyone had cash to give, and many brought in items to be sold at a special bazaar set up during the event with all the profits added to the final total of dollars received. The bazaar brought in more than $8,000 for the broadcasts.

Eight families of an extended set of relatives each baked and decorated cakes and came together to offer them for sale. Also were rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens and ducks raised by area listeners. Locally grown honey and strawberries, hand-woven scarves and blankets, large bunches of greens, squash and dozens of roses from home gardens, two cases of queso fresco (fresh cheese) and chicken empanadas—all were given as gifts in appreciation for the ministry of Radio Station HCJB.

“We thank God for all the staff of the various areas of the mission who gave many hours of hard work and for the 280 volunteers who offered their valuable assistance,” said Cabezas. Members of a church in Puyo traveled more than four hours to conduct the activities for the children. They entertained families with an inflatable slide, face painting, group games, balloons, an area for coloring and a puppet show.

The days were sunny and warm, and one member of the radio team filled a pitcher with water and walked through the crowds, offering drinks to many of the older visitors and families with young children resting on benches and the lawn.

Other staff members greeted guests at the welcome tent, manned the donation centers, counseled and prayed with guests in the prayer room, helped put up tents and banners and lights, worked at the bazaar tables, kept financial records, monitored computers and worked with the media crew. A special room was set aside for employees to come together and pray for the event and the ministry of Radio Station HCJB throughout the sharathon.

Cheers from the gathered crowd and drum rolls heralded the $200,000 mark near the end of the evening on Dec. 9. Listeners and staff together praised God for His provision as the end of the live broadcasts concluded as more than $218,000 in gifts and pledges had been received.

During the three days, HCJB-FM in Quito received donations and pledges for 73 percent of its financial needs for 2013, and HCJB-2 in Guayaquil had reached 100 percent of its goal.

Geoff Kooistra, media services director for the Latin America Region, explained that if the last 12 years of holding Misión Compartida are any indication, actual giving to the Quito station will coincide with its stated financial goals. This is because listeners typically give more than they had pledged, and others who did not commit during Misión Compartida send in additional donations.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 11,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 18 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

John Mosiman at HCJB-TV La Ventana de los Andes (The Window of the Andes)

Almost as if by magic, the colors appeared on the easel at the front of the darkened church. But no, Lenin De Janón could see that the hands manning the brush and palette belonged to a man—a man he needed to meet.

De Janón had been wandering the streets of Quito for hours, mutilating his own arm with a knife. A young communist, he saw no reason to continue life after his girlfriend broke off her relationship with him. Depressed, the young Ecuadorian’s fascination with the picture grew as he watched the artist and felt his spirits lift a bit.

Approaching the man afterward, he learned the artist’s name was John Mosiman, a missionary at Radio Station HCJB who invited him to stop by the station to learn how the chalk talking and ultraviolet light worked.

“Me, a communist, go to a Christian radio station?” wrote De Janón decades afterwards. He nonetheless visited and watched Mosiman, engaging in a conversation that ignited De Janón’s thirst to learn what the Bible offered. A year later he received Christ as Savior at the same church where he’d seen Mosiman’s blacklight chalk talk. De Janón followed in the American man’s tracks, devoting his artistic abilities to God by serving as a missionary with HCJB Global.

“John created an art form he called ‘musical paintings,’ wrote Mosiman’s wife of 57 years, Gloria. “It was a blend of chalk paintings with theatrical lighting and choreographed to music, captivating audiences at clubs, conventions, churches and schools. He performed from New York to Dallas, Miami to San Francisco and also in Canada and in seven Latin American countries, spanning 41 years.”

He also created pencil drawings and acrylic paintings. Spare time saw John hiking and camping in the wilderness, including the Rocky Mountains where he climbed 47 peaks in his lifetime. “He was well known for sleeping under the stars in his hammock instead of a tent,” Gloria continued, “He greatly enjoyed carving intricate designs and Bible verses on walking sticks.”

