(Jan. 13, 2012 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) What can be accomplished in a radio program that lasts just two minutes?

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, Corrientes has already mobilized several Latinos who are doing cross-cultural Christian work in different places around the world.

Source: HCJB Global

(Jan. 6, 2012 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) Three Ecuadorians and a Dominican were recognized for longtime ministry work in a Dec. 16 commemorative observance in Quito, Ecuador, to mark the 80th anniversary of HCJB Global.

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 cofounders, 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 also 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.

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, Pastor José “Chema” Reinoso and his wife, Carmen, of Atlanta 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.

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 early 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.

Sources: HCJB Global, www.emmytvlegends.org

(Dec. 29, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) As the son of an engineer, Stanley “Stan” Russell 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.

Stan Swanson 1928-2011

In the early 1950s, Stan 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. At Radio Station WCMF in Rochester he carried out various engineering responsibilities and also served on the station’s board of directors.

Asked about his early missions involvement, Stan 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.” Stan and his wife, Shirley, served at HOXO, one of HCJB Global’s partner ministries, from 1969 to 1978.

After that, the Swanson family moved to McAllen, Texas, 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), a cooperating ministry of HCJB Global, 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 Stan years later.

Stan served on a church board while living in Panama, also singing in choirs in both Panama and McAllen. Later at a Laredo church, he served as a deacon. His varied interests included biblical archaeology and radio, including the hobby of listening to distant stations or “DXing.” He enjoyed building new stations. Detail-oriented, he also counted among his interests, proofreading.

Describing Stan as “brilliant, hardworking and dedicated,” Lafitte, WRN’s chief executive officer, offered that “there are many people who know the Lord, and many others have grown in their faith, because of Stan’s ministry.”

Throughout 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 Stan handling engineering responsibilities for the network. It was also in Laredo that his wife, Shirley, died in 1989.

Stan’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 and to be nearer his son, Douglas, daughter-in-law, Raquel, and grandson, Steve. Douglas and Raquel formerly served as missionaries with HCJB Global and WRN at KYRM.

After a lengthy struggle with pancreatic cancer, Stan died on Dec. 26, 2011, in Yuma. It was 43 years after he and Shirley had arrived on Dec. 27, 1968, in San José, Costa Rica, to begin their career with HCJB Global by studying the Spanish language. His 71-year relationship with HCJB Global endured in one way or another from age 12 until his death at the age of 83.

In addition to his wife, he was preceded in death by his son, Kenneth. Survivors include two sons, Douglas Swanson and his wife, Raquel, and David Swanson, as well as one grandson, Steve Swanson.

“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 email about those issues until less than three weeks ago.”

A memorial service for Stan Swanson will be held at 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 30, at First Christian Church in Yuma. Dwight Lind, director of WRN’s western region, and Ted Haney, chairman of the World Radio Network board, will represent both missions with which Stan had served.

Sources: HCJB Global, World Radio Network

(Dec. 23, 2011 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) The trombone goes silent as the large screen video fades to black, only to have a lone trumpeter step into the spotlight, taking up “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” where the recorded audio left off. For the moment, Roberto Rojas has set aside conducting the Coro Vozandes (Vozandes Choir) to perform before an audience in the elegant National Sucre Theater in Quito, Ecuador.

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.

Source: HCJB Global
Photo credits: Wesley Dean, Martin Harrison