A hospice day facility is housed at the Vozandes Carapungo Clinic north of Quito

Each Wednesday volunteers come to HCJB Global Hands’ clinic to encourage patients who have mere months left to live, treating them to activities such as live music, crafts, special meals, snacks and Bible studies.

The volunteers, who are responsible for their own transportation, organize all the activities. They may help patients assemble a jigsaw puzzle or make beautiful flower arrangements, giving them a break from the daily routine while providing a much-needed day off for the full-time caregivers.

Sheila Leech

“Palliative care is all about symptom control—pain relief and quality of life,” explained Sheila Leech**, HCJB Global’s vice president of international healthcare. “We pray for the patients, many who are going through chemotherapy and radiation.”

It’s all done for patients for whom healing or therapeutic care is no longer possible. “They are in the last stages of life; they are dying,” Leech related. She helped raise funds in her native England for the hospice clinic which first opened in 2002.

While the temporal benefits of hospice care are evident, volunteers most remember those patients who found the Lord before dying—receiving eternal benefits. One patient, Gregorio*, surprised many when he gave thanks to God for his cancer diagnosis because he saw the illness as a key step in his decision to put faith in Christ.

Working on grief issues with bereaved children. (photo by Sheila)

Pedro* is a 14-year-old boy with an inoperable brain tumor who has far outlived all expectations since his original diagnosis. “He loves to play Mexican Train with the volunteers, and recently we took him to the zoo,” Leech said.

Maria* was a patient who had a hankering for ceviche, a favorite Ecuadorian appetizer with shrimp marinated in citrus juices and seasoned with local herbs and spices. “So we got shrimp at the market,” she related. “It was so good, and now the patients often ask for ceviche!”

Mario* was another patient who has also fared much better than expected since being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. “He is on fire for the Lord, and His insight into the Scriptures is incredible,” Leech said.

“He was featured on a local television program, and a local construction company offered to build a three-bedroom house for his family,” she explained. “This was a direct answer to prayer. His wife was recently contracted by the hospital in the environmental hygiene department, giving her a stable income as Mario is no longer able to work.”

While there are hospitals in Ecuador that treat the terminally ill, the concept of hospice care is relatively new for the country. “The goal is to meet unmet community needs, and I see care for the dying as one of those needs. HVQ serves as a model for other ministries and services in Ecuador,” Leech said.

The clinic also does what it can to help patients stay home with their families, even renting out specialized medical equipment to families that need it.

*Pseudonyms used to protect the patients’ privacy.

**A British nurse, Sheila, tells of her teen years in a biker gang before coming to personal faith in Christ. Her involvement in blessing others with God’s love has taken her to places and experiences requiring continued faith in God.

Buckman prays with Terena Christians in Brazil (photo by M. Harrison)

The Terena were not just looking back, however. Anticipating future ministry, they asked Buckman to return to them to help strengthen their Christian congregations for mission work among other neighboring groups.

Win Buckman Sr., now deceased, and his wife, Francis

The conversation occurred on the sidelines of an anniversary celebration of the school founded by Win Buckman Sr. and his wife Francis in Taunay village in Mato Grosso do Sul state in southern Brazil. Already working with a different tribal group, the Buckmans agreed in 1956 in respond to a Terena request for basic education in Portuguese.

Today, five decades later, many Terenas are trained professionals in different disciplines. “We have pilots, doctors, lawyers, pastors and politicians.” Buckman said. The Terenas wanted help from Larry and his wife, Fay, however to train themselves and others to share the gospel with hard to reach tribes hidden in the Amazon rainforest. This meant not only embracing Larry due to his parents’ work, but also welcoming him as a leader among them.

Understandably, Buckman’s leadership style differs from that of the Terenas, who arrive at decisions by group consensus from starting point more egalitarian than that of many Western cultures. In this context Buckman’s doggedly determined way of doing things has earned him a ‘Larry the Tractor’ title. “They don’t mean that in a bad way; they do have community tractors in their villages,” he chuckled, observing that a transition from ox drawn plows hastens agricultural work.