Mosiman graduated from high school in 1949 at Boulder, Colo.

Born on Sept. 12, 1931, he was an adopted son of Fred and Lucille Mosiman of Elgin, Ill. In the early 1950s he served on the staff of the Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference in Muskegon, Mich. In 1953 he graduated from Wheaton College where he learned chalk drawing from Dr. W. Karl Steele. He later attained a Master of Arts from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

While learning the Spanish language in San José, Costa Rica, he met Gloria Geiszler, a nurse on her way to Ecuador to serve as a medical missionary. John’s artistic talents were to be used in the same South American country. Having arrived separately at language school, they later married in Quito where they served as HCJB Global missionaries for 12 years during the 1950s and 1960s.

“There is nothing in us to claim that we are capable of doing this work,” was a New Testament reference that John often cited. The verse continues that “the capacity we have comes from God. It is He who made us capable of serving…” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6, Good News Translation).

Upon retirement, the Mosimans moved to Austin, Texas. During disastrous flooding in Del Rio, TX, they assisted the affected families, also visiting people across the river at Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.

John spent his retirement years building homes for destitute families in Acuña, enabling them to move out of their cardboard shacks into frame houses. He recruited and spearheaded volunteer construction teams, supervising them and working with his own hands as well. They constructed more than 150 houses.

John Mosiman 1931-2012

He sponsored hundreds of Mexican youths for university and high school education. Through his life, God radically changed the life of many people; both those in need and those who came to help build.

Completing his work in Mexico in 2010, he continued to minister from his home in Austin despite his advancing illness. He taught the Bible to small groups and mentored several people before his death on Wednesday, Dec. 26, at the age of 81.

In addition to his wife, Gloria, John is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth of Summerville, S.C., and Marianne of Austin; a son, John, of Fort Mill, S.C.; and five grandchildren. He is also survived by a sister, Sue Wyld, Wheaton, Ill.

A memorial service was held at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Austin on Saturday, Jan. 5. To post or view condolences, visit http://www.cookwaldenchapelofthehills.com. The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the following ministries: His Work, Inc. (13217 Dime Box Trail, Austin, TX 78729), indicating that the donation is for the Acuña Mexico Ministry (http://hisworkinc.org), or Voice of the Martyrs (P.O. Box 443, Bartlesville, OK, 74005).

ceremony at Tababela (photo by Corporación Quiport)

Rising above a rapidly urbanizing valley of greater Quito, a tower stands above an airstrip in the rural parish of Tababela.

The lone tower overlooks the much-heralded new international airport for the Ecuadorian capital. First proposed as long ago as a quarter century and now finally a reality, the new airport is projected to begin receiving flights in early 2013.

Just a few miles away, no towers remain in Pifo where a 110-acre site served for decades as the international transmitter site of Radio Station HCJB, the “Voice of the Andes.” To shortwave radio listeners near and far, the station’s call letters, HCJB, had become synonymous with its mission of “Heralding Christ Jesus’ Blessings.”

The mission had purchased the land 18 miles east of Quito in the 1950s and developed it to the point where it housed 11 shortwave transmitters with a combined power of more than 1 million watts. Thirty-two antenna systems were supported by 48 towers that ranged in height from 30 to 417 feet.

graphic by George McCombe

As new airport preparations continue at Tababela, 11 miles east of Quito, an incident occurred at Quito’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport when a Copa Airlines plane overran the runway at 5:32 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29, after a late-afternoon rain.

After fire truck and ambulance crews responded at the scene, Fernando Guerrero, the director of Civil Aviation, advised via his Twitter account that airport operations were suspended, attributing weather conditions as the cause of the incident. Flights were redirected to Manta, Latacunga and Guayaquil until Quito operations returned to normal. There were no injuries.

Authorities hope to avoid such incidents at the new airport which boasts a 4.1-km (2.5-mile) runway, longest of any international airport in South America. It’s also farther from the mountains and not surrounded by houses or other structures as is the present airport.

