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Press Room
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Welcome to the HCJB Global Press Room. Please bookmark this section as a key resource on all news updates and information on our organization and our global efforts.
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(Dec. 9, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) Ecuador’s Ministry of Health is getting assistance from physicians at HCJB Global Hands’ Hospital Vozandes-Quito (HVQ) to help quell an outbreak of rabies in a remote area of the country’s Amazon region.
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An Achuar tribal member receives a vaccination at a
health center in Wampuik in Ecuador's Morona-Santiago
province. |
On Wednesday, Dec. 7, Dr. Mark Nelson, together with personnel from the Ministry of Health, traveled from Ecuador’s capital to Morona-Santiago province where the virus recently claimed its 12th victim.
The following day from Taisha he called his wife, Dr. Laurie Nelson, to say that he and others were coordinating radio promotions and a vaccination campaign. Some 240 health workers have arrived in Taisha to attend to more than 50,000 people in a 12-mile area around the canton.
 The rabies outbreak began nearly three weeks ago among the Achuar people in and around the community of Taisha. Children have also died in the Achuar communities of Tarimiat and Tsurit Nuevo in the canton of Taisha. Others have been hospitalized in Macas after displaying symptoms such as convulsions, fever, headaches and drooling. The communities are accessible by air or canoe, but not by motor vehicle.
HVQ’s medical director, Dr. Richard Douce, is also assisting with investigations into the outbreak. Newspaper reports consistently attribute the rabies to vampire bats that inhabit the area. Douce is an infectious diseases specialist, and Nelson, a family physician, speaks basic Achuar and served on numerous mobile medical clinics in the jungle while working at Hospital Vozandes-Shell.
Staff members from HCJB Global Hands responded to the crisis after being contacted last weekend by an Ecuadorian physician, Dr. Natalia Romero, who graduated and later taught in HVQ’s family practice residency program. She now works as director of epidemiology in the Ministry of Health.
On Thursday, Dec. 8, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa declared a 60-day health state of emergency in the Taisha canton as well as a dozen surrounding communities.
Rabies can be contracted by all mammals and is fatal. It manifests itself either as paralytic rabies or as furious rabies (also known as classic rabies or canine rabies), according to Encarta Encyclopedia.
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| Common vampire bat |
A vampire bat inflicts wounds with razor-sharp teeth while the subject sleeps, then laps blood for several minutes. Most often bats ingest the blood of livestock, birds and other mammals and “rarely on humans.” But in Ecuador’s jungle where people sleep in open-sided shelters, bat bites are not uncommon.
The Achuar of southeastern Ecuador and northeastern Peru belong to the Jivaroan language family. Their language is similar to that of their relatives and once-mortal enemies, the Shuar, formerly known as the Jívaro.
Previously, in November 2005, Hospital Vozandes-Shell received a rabies victim. Douce then responded to a Ministry of Health request to investigate rabies in Jatun Molino in Ecuador’s eastern province of Pastaza. Seven people died in that outbreak.
Sources: HCJB Global, El Comercio, Encarta Encyclopedia
Photo Credits: El Comercio, National Geographic |
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(Dec. 9, 2011 - by Harold Goerzen) Amateur radio operators who listened to shortwave broadcasts from Radio Station HCJB, the Voice of the Andes, in Quito, Ecuador, will have an opportunity to make contact with the mission during a special weeklong event beginning Saturday, Dec. 10.
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Ham radio operators Dan Caesar (seated, NI9Y)
and Wayne Huhta (W8GXB) prepare for the
special event. |
“The purpose of this special event is to reconnect with countless thousands of shortwave radio enthusiasts who listened to those international broadcasts,” said David Russell, director of the HCJB Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Ind., that will host the event. “We have people lined up to operate the station that has been given the special call sign of W9H.”
Many amateur radio enthusiasts worldwide attribute their interest in the hobby to an enjoyable experience they had of tuning in to distant broadcasts from Radio Station HCJB’s shortwave transmission facility in Ecuador that ended broadcasts in November 2009 after 58 years.
“The special event ham radio station aims to spread goodwill among this group and to inform them of the existence of the Technology Center,” added Russell. “It’s appropriate that we do this on the eve of major milestones in the life of our organization—the 80th anniversary of HCJB’s initial broadcasts and the 25th anniversary of the mission’s technical services arm, the HCJB Global Technology Center.”
Participants will receive a special QSL (listener confirmation) card and brochure. For more information, visit http://www.arrl.org/Events/view/37794.
Source: HCJB Global |
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(Dec. 2, 2011 - by Harold Goerzen) For eight years local believers in the remote town of Banyo in the West African country of Cameroon had been planning and praying for a local Christian station to go on the air. Saturday, Nov. 5, that dream became a reality through a cooperative effort with HCJB Global.