“It’s the speed of change that bothers them,” Buckman said, “Not that they don’t want change. Gradually we are finding the right speed for change that does not violate their culture but keeps the movement going forward.” For his part, Buckman for decades worked in film and video at HCJB Global in Quito Ecuador where Fay also taught school and they raised two sons. On loan now to Miami International Seminary, they work within HCJB Global’s Corrientes (Currents) which seeks to help mobilize Latinos for cross cultural mission work.

Win Jr. (Larry) Buckman

In July 2012, the 100th anniversary of gospel arriving to Terena territory via a Scottish missionary, Harry Whittington, will be observed. “Not long ago a chief from another tribe in Parana, asked one of our chiefs why the Terenas were more advanced and professional,”Buckman related. The young chief replied that in Bananal, Mato Grosso do Sul, where Whittington’s work began in 1912, the Terenas were the first tribe to embrace Christianity.

Buckman said the young chief offered that “the missionaries gave us a complete education when no one else valued our tribe.” The surprising statistic is to see the number of Terenas competing for positions in the secular universities. All have plans to return to their tribe and develop their own people and then other tribes, according to Buckman.

Today, even with Bible translations underway and the New Testament in 30 languages, there are still 121 language groups who have never heard about Jesus. Embracing this reality, the Missionary Union of Indigenous Evangelicals of South America (UNIEDAS) has set a goal to “prepare the Christian tribes to reach other tribes.” This year the Terenas anticipate opening two Corrientes type training centers with Biblical, vocational, and trans-cultural education.

The Terena are also passionate about reaching other indigenous groups via radio. Presently, three tribal groups are pursuing licensing through the Ministry of Communications in Brasilia. All these tribes have already received training through HCJB Global Voice.

Juan Bendezu believes that if advertisers can sell automobiles or toothpaste in a one- or two-minute commercial, a life-changing message can also be introduced in the same amount of time.

Bendezu directs Radio Inti Andina (Andean Sun Radio), a Christian station in Ayacucho province in southern Peru. The station broadcasts in Spanish and Quechua, a language spoken by the indigenous people in the area.

“We’ve downloaded the Corrientes Misioneras (currents in missions) program from the web,” Bendezu wrote. “Upon hearing our listeners’ suggestions, we’re now broadcasting the program Monday through Friday at key times in the morning and the evening.”

A listener wrote of his limited understanding of missions beforehand, but now says, “listening to these programs, I have understood what we’re expected to do — what we have to do — without fear.”

Diodoro, another listener, had reached rock bottom in his life. “I was at my lowest, like someone with no money, no friends, without anyone,” he wrote from a province that neighbors Ayacucho. “In fact, my own father and brother didn’t want me around because I had tried to rob both of them.”

Amid these strained family relations, a friend of Diodoro began stopping by daily to talk with him and tell about the programs on Radio Inti Andina. “People’s stories of their own lives have helped me. Little by little I am finding Christ and His immense love,” Diodoro said.

Some programs of special interest to listeners have covered topics such as “The Great Commandment” and “Called to Holiness.” Bendezu also noted other listener favorites: one profiling the Old Testament character of Abraham and others that focused on “God as Missionary” and “God and His Church.”

Produced in Quito, Ecuador, Corrientes Misioneras airs on the ALAS-HCJB Spanish satellite radio network with some 100 affiliates, primarily in Latin America but also in North America. Bendezu, however, elected to download the programs from the Internet.

Release of the new Corrientes Misioneras programs, both via satellite and on the Internet, grafts a missions mobilization initiative onto HCJB Global’s 80 years of gospel broadcasting.

The programs are co-produced by Corrientes and ALAS-HCJB, a Spanish satellite radio network comprising some 100 affiliates primarily in Latin America. Launched in 2009 in Ecuador by HCJB Global and other mission agencies, Corrienteshas already mobilized several Latinos who are doing cross-cultural Christian work in different places around the world.

Archive photo shows Enrique Romero

One of those honored at a Sesión Solemne (Solemn Session) was Enrique Romero, who in 1941 began as a chauffeur at the pioneer missionary broadcaster, Radio Station HCJB, in Ecuador’s capital city. This was just 10 years after the ministry’s initial Christmas Day, 1931, broadcast in English and Spanish on a 200-watt transmitter in Quito.