Photo used with permission of El Comercio

The former Pifo antenna site may now resemble its pre-1953 state before antenna construction, according to Hermann Schirmacher of HCJB Global, whose family lived in the area in 2010-2011 when the last towers were dismantled.

“There was a farmer growing crops there,” he related. “They didn’t grow too well, but it looked very nice with no towers—a very nice field.” Authorities carved away some of the front side of the Pifo property when the highway was widened to four lanes.

photo compliments of Corporación Quiport

In September, dignitaries boarded a plane at the Tababela airport and took off into the rarefied Andean air. A day later, a cargo plane touched down on the runway. Then on Oct. 11 the Quiport Corporation formally delivered to Quito Mayor Augusto Barrera what the consortium called “substantial completion of works” of the new Quito international airport. Barerra, along with various national officials, landed in an Airbus 319—part of the fleet of the Ecuadorian airline, TAME. Commercial flights are expected to begin on Feb. 20, 2013.

Three years after an end to the broadcasts from Pifo, some of these same shortwave radio transmitters are sending programming to audiences in various Asian countries and the Pacific from HCJB Global-Australia’s international broadcast facility in Kununurra, Australia.

The mission’s media leadership team, however, has also steered a greater emphasis toward radio planting—helping local ministries start and operate radio stations. Some local partners have linked their stations with health clinics, modeling the mission’s ideal of combining ministries to maximize community outreach with Christ’s love.

As part of this thrust, the ministry helped establish Radio Angel, an Internet radio station (http://radio-angel.ru/). David Uhles, who directs the mission’s Europe/Eurasia Region, referred recently to “several Russian partners broadcasting on the Internet” and described the audience as young people “who appreciate the music mix along with opportunities to engage in spiritual discussions on the website.”

Uhles said that “radio listeners, mostly in villages, are still being taught and blessed through the ministry of the Voice of the Andes which is still remembered in Russia.” Programs continue to air from a shortwave site in Europe.

For Radio CCM in southern Poland, a vibrant Internet ministry complements its network of six FM stations, serving a weekly audience of nearly 600,000. One of those listeners is Liliana, a Polish cancer survivor who was coached by an online counselor, Theresa. (The term used by CCM is e-coached). The online Bible study “Why Jesus?” answered many of Liliana’s questions, followed up by the Alpha course at a local evangelical church, and she has become an e-coach.

Radio CCM launched its evangelistic website in 2008, a Polish version of the website, http://www.lookingforgod.com. “They seem to be doing a great job and use the radio to point people to the website for more information,” observed Perry Beabout, a missionary serving at the HCJB Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Ind.

In Ecuador, meanwhile, Radio Station HCJB is set to launch its own youth-oriented web page with a music stream, Control Z.

Janine Rembas of Spotlight English Clubs

In addition, Spotlight English Clubs, begun more than a decade ago in a Quito church to complement programming on Radio Station HCJB, has added Internet venues to its repertoire of English-learning adventures. Skype conference calls allow moderators to invite learners from around the world, including limited-access countries. Spotlight radio program scripts are also mailed electronically to 5,000 subscribers in Latin America alone.

Partnerships are essential to the mission’s digital media strategy. In late 2012 the mission teamed up with partner broadcaster Feba UK to launch “OneSheep,” a collaborative effort to research how young people communicate and consume media, then endeavoring to reach them with biblical truth. The consortium will place a priority on projects that impact unreached and limited-access people groups. These groups are embracing new media, particularly those that are delivered via mobile devices.

For people living in Brazil’s vast Amazon basin who may still be behind the digital divide, HCJB Global, Word of Life-SEARA and In Touch Communications are joining forces to distribute MP3-like, preprogrammed audio players to different people groups.

What began with one microphone and one transmitter in a Quito living room on Christmas Day, 1931, has spread to numerous local ministries in different parts of the world, united in a relationship to HCJB Global but even more in a desire to continue Heralding Christ Jesus’ Blessings.