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Joseph Kebbie (seated), training coordinator
for the Sub-Saharan Africa Region, provides
tips to staff members at the new station. |
“When we got this station on the air, I saw a lot of joy among the local people and I almost shed tears,” said Liberian missionary Joseph Kebbie, training coordinator for the mission’s Sub-Saharan Africa Region.
The station’s building is across the street from the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) hospital which may be the first medical ministry in Africa to launch a Christian radio station with help from HCJB Global. A Banyo-based organization called Transformational Ministries also helped with the installation.
“What a great picture of the ‘voice and hands’ of Jesus to the community of Banyo in the hills of northern Cameroon!” exclaimed Jeremy Maller, projects coordinator. “This is the only radio station in the entire area that is providing listeners with Christian content.”
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Joseph Kebbie (left) and
Jeremy Maller. |
The two men’s excitement was evident to Regional Director Lee Sonius in Accra, Ghana, when he heard that the test broadcasts had begun. “I could tell that Jeremy and Joseph are sky high,” he said. “I know the feeling well, having been in the same situation a number of times. It is a thrill to be on hand when the switch is flipped on the transmitter and the airwaves come to life with the gospel message!”
The station, called Radio Sawtu Jam Jamanu (Radio Voice of Peace for This Generation) is on the air four hours daily, broadcasting news, community-based shows and Christian programming in three languages: Fulfuldé, English and French. The 600-watt FM transmitter was shipped from the HCJB Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Ind.
Staff members took turns behind the microphone, announcing that programming was ready to be heard. “They began asking people in the community to call in and let them know they were getting the station, and the calls started coming in,” Maller explained.
More than 50,000 people are within listening range of the station in Banyo, a town in northern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria.
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Engineer Jeremy Maller (center)
helps with the installation. |
“To test the reach of the signal, one of the radio staff members took me on a motorcycle to the next town with a small handheld radio that could be found in any local market,” Maller continued. “We were not getting our hopes up that we would be able to hear the station well, but when we reached that community we were happy to hear Radio Sawtu coming through very well.”
In March 2011 Maller traveled to Cameroon to meet with the prospective radio staff and do a site survey. In the months leading up to the installation, the radio team in Banyo began preparing the studios and raised the tower.
 “Joseph and I then traveled to Banyo at the beginning of November to help with the installation,” he said. “It took more than a full day of travel to get to Banyo after a flight from Accra to Douala, a bus ride to Yaounde and then a flight to Banyo on a six-seat, single-propeller plane.”
“When we arrived on the dirt airstrip, we were greeted by the local community members as well as the radio staff and two missionaries who had been supporting the process of establishing the station from its beginning eight years ago,” Maller related. “At one point the missionaries were ready to concede that the government would not grant the license. But some local believers took over the effort and helped push the process the rest of the way to allow the station to go on the air.”
 The station encountered many obstacles along the way. “One challenge they faced was putting up a 60-foot radio tower without any equipment to lift it,” he explained. “Instead of using heavy machinery, a group of local Cameroonians gathered around the tower and literally pushed and pulled it up into place!”
HCJB Global will continue to be available to provide technical support, and “subsequent training will definitely follow,” Kebbie said.
“It was so good to be part of a project like this,” he added. “It’s more than just history, it’s telling His story—the story of God’s love.”
Source: HCJB Global |
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(Nov. 25, 2011) On a Monday afternoon earlier this year Steve Wilson, director of HCJB Global Hands’ Hospital Vozandes-Shell (HVO) in Ecuador, was in his office when the chaplain, Pastor Henry Cabrera, hurriedly came by his office.
 “Could I borrow the hospital truck to go pick up Marta?” he asked. “There has been some sort of explosion, and her grandson is in the emergency room.”
“Of course,” Wilson answered. “Go get her!”
He was talking about Marta Aguinda who works in the HVO guesthouse about a quarter of a mile from the jungle hospital. It was 3 p.m., so Wilson told him that he should look for her on the road because she was probably on her way home.
“I went to the emergency room a few minutes later,” Wilson related. “Pastor Henry and Marta had just arrived. I soon found out that two of Marta’s grandsons were injured—not just one. Apparently they had been playing behind the house where they found ‘something like dynamite,’ lit a match to it and it exploded.”
 The older boy, Justin, 7, had lost both his hands in the explosion, and had some damage to his eyes. His cousin, Arón, 5, was also injured but not as badly.
“I arrived just in time to see Justin wheeled rapidly out of the emergency room, heading for surgery,” Wilson explained. “Then I went into Pastor Henry’s office where we spent some time crying and praying.”
He added that Marta’s two daughters (the boys’ mothers) both have part-time, unsteady work. “One is a single mom, and the husband of the other is a bricklayer who also has part-time unsteady work,” he continued.
“They all live with Marta who is the only one with a full-time job. But Marta was out of work the entire month of February due to back problems. She had to take out a loan to pay for her medical bills since she had received care at another hospital.”
