New Video

Hi all,

I wanted to let you know that HCJB Global in Latin America has just posted a new video to YouTube that I would invite you to watch. We made it initially in Spanish and decided to translate it to English as well. It describes our ministries in Media quite well and shows the diversity of ministries that we have in Latin America. We also have the video on DVD that we can make available to you all if you would like a copy. The DVD has higher video quality. I would encourage you to share the video with your churches, friends, family, mission groups, etc.

What the video does not show you are our plans to move more into digital media in the future. We have been talking for a long time about how we can begin to really use the internet for ministry in the future. Some of those ideas are beginning to come together and we hope to start using some things like FaceBook, podcasting, internet streaming, etc in the near future to create new audiences. We do need to be careful that we create ministries that we can sustain financially in the future, and that is our biggest obstacle at the moment. If anyone has experience in these areas or some good ideas to toss our way, by all means write to us on e-mail. We would love to hear your ideas.

OK, just click on one of the links below to watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVI1UnKkOCQ - English version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOQ4jOp-ArM - Spanish version

Doug

Tall Towers

Hi all,

Many of you have heard us talk about the fact that HCJB Global had an agreement to remove our tall shortwave towers in Ecuador. We completed that effort at the end of December as agreed upon with the Airport authorities in the country. These towers were the tallest ones that we had on the property, but that does not mean that we are no longer broadcasting on shortwave. We still have 14 antennas on the property that were not affected by the agreement. We will continue to operate on these antennas until some time in the future. However, we will eventually stop broadcasting from this site all together.

January is a fairly "normal" month. It is somewhat of a catch-up month for many of us at the radio station as December is so busy with special activities. It is also a time of evaluating the events that occurred in December. For instance we found that 4,584 people attended our 3-day "Mision Compartida 2008" event. We have as many as 2,246 donors, and 86% of those donors are women. We also discovered that in spite of the financial crisis our donors gave 37% more by the end of December than they did last year. That is a real blessing although we are certainly not out of the woods yet financially.

It was great to have Rachel home for the holidays in December. We enjoyed catching up on each others activities during the previous months of separation. One of the kid's traditions at Christmas time is to make ginger bread houses. You can see Rachel's creation here. Rachel seems to be enjoying college and has made some good friends. She left for the US again on Jan 1 to attend the "January term"
at Huntington University. She was involved in a mime class during that month. She really seemed to enjoy that. She is back in normal classes again now.

Thank you all for praying for us and for the very generous Christmas gifts that many of you sent us this year. We feel very blessed to have each of you on our team as we serve the Lord here in Latin America. It has been a difficult several years for us, but we are encouraged that this new year will bring new opportunities for reaching Latin America for Christ and helping others do the same. Thanks for being part of the team. We appreciate every one of you.

Doug

Mision Compartida 2008

Mision Compartida is HCJB Global's Latin America radio-thon/open house. It is a time when we invite our local listeners in Ecuador to share in the mision of reaching the world for Christ. They are invited to not only contribute but to come to the radio statin in Quito and visit us. And they do come... thousands come during the 3-day event.

One of our goals as a radio ministry is to awaken the local church to the spiritual needs that exist in other parts of the world. So this year we included a tent where local Ecuadorian missionaries could share about their ministry with our visitors. Ten percent of our income from the radio-thon also goes to support these same missionaries. The tent was very popular especially when some of the missionaries dressed in the native clothing of their host countries. Several of these missionaries serve in Central Asia, India and the jungles of the Amazon Basin in South America.

The children's tent was another big hit. A local church volunteered to run the program. A local Word of Life group also came one day and presented a drama for the kids. All of the programs were very evangelistic in nature and the programs seemed to be as popular with the parents as it was with the kids. Face painting, and ballons were also part of the attraction for the kids

Our financial goal for this year was $190,000. We fell short of that during the 3-day event, having only received about $145,000 in pledges. However, several churches have informed us that they plan to raise money for us today in their Sunday services. We always receive more pledges throughout the month of December too, as some people cannot participate in the event itself every year.

We have been making a real effort in the last 5 years to work more closely with the local church and a change in attitiude from the local pastors was evident this year throughout the event. We had local pastors helping us in our counselling center and on the air, and volunteers came each day to just pray for the hundreds of prayer requests that came in with the donations. It was very impressive to me to walk by the intercessory prayer room and see several older ladies on their knees praying for our listeners and the ministry of HCJB Global world wide.

Please be in prayer that God will continue to touch hearts and continue to work through us to change the world by impacting Latin America for Christ.

Thanks,

Doug

Quito Day Concerts

Hi all,

Last weekend, HCJB presented their annual concert to honor the anniversary of the city of Quito and to honor our Lord's birth. The concerts were presented on Thurs, Fri, and Sunday at a local theater in the heart of colonial Quito. HCJB has used the birthday of Quito as a pretext for sharing the gospel since 1965. This year the concerts included a strong gospel message which tied Christ's birth to His redemptive work on the cross in a very clear presentation. We pray that many will be impacted by this message and search for the Lord during this Christmas season.

Today, the same choir that did the concerts, was invited to the presidential palace to sing for the Vice President and the palace staff. The President of Ecuador is not in the country today. We were invited as part of a catholic tradition called "The Novena". Each day for nine days, some different part of the birth of Christ is presented. Today was the first day of the Novena. We pray that our participation in this celebration of Christ's birth will impact our leaders to follow our Lord as they govern the country.

Tomorrow the churches of Ecuador have organized a breakfast for the Vice President and many government officials. The pretext is the presentation of a new book by Alberto Montessi, a Christian author and Bible teacher. HCJB will sponsor two tables at the event. Again the goal of this breakfast is to impact our political leaders with the gospel of Christ. Please pray for that impact.

Finally, Mision Compartida 2008, HCJB's annual fund raiser event, begins on Thurs this week. During this event we have thousands of listeners who visit the radio station, many of whom give financially to the ministry over a period of 3 days. Please pray that we can be a blessing to all those who come to visit us from Thurs through Sunday.

Thanks,

Doug

Leadership Summit

Hi all,

Yesterday and today I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit here in Quito. The summit is actually done in Aug and then recorded and translated into Spanish. It is translated into many languages and presented all over the world in 52 different countries, if I remember correctly. This is the first time I have attended the summit. Last year was the first year we had the summit here in Quito.

Several of my radio team members also attended the summit. Leadership is a big topic in Latin America, just as it is in north America. I have spent a lot of time reading leadership books over the years, and after a while you begin to figure out that everyone basically says the same thing. You also begin to figure out that Christian character is probably the most important ingredient there is for leadership.

If that is true, where are all the Christian leaders? Shouldn't we be leading the world? Shouldn't we be leading the best corporations? Shouldn't we be impacting the world like no one else has?

I don't have the answer to that question. But it sure makes you stop and think a bit. If my Christian faith is really the best basis for leadership, then I should probably stop spending so much money on leadership books and start spending more time reading and studying my Bible. No wait... maybe I need to start applying what I know from my years of studying the Bible to the real life situations that I run in to every day.

There are so many ways that we could start moving into the future. There are so many paths that are available to us these days in media. There are so many audiences out there that have never existed before. So which direction do we go? Who do we go after first? What technology do we use to reach them? I have lots of ideas and dreams swimming around in my head. Will you pray for direction for our leadership team? We need the Lord to direct our steps and to provide the financial and personnel resources we need to move in to the future. We need your prayers for God's guidance in a world that keeps creating new ways to communicate with each other.

Doug