80 years of HCJB Global

For 80 years, the passion of HCJB Global has been making disciples of Jesus Christ.

Using mass media and health care, and working with partners around the world, HCJB Global has ministered with partners in more than 100 countries.

The gospel is aired in more than 120 languages and dialects. Thousands of healthcare patients are meeting Jesus and local believers are being trained as missionaries, pastors, broadcasters and health care providers.

This pioneer missionary radio broadcaster is celebrating its 80th anniversary this month.

The ministry has come a long way since the first broadcast from its flagship station in Quito, Ecuador, on Christmas Day, 1931.

It has expanded its gospel outreach through a network of radio stations, Christ-centred health care and leadership development in the scores of nations it reaches throughout Latin America and beyond.

Wayne Pederson, president of HCJB Global, said the ministry's focus is on "equipping and mobilising" for outreach.

"A lot of exciting things are happening this anniversary year," said Pederson.

"We're still touching hundreds of thousands of lives through the broadcasts. And our hospitals don't exist just to train medical professionals. We also exist to help people who are hurting."

HCJB Global began with Clarence Jones, a Moody Bible Institute graduate who felt called to use broadcasting to minister to Latin America. Armed with permission from officials in Ecuador to establish a radio station there with the call letters HCJB - Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings or, in Spanish, Hoy Cristo Jesús Bendice (Today Christ Jesus Blesses) - Jones began the ministry's first broadcast by playing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" on his trombone on December 25, 1931. It was the world's first missionary radio station and the first radio station in Ecuador with daily programmes.

Such humble beginnings, using a tiny 200-watt transmitter in Quito, hardly foreshadowed the growth that followed. In addition to traditional broadcasting HCJB Global has used shortwave and satellite radio, as well as the Internet.

Now through its innovative "radio planting" efforts, the ministry comes alongside local ministries worldwide that wish to launch Christian radio ministries in their communities.

HCJB Global provides equipment, technical and programming support and training, assisted in part through its Global Technology Center in Elkhart, Indiana, while each location operates independently with its own governance, programmers and follow-up strategy. As a result, millions hear the gospel in more than 120 languages and dialects from nearly 400 partner stations in about 100 countries.

HCJB Global launched its medical ministry to complement its mass media outreach. It opened its first Indian clinic in Quito in 1950 - the start of an extensive health care outreach that now includes two hospitals, satellite and mobile clinics, as well as community development and training ministries in Ecuador.

The health care ministry extends far beyond South America, however, with HCJB Global medical teams traveling in recent years to aid tsunami victims in Asia and Haitians reeling from the 2010 earthquake. The medical teams also worked with media partners in Sub-Saharan Africa to initiate village healthcare outreaches and clean-water well installations in conjunction with their radio ministries.

The ministry's outreach doesn't end there. The "Turn the Radios On" project, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has resulted in the distribution of more than 41,000 fixed-tuned radios going to people in need in 27 countries on five continents. Through leadership training and a focus on reaching the unreached, HCJB Global also empowers local believers throughout the world to "be the voice and hands of Jesus" and touch lives in their own communities.

"We're still coming alongside local believers and equipping them to do what we've been doing for 80 years: reaching people for Christ through mass media and health care," Pederson said.

"Now we're using new media to reach the next generation with the gospel.

"More and more doors are opening, even in 'closed' countries. We just pray we'll be nimble enough to go through those doors when they open."