At the radio station Clarence relied heavily on Reuben and Grace Larson for help with the Spanish programming. Not long after Clarence’s return from vacation, however, tragedy struck the Larsons. Grace gave birth to a baby, but the child did not live long. After the ordeal, Grace went to stay at Quinta Corston, where Katherine could help her recover from the loss. Despite Katherine’s best efforts, Grace’s mental and physical health did not greatly improve. By mid-1934 Reuben was so worried about his wife that he decided to take her back to the United States to get more medical attention. The decision was a blow to Clarence. Not only did it add to his workload at the radio station, but also Clarence took over many of Reuben’s missionary duties for the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
In fact, it was taking care of one of these duties that nearly cost Clarence his life. Clarence was keeping an eye on things in Dos Ríos and was on his way back to Quito after delivering supplies when disaster struck. The guides had risen early, around 4:00 AM, and had set off in the dark along the narrow horse trail carved from the mountainside. Clarence was bringing up the rear of the group as they made their way along. It had rained during the night, and the trail was slippery. Clarence’s horse suddenly stumbled on the treacherous trail and slid right over the edge, taking Clarence with it.
Clarence barely had time to take in what had happened. One moment he was riding along the trail on the back of his horse, and suddenly the next moment he and his horse were falling toward the floor of the canyon over one thousand feet below. Clarence had not even been able to open his mouth and utter a desperate prayer or a scream to alert the others to his fate, when the horse’s bridle caught on a branch of a tree, jerking the animal. The jerk was enough to change the trajectory of their fall, and horse and rider collapsed onto a small ledge. The horse was splayed across Clarence’s left leg, pinning Clarence in place. Immediately he called out to the guides, who had been riding ahead of him, but there was no response. Clarence began to fret that this was the end. He was trapped on a narrow ledge in the dark with his horse lying on top of him, and no one knew where he was. One wrong move by him or the horse could quickly send them both off the ledge and careening again toward the canyon bottom. The minutes passed slowly as Clarence silently prayed and wondered what to do while trying to keep the shocked horse calm.
Dawn began to break across the Andes, affording Clarence his first view of the situation. It was more precarious than he had imagined. The ledge was so small that he was amazed they had actually landed on it and stopped falling. The early dawn light also illuminated the only means of escape, back up the steep rock face to the trail above. But before he could try that, he had to get the horse off him without falling off the ledge himself. Clarence was just about to try when he heard someone calling. “Are you there? Can we help you?”
“Yes. Down here! Come and help get this horse off me,” he yelled back, trying not to spook the horse.
Moments later the faces of his guides appeared over the edge of the trail above. Clarence had never been more delighted to see them than he was at that moment. The guides quickly sized up the situation, lowered a rope, and carefully climbed down to the ledge. Clarence was not quite sure how the guides managed to do it, but somehow, with one of them taking the horse by the head and the other holding it by the tail, they skillfully encouraged the animal back up onto the trail a hundred feet above. Then they helped Clarence back up to the trail, where he discovered that his left leg was stiff and bruised from the horse being on it, although no bones were broken. The men walked on a few yards to where the trail was a little wider and built a fire and boiled some water for coffee. As Clarence sipped the steaming drink, the guides told him that as dawn broke they realized he was no longer with the group. So they had turned around and come back to look for him, fearing the worst—that he had slipped off the trail and fallen all the way to the canyon floor below and been killed. They were relieved when they found him alive. Clarence heartily agreed with them!
When he had drained his cup of coffee, Clarence mounted his horse, and the group set out for Quito again. As he rode, Clarence’s mind buzzed with ways to work the story of the fall into a radio sermon.
One good thing that resulted from Reuben and Grace Larson’s return to the United States was the setting up of a home advisory council for the World Radio Missionary Fellowship. This group of twenty-five Christian leaders, comprising pastors, missionaries, educators, and businessmen, agreed to support the work of the World Radio Missionary Fellowship in whatever way they could—from helping to raise money for the work in Ecuador to praying for it, promoting it, and encouraging the staff in their work. It was tremendously encouraging to Clarence to know that a group of people was out there that was equally as committed as he was to seeing the ministry of Radio HCJB grow and flourish and reach out to more and more people with the gospel.
December 1935 marked HCJB’s fourth anniversary. The time had flown by so fast that it was hard for Clarence to realize that four years had passed since they had gathered on Christmas Day for their first broadcast. How the ministry had grown in the intervening years! A wide range of programs was now offered each day over the airwaves, and the programs were being listened to by people throughout Ecuador. According to the letters they received, people in the neighboring countries of Peru and Colombia were also tuning in to listen to the programs. But it was still the same 200-watt transmitter that Eric Williams had built back in Chicago that was broadcasting the programs, reaching farther afield than Clarence could have imagined. The transmitter had worked flawlessly for almost the full four years, keeping the radio station on the air with uninterrupted transmission, so much so that the transmitter had been nicknamed “Old Faithful.” But of late, Old Faithful had begun to suffer a number of breakdowns and tube burnouts. And so, as the fourth anniversary rolled around, Clarence knew that it was time to start thinking about a new, more modern transmitter.