 Within about two weeks, both boys were released from the hospital. Arón has made a full recovery, but Justin continues to need follow-up care as he adjusts to life without hands. The rest of his body is healing physically, but he has a lesion on his neck that will need further surgery. This fall Justin was also expected to be fitted with two prostheses.
Wilson added that since the family was unable to afford medical care for the two boys, the cost of their surgeries and other care was made possible through donated funds from HVO’s Charity Fund.
Source: HCJB Global Hands |
(Nov. 25, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) For Oscar Aguirre, a 10-minute transaction on a Quito street meant freshly shined shoes after a Sunday-morning church service. But to this young businessman, the December 2000 encounter meant so much more. Juan Alpapucho, the boy working on Aguirre’s shoes, needed more than enough pay to buy a few pieces of bread.
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Juan Alpapucho as a boy
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Work as a shoeshine boy provided little for Alpapucho who hadn’t had a decent meal in days. “I invited him for breakfast,” Aguirre related. As Alpapucho ate bread and yogurt, the two talked, and the young boy accepted Aguirre’s invitation to attend a Spanish-language church that same morning.
At first Aguirre felt shame. Until then he’d done nothing for Ecuador’s poor, but decisive action followed. Soon he had the ear of the board members at English Fellowship Church, and from the pulpit he had the ear of the church’s international congregation in Ecuador’s capital city. Among those who volunteered time, money and other resources was HCJB Global missionary David Tippett.
In February 2001 Tippett, Aguirre and others shared a message from the Bible, then served the first Pan de Vida breakfast to 20 people in the Tippetts’ carport. Hence the ministry, Pan de Vida (Bread of Life), was birthed, with help from various ministries: Alliance Academy International, English Fellowship Church, Extreme Response, Hospital Vozandes-Quito, Samaritan’s Purse and HCJB Global.
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| David Tippett |
What began with plates of scrambled eggs with ham, rice, a banana, a piece of bread and glasses of milk and fruit juice has grown, Aguirre recounted at a special event in October to commemorate the ministry’s 10th anniversary.
At its facilities near Radio Station HCJB, Pan de Vida recently built two new bathrooms. Additionally, the cooking area was enlarged into an industrial kitchen used to prepare thousands of meals every year. The new kitchen was expected to be ready in October.
 Education has become a big part of Pan de Vida, helping participants break out of a cycle of poverty. While Ecuador’s government provides textbooks to schoolchildren, costs of school supplies must be met by the students’ families. This year Pan de Vida distributed 124 vouchers each worth US$25 to school-aged children of the ministry’s beneficiaries.
Healthcare needs were met in part at the HCJB Global Hands’ satellite clinic, Clínica La Y, which conducted school physicals, vision screening and dental exams as well as laboratory work.
In the spring and summer quarters of 2011, more than 5,000 people heard God’s Word preached via Pan de Vida and received a hot meal through the midweek feeding program. Eighty-one attendees received medical vouchers, and 131 needy families received food bags. Another 460 people attended a Saturday children’s and adult education program.
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| Juan Alpapucho |
The harsh realities of crime, addictions and abuse still face many Ecuadorians, but Pan de Vida gathers in many each week for a dose of hope along with the help. The city’s hard edge touches everyone, but it fatally pierced Alpapucho a decade later on July 8, 2011. Working as a cab driver, he was ferrying three passengers who assaulted him to steal the car. Resisting his attackers, Alpapucho was shot and later died. He is survived by a young wife and two small children.
“He was a good, honest man who knew the Lord and shared the Lord with his family,” said Aguirre in a ministry newsletter. “Please pray for Juan’s wife and children. We pray that God will always watch over them, that they will grow to know the Lord, and that God’s provision will always be over them.”
Another boy, Jonathan, also received help through Pan de Vida. Growing up as children of alcoholics, Jonathan and his siblings were often left to fend for themselves at home for days—usually without food. Jonathan was forced to sell candy in the streets to provide food for his siblings and himself.
His family found out about Pan de Vida soon after the ministry started. Initially, the family came just for the free meals, but as Aguirre asserts, “the Lord uses every opportunity to reveal Himself to us, and for little Jonathan the Word of God took root in his heart.”
Five years ago, when Jonathan's mom became ill and needed an operation to save her life, the young boy implored her to pray and seek the Lord. “Something happened through that experience that we can only give credit to God for—they put their faith in God!” exclaimed Aguirre. Both Jonathan’s mom and his stepdad have been sober ever since. They’ve also found work, joined Ecuador’s social security plan and paid off debts. In addition, the mother has been a student in a microbusiness sewing project.
What could have been dismissed as a meaningless 10-minute encounter, 10 years later is a ministry offering help and hope to Ecuador’s poor.
Source: HCJB Global |
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