Working with ministry co-founders, Clarence and Katherine Jones, Reuben and Grace Larson and others, Romero eventually assumed other responsibilities that included directing the Spanish Language Service.
Helped to the stage to be honored was an elderly Ecuadorian pastor, Isidoro Guerra, who was then honored with a plaque before the group of several dozen invited staff and guests assembled for the 90-minute event. In his 30 years with the mission, Guerra too had carried out various projects. Working from HCJB Global’s former international transmitter site in Pifo, Guerra began by distributing radios with a single frequency fixed tuned to Radio HCJB. He became a control room operator for Himnos de la Vida Cristiana (Hymns of the Christian Life), a popular program that continues to air today.

Isidoro Guerra

He also served as a pastor and counselor, contributing to the on-air teaching through the Bible Institute of the Air, later renamed Academia Cristiana del Aire or Christian Academy of the Air (ACA), an outreach now operated by the World Radio Network, a cooperating ministry of HCJB Global.

For their 41 years of service with the mission, an Atlanta couple, Pastor José “Chema” and his wife, Carmen, were recognized by Media Director Anabella Cabezas. The Reinosos first met decades ago while studying together in a program launched by the mission’s then-president, Abe Van Der Puy, to get Latin Americans into the mainstream of missionary life.

HCJB Global's Curt Cole honors Carmen and Pastor Jose Reinoso

By the early 1970s, the Reinosos were among eight Latin American couples and a single person working in the ministry and receiving financial support from North American churches. Carmen is Ecuadorian and Chema, who grew up in the Dominican Republic, spent most of his adult life in Ecuador.

Beginning work at the ACA, Carmen went on to pioneer radio programs for women and received international acclaim for her work. Even in retirement, the Reinosos continue to be active in Atlanta where Chema works with the ministry of Charles Stanley, voicing his sermons in Spanish for Ministerios En Contacto (In Touch Ministries).

Radio newsman Edwin Chamorro recounted Radio Station HCJB’s contributions to and celebrations of Ecuadorian culture during the celebration ceremony. Music was provided by the Coro Vozandes (Vozandes Choir), and a fast-paced video depicted the mission’s history.

Congratulatory remarks by Ecuadorian dignitaries celebrated the mission’s 80 years of impact on the nation and in individual lives.

The national director of Ecuador’s internal revenue service (SRI), Carlos Marx Carrasco, described the mission as safeguarding cultural traditions and “of high listenership of first-class cultural and musical programs such as classical music, and above all of interesting content for people of religious belief.”

In another comment, Ecuadorian Attorney General Galo Chiriboga deemed as “very important” the station’s role in the creation of media in Ecuador. “It has been one of the pioneer broadcasters on the international scene,” he said.

Reference to an earlier era of the station’s fixed-tuned radios surfaced again during comments from Ecuadorian Vice President Lenin Moreno. “When I was a child,” Moreno said via recorded audio, “this was the station that we listened to, having been given one of the radios with only HCJB’s frequency.”

Moreno continued, remembering that the mission began Ecuador’s first television channel. One program aired in his childhood was El Llanero Solitario (The Lone Ranger). Another televised series he referred to was a Spanish version of the American sitcom, Pete and Gladys, which was popular in the 1960s. “We all fondly remember HCJB … such a happy anniversary!” Moreno concluded.

Then in a congratulatory message, Congressman Paco Moncayo recalled that decades ago as a young lieutenant stationed on the Curaray River in Ecuador’s Amazon rain forest, “our only contact with the nation and with the world was HCJB. The same thing occurred in the 1995 conflict [with Peru] in the Cenepa River region.”

For his part, Dan Shedd, executive director of the Latin America Region, expressed deep appreciation to Ecuador for “having received us with open arms and for the excellent team of Ecuadorians serving with the same values and the same convictions so we can celebrate these 80 years of service to Ecuador and the world, always for the glory of God who is eternal.”

While the dignitaries focused primarily on the ministry’s media efforts, HCJB Global President Wayne Pederson also focused on healthcare work in Ecuador and beyond.

“These ‘voice and hands’ ministries that started high in the Andes mountains continue to bless people around the world, reaching people in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas,” he said. “About 400 radio stations [worldwide] have been started with national partners to help the people of their communities.”

HCJB Global also focuses on education and development, “training Latin Americans to take media and healthcare to places in deep need of good news,” Pederson added.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,700 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Stan Swanson worked in the broadcast industry but attributed the pull to missions to "a keen interest in the ability of radio to reach the masses."

As the son of an engineer, Stanley Russell “Stan” Swanson’s interest in shortwave radio had already been ignited by the time he reached age 12. In 1940 in Chicago, he first heard Radio Station HCJB, based in Ecuador. That began a relationship between listener and broadcaster that was to last several decades.

Born June 11, 1928 to Walter S.R. Swanson and Edna Swanson, he graduated in 1946 from Taft High School in Chicago. Swanson then went on to attain an electrical engineering degree in 1950 from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. He also took graduate courses in electromagnetic theory and transient analysis from the University of Maryland and afterwards taught various electrical engineering courses at North Dakota Agricultural College (presently North Dakota State University) in Fargo.

In the early 1950s, Swanson went on to engineering work with Motorola, Inc. and Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., Stromberg-Carlson and later General Dynamics, both in Rochester, N.Y. With the radio station WCMF in Rochester, he carried out various engineering responsibilities and also served on the station’s board of directors.

Stan Swanson

Asked about early missions involvement, Swanson recalled that “members of our church paid for a trip to Quito and Panama to repair and install equipment that had been donated to HOXO.” The station in Panama, HOXO – The Voice of the Isthmus, was affiliated with HCJB Global. Swanson and his wife, Shirley, served with HOXO from 1969 to 1978.

After that, the Swansons and their sons moved to McAllen, TX, to work with radio station KVMV where Stan served from 1978 to 1984 as an engineer. He also filled in as interim manager for a few months. As other stations were added along the U.S.-Mexico border, the World Radio Network (WRN) was formed.

“Those of us who knew Stan and had the privilege of serving with him, will tell you that he was the model to which all missionary engineers should aspire,” said Glenn Lafitte, who was learning Spanish at the nearby Rio Grande Bible Institute in Edinburg when he first met Stan. Lafitte would go on to managerial roles in the network that included a supervisory role over Swanson years later.

Swanson served on a church board while living in Panama, also singing in choir in both Panama and McAllen. Later at a Laredo church, he served as a deacon. His varied interests included biblical archaeology and radio, which included tuning in distant FM stations or “DXing”. He enjoyed building new stations. Detail-oriented, he also counted among his interests, proofreading.

Describing Swanson as, “brilliant, hardworking and dedicated”, Lafitte, CEO of the World Radio Network, offered that “there are many people who know the Lord, and many others have grown in their faith, because of Stan’s ministry.”
Over the years Stan put several of the WRN stations on the air, including KBNL in Laredo, where the Swansons moved in 1984. It was this station that Lafitte later managed, with Swanson handling engineering responsibilities for the network. It was also in Laredo that Shirley Swanson died in 1989.

Swanson’s retirement at age 65 in 1993 didn’t mean that his ministry years were finished. In 2004, he moved to Yuma, Ariz., to serve at WRN station, KYRM FM and to be nearer his son, Douglas, daughter-in-law, Raquel, and grandson, Steve.

After a lengthy struggle with pancreatic cancer, Swanson died on December 26, 2011, in Yuma. It was 43 years after he and Shirley had arrived on December 27, 1968 in San Jose, Costa Rica to begin their career with HCJB Global by learning the Spanish language. His relationship with HCJB Global endured in one way or another from age 12 until his death at the age of 83.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife, Shirley, and by their first son, Kenneth. Survivors include a brother, Wesley Swanson, Elk Grove Village, a sister, Miriam Woodcock, Warren, MI, two sons Douglas (Raquel), Yuma AZ and David, College Station, TX, and a grandson.

I had the privilege of visiting Stan in Douglas’ home last month,” Lafitte recounted. “Although he was weak, we talked mostly about the technical and ministry needs of the WRN stations which were always uppermost in his mind. He was actively corresponding by e-mail about those issues up until less than three weeks ago.”
A memorial service for Stan Swanson will be held on Friday, December 30 at 3:00 pm at First Christian Church, 3261 S Avenue 6 E, near 32nd St and Araby, in Yuma. (Website: www.fccyuma.org.) Dwight Lind, Western Regional Director for World Radio Network, and Dr. Ted Haney, Chairman of the Board Emeritus of World Radio Network, will represent both missions with which Swanson had served.

Roberto Rojas

Soon after putting down his trumpet, Rojas was back to directing the choir and its accompanying “big band” once again during a weekend of concerts sponsored by Radio Station HCJB. More than 4,000 people attended the six performances Friday-Sunday, Dec. 2-4, in a celebration of two anniversaries.

In addition to commemorating the founding of Quito in 1534, the concerts featured a video. Brief and fast-paced, it summarized HCJB Global’s eight decades of ministry, culminating in a trombone duet of the mission’s signature hymn, celebrating God’s eternal faithfulness. The radio station began broadcasts on Christmas Day, 1931.

Peruvian born, Rojas has been in music ministry in Ecuador for decades. Seventy voices, mostly of Ecuadorian singers, made up his choir. The accompanying orchestra consisted of Canadians, Americans and Ecuadorians. A children’s choir of students from the Conservatorio Superior Nacional de Música and the Alliance Academy International included little Lottie Harrison whose British parents serve with HCJB Global.

Beginning with Himno a Quito (Homage to Quito), each concert saluted the Ecuadorian capital with several traditional songs with audience participation. One song, Mosaico Cubano (Cuban Mosaic), offered a Caribbean rhythm while the other songs represented musical representations from the Andean highlands.

Master of Ceremonies Mauricio Patiño provided continuity between the musical numbers. He also humored an onstage companion, Don Octogeranio Flores, an oversize jack-in-the-box capable of imitating the sounds of many Latin American accents.

Midway through the concert, drama took center stage in a black-lighted environment. The actors and dancers in flamboyantly colored costumes recreated the Pinocchio story to both entertain and evangelize, challenging people to consider God’s offer to give them new hearts.

After that, the Coro Vozandes presented eight villancicos (Christmas carols) plus a mosaic of traditional Ecuadorian folkloric songs that Rojas had arranged. A children’s choir performed one of the song segments, Cholito Jesús. The 2½-hour concerts continued a tradition first established by Radio Station HCJB in 1965 to thank and honor the station’s host city of Quito.

Establishing esprit de corps was critical for a 13-member group that worked in Haiti recently and a situation that might have deteriorated into discord instead turned out to be a template for success.

“The team was very diverse—really three separate groups of people—and for the most part we didn’t know each other before the trip,” said David Rhodes, project coordinator at the HCJB Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Ind. He led the ministry’s second team in six months to work on an orphanage of a partner ministry, Kids Alive International (KAI).

Team members from the HCJB Global Ministry Service Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the Technology Center along were joined by three friends of new missionaries Jeff and Jackie Benedict. Together they worked at KAI’s orphanage in Cap Haitien from Nov. 25 to Dec. 3. The team’s stated purpose was to help with a major construction project to build eight family-style homes at the organization’s Cap Haitien facilities in northern Haiti. But building relationships took high priority too.

“I was really pleased at how well the team bonded,” said Rhodes who had overseen some 60 work teams while serving as a KAI missionary with his wife, Connie, in Peru for eight years before joining HCJB Global in 2009. “The team members all had good hearts and just loved the children. It’s not always how much we accomplish that’s important, but other things too, like the effect the trip has on their personal Christian lives.”

Using funds that HCJB Global raised for relief after the devastating earthquake in January 2010 that killed more than 200,000 people in Port-au-Prince, the ministry took in 50 additional orphans soon after the quake, effectively tripling the orphanage’s enrollment. Most of the orphans are living with families in rented homes, but will move to the permanent structures as they become available.

“The work now is to create the facilities to house these children and to be able to provide for them,” explained Jeff VanDerMolen, regional director for KAI. “That’s what HCJB Global has been helping with….. The physical work that’s been accomplished is a huge blessing. Another really cool part of the teams is the way God can use a week to change somebody’s heart.”

HCJB Global's Nate Dell flings a scoop of dirt from the construction site.

Team members did everything from digging a pit for a septic tank to wiring, installing fixtures, sanding/painting, doing prep work for a concrete slab foundation, and holding a vacation Bible school (VBS).

“Because of the influence of Kids Alive, the local people welcomed us into their humble homes,” said Nate Dell, HCJB Global’s work team coordinator. “It was an eye-opening experience for us to see the Kids Alive program at work. The interaction with those kids was a lot of fun. Some of the homes we visited will be replaced by the ones that we helped to build.”

Preparing the hole for the septic tank was especially challenging. “There was no backhoe, and we had to chuck the dirt 15 feet into the air. [Before the trip] I must have been shoveling snow to get ready!” chuckled Dell who lives with his wife, Rachelle, in Kremmling, Colo.

A touching moment came when Dell encouraged the team’s youngest member, 14-year-old Kyle Larson, to help some Haitian laborers mix and pour concrete. “Later that day Kyle shared that at first he felt intimidated helping the Haitians. He said, ‘I’d never done anything like that before! But by the end of the day I didn’t see them as Haitians, but as part of the crew.’ Then he added, ‘I’m a little bit more color blind now!’”

Another opportunity opened when KAI’s compactor, used to pack the ground for the cement slab foundation, broke down. “This was a very important piece of equipment,” explained IT worker Ron With who served on the team with his wife, Theresa, from Colorado Springs. But he just “happened” to have a background as an automotive mechanic, and Dell had experience in small-engine repair.

“We took the compactor to the shop and figured out what was wrong,” With said. “We repaired some gaskets and were able to get it working. We also ordered parts for the next team to bring down. It was critical to get this compactor working because the next team would pour cement.”

Another opportunity opened when KAI’s compactor, used to pack the ground for the cement slab foundation, broke down. “This was a very important piece of equipment,” explained IT worker Ron With who served on the team with his wife, Theresa, from Colorado Springs. But he just “happened” to have a background as an automotive mechanic, and Dell had experience in small-engine repair.

“We took the compactor to the shop and figured out what was wrong,” With said. “We repaired some gaskets and were able to get it working. We also ordered parts for the next team to bring down. It was critical to get this compactor working because the next team would pour cement.”

Rhodes added that with eight of the 13 team members being women, it was an ideal opportunity to offer VBS, with translation, to the orphans. “We taught songs and Scriptures in Creole,” related Theresa With. “The kids loved the songs and even wrote the lyrics down on their hands. They memorized the Scriptures and songs by the end of class time, and Jackie Benedict presented the stories. I can’t say enough about her amazing gift and passion for child evangelism.”

“On the last day we did a drama that [HCJB Global appointee] Kendra Larson wrote,” added Jessica TenBrink from Colorado Springs. The VBS also included arts and crafts projects that the team brought down, including socks to make hand puppets and yarn to make crosses. “They had so much fun, and the teachers were excited too.”

In addition, team members had the opportunity to visit another partner, Radio 4VEH, a ministry of One Mission Society in Cap Haitien. HCJB Global engineers have helped with various technical projects at the partner station throughout its 60-year history.

David Russell, director of the Technology Center, said the work with KAI is well worth the effort. “The investment in the lives of Haitian children is an important step toward developing well-rounded, Christ-anchored adults who will one day be able to lead their nation toward a prosperous future.”

From quiet counsel with pastors in a prayer room to clowning around not far away, the staff of Radio Station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador offered visitors a three-day open house known as Mision Compartida. As missionary Américo Saavedra ambled around the station’s campus, mingling with the crowds, he snapped photos of the fun and frolic.

Misión Compartida is a radio sharathon in which donated items include chickens, goats and guinea pigs, as well as cash donations.

A gallery of memorabalia from HCJB Global's history adorns the walls of the Larson Conference Center. Misión Compartida on Dec. 9-11 was one way that HCJB Global celebrated the 80th anniversary of its founding in 1931.

Pictured left to right at Misión Compartida: Marian Douce, Wayne and Norma Pederson, Tammy Kooistra, Marina Chico.

As Norma Pederson, the wife of HCJB Global’s president, pitched in to dismantle tents in Quito, Ecuador, it was apparent that she grasped just how much work goes into staging a successful radio sharathon.

Norma and her husband, Wayne Pederson, helped Radio Station HCJB in Quito and HCJB-2 (La Conexión) in Guayaquil with sharathons that concluded last weekend. Wayne told of being “totally impressed and pleased with the team here … and so honored to be part of what God is doing in Latin America.”

“It’s not just a fundraising event but a major community happening with a children’s tent, health screenings, games, a food tent and [promotional] gift items,” Pederson said of Misión Compartida, which means “shared mission.” At Radio Station HCJB in north Quito, a dozen or so tents dotted the parking lot and lawn. Live programming with talk and laughter, music in Quichua and Spanish and more emanated from the Larson Conference Center on the station’s campus.

Horst Rosiak (facing control room) introduces a Quichua women's choral group.

From a studio adjacent to the conference center earlier that day, Quichua language program hosts had invited listeners to the gala event. The Pedersons, who both grew up in rural Minnesota, were impressed by Ecuador’s Quichua people who donated items such as chickens, goats and guinea pigs. At an open bazaar in conjunction with Misión Compartida, these animals were sold along with other in-kind donations.

The Dec. 9-11 event in Quito saw station staff hosting more than 6,000 visitors as the mission celebrated the 80th anniversary of its founding in 1931. “Sometimes 40 or 50 people would arrive at once,” said Anabella Cabezas, director of media for the Latin America Region. To hear listeners tell of the stations’ impact in their lives brought joy to members of the staff.

Offering something for everybody, the event drew folks from around Ecuador even as others tuned in via radio or the Internet. “The on-air event included live music with hundreds gathered in Larson Center, noisily praising God,” Wayne Pederson said.”The on-air hosts were energetic, professional and passionate.”

Many Ecuadorians stopped by to give what they could, even as on-air personalities announced the climb toward the stated fundraising goal of US$280,000. Others arrived to pray for the stations with members of local churches who staffed a prayer room. In a large room nearby, visitors quietly shared either joys or pains of their lives, and then staff members prayed with them. Some 72 people at the event in Quito gave their lives to Jesus Christ.

Others crowded into the conference center to join an ever-changing group that made up the live studio audience throughout the three-day event. On the second day, Geoff Kooistra, Media Services Director for HCJB-AM and HCJB-FM in Quito reported a “steady stream of calls” from listeners to make pledges. On the same day in Guayaquil, partner station HCJB-2 was finishing up its own sharathon event.

From the Guayaquil station, Radio Training Director Allen Graham posted to Facebook, “Thank you, Jesus! Guayaquil just completed 100 percent of our goal for Misión Compartida! We are now in a special campaign to raise the funds to replace the tower for our main frequency.” A year ago La Conexión surpassed its fundraising goal, and listeners also pledged some $4,000 for a different broadcast tower.

On Sunday evening when a local musician, Vico Rodríguez, led the Quito crowd in singing a Spanish version of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” large video screens in Larson Center displayed a total of $263,000—gifts and pledges to help meet the operating budget of the Quito stations. “This was 90 percent of our goal,” Cabezas said. “Usually [each] year, we get 120 percent of what was pledged.”

Cabezas said afterward that she sees the fundraising successes in Ecuador as indicative of a maturing church. “One thing that God is doing in our midst is that my people (Ecuadorians) are learning to give because the time of receiving has passed.”

The first Misión Compartida was held in January 2000, a radical departure from the mission’s funding procedures in previous decades. Historically, the stations’ costs had been covered by the mission. Reflecting upon strategic changes in the funding streams, Pederson said, “People said it couldn’t be done—that Latinos would never donate to support their station. This year HCJB-AM, HCJB-FM and HCJB-2 raised a total of $400,000 for the ministry!”