All those involved with the radio station agreed that it was time for a new transmitter. Now the question became, how powerful should the transmitter be, and on what frequency should it broadcast?
For guidance in answering these two questions, Clarence turned to the blueprint based on Acts 1:8 that he, Stuart and John Clark, Reuben Larson, and Paul Young had developed five years before. According to the blueprint they were already broadcasting to Jerusalem (Quito) and Judea (Ecuador). Now it was time to concentrate on broadcasting to Samaria—the rest of South and Central America. With this goal in mind they settled on a broadcast frequency of thirty-six meters and agreed that the new transmitter should have at least one kilowatt of power.
Of course, such a powerful transmitter would not be cheap, and a new fundraising campaign would have to be launched to raise the needed money to buy it. But Clarence was confident that before long Radio HCJB would be broadcasting to an even wider audience with a new, powerful transmitter.
While plans were being made for the new transmitter, HCJB received a gift of money earmarked for the evangelization of Ecuador. As Clarence pondered where best to spend the money, an idea came to him. He thought back to his time on the Silver Anniversary Exposition Train in 1933. The HCJB boxcar on this train had been a huge success. People had flocked to the “singing boxcar” to listen to the music and hear the gospel being preached. Why not do the same thing again? Clarence wondered. Only this time, rather than using a boxcar, he would use a truck, which could travel the length and breadth of Ecuador, sharing the gospel in small towns and villages. And so the ministry of Radio Rodante (rolling radio) was born.
An International truck was purchased for the purpose. Onto the back of it was built a custom-designed canopy with large doors at the back that could swing wide open. The truck was fitted inside with cabinets and compartments that held tracts and Bibles, cooking utensils, blankets and sleeping bags, and a movie projector and reels of film. A generator sat in one corner behind the cab, and a transmitter that powered the large, bell-shaped loudspeakers that were attached to the roof sat in the opposite corner.
Clarence was very impressed when he viewed the finished sound bus, as the vehicle was referred to. He wished he were going along on it, but he had so much to do that this time he stayed at the radio station in Quito.
The Radio Rodante truck set out, and soon Clarence was hearing wonderful reports about its ministry. When the truck drove into a small community, it headed for the square at the center of town, where it parked and set up its loudspeakers. As soon as the speakers were up, they began to blare the Ecuadorian national anthem. As had happened with the boxcar, a crowd soon gathered around the truck as curious residents of the town came to see what was going on. Also, as with the boxcar, when a large enough crowd had gathered and the national anthem died away, those manning the truck got up behind the microphone at the back of the truck. They led the group in singing, shared the gospel, handed out tracts, and sold Spanish Bibles and New Testaments.
The response to Radio Rodante was so great that soon Clarence was thinking about adding two more sound trucks to the ministry.
As Clarence looked at the various facets of the ministry of Radio HCJB, he had to admit that from that day in mid-1933 when in desperation he had gone to the toolshed to pray, God had indeed done a “new thing” with the ministry. Back then he had had doubts as to whether the station could stay on the air because of an overdue power bill totaling $6.15. Now they owned Quinta Corston, plans were under way for a new transmitter, and people all over Ecuador were hearing the gospel either over the radio or through the ministry of Radio Rodante. Clarence was excited as he contemplated what the future held for him and Radio HCJB.
Chapter 13
A Piece of Junk
The thousand-watt (one-kilowatt) transmitter was installed at the radio station in early 1937, creating more work than ever for Clarence. The new transmitter was designed and built by Victoriano Salvador, HCJB’s first full-time Ecuadorian radio engineer employee. When the installation was complete, Radio HCJB was able to reach an astounding ninety million listeners throughout South and Central America with its broadcasts. This led to new radio programs being produced and broadcast, and soon many more letters were flowing into Quinta Corston from listeners, keeping an already busy staff busier than ever answering them.
At the same time that the new transmitter was installed, Clarence bought himself a ham radio set so that he could monitor reception in various countries. Soon he was talking on the ham radio to people all over the world, and his vision for HCJB began to expand beyond South and Central America. “What would it take to broadcast around the world from Quito?” he asked himself.
In July 1937 everyone at HCJB was relieved when Reuben and Grace Larson returned to Quito. And they were all even more delighted when the Christian and Missionary Alliance recognized the important work that Radio HCJB was doing and “loaned” the Larsons to the radio station on a full-time basis. With Reuben now working as co-leader of the ministry, Clarence began to think about taking his own family home to the United States on furlough, though not just yet but sometime in the not too distant future. He still had too much work to do as they ramped up the schedule of programs being broadcast to a wider audience.
In the midst of increasing the number of programs offered, Clarence received a letter from a well-known radio evangelist in the United States named Charles Fuller. In the letter Mr. Fuller explained that he wanted to reach a wider audience with his Old-Fashioned Revival Hour radio show. To achieve this end, he was willing to send down to Ecuador seventeen-inch phonograph disc recordings of the shows and pay for them to be broadcast on HCJB.
