With all the added stress, Katherine gave birth to the baby early. Clarence took the children up to see their new sister, whom they had named Elizabeth. But all was not well with the child, who died at three days of age. Once again, just as he had thirteen years earlier, Clarence had to arrange a funeral for one of his children. The death of Elizabeth broke his heart, but it did not break his will to keep broadcasting the gospel. With the war raging in Europe and in Asia and the Pacific, Clarence knew that the programs the radio station was broadcasting were the only voice of hope and freedom that many people in those regions could hear.
The work of broadcasting continued at a fast pace, and in 1943 Clarence Moore was invited to attend an international conference of radio technicians being held in New York City. When he returned to Quito, he reported to Clarence that many people at the conference had complimented him and HCJB for being smart enough to locate their radio station on the equator at such a high altitude.
“What do you mean?” Clarence asked.
“Well,” Clarence Moore began, “it turns out that the equator is the absolute best location for broadcasting to the northern and southern hemispheres, since the equator is an equal distance from the magnetic poles. It’s the location in the world the freest from atmospheric disturbance. And our hundred-foot antenna erected ninety-three hundred feet above sea level is virtually equivalent to having a ten-thousand-foot antenna. The higher above sea level you can get your antenna, the farther your signal will carry around the globe. That’s why so many people in so many different countries can pick up our signal.”
Clarence Jones chuckled to himself. “No one called us smart when we settled on Quito,” he told Clarence Moore. “In fact, the State Department warned us that this was a terrible spot to transmit from. I guess it’s better to follow God’s leading than man’s suggestions, don’t you agree?”
Clarence Moore nodded enthusiastically.
Christmas Day 1943 marked Radio HCJB’s twelfth year of broadcasting. To mark the occasion, a special twelfth anniversary broadcast went on the air at 4:00 PM on December 25, 1943. Most of those who had been present for the original broadcast twelve years before were present on this day. As Clarence sat shoulder to shoulder with these people, he couldn’t help but reminisce. It amazed him to think of the growth of the radio ministry over the past twelve years.
The broadcast was originating from HCJB’s beautiful, new, state-of-the-art studio. What a difference it was from the converted living room at Quinta Corston, where the first broadcast originated. Now there was not only a new studio but also a large office building with plenty of office space for everyone. There was also new housing for the ever-growing staff, which now numbered about twenty-five foreigners and another sixty Ecuadorian men and women who worked either full- or part-time for the station. And the little 200-watt original transmitter had been replaced by a much more powerful one. Back then they had broadcast to the few people with radio receivers in Quito. Today they were broadcasting the anniversary program around the world in a number of different languages.
Soon after celebrating the twelfth anniversary of broadcasting, Clarence received a letter from one of the board members of the World Radio Missionary Fellowship in the United States, encouraging him and the other staff in Quito not to grow complacent with their accomplishments so far. The letter challenged them to keep moving forward, improving what they had already established, and searching and planning for more effective ways to use Christian radio. In part the letter read,
Here are two facts which stand out in my thinking about planning and building for a better HCJB in the future: 1. HCJB must go forward. I’m sure we’re agreed that we dare not rest upon our past blessings or consider ourselves as having “arrived” in any sense. Paul said it right in Philippians 3:13: “Forgetting those things which are behind.” 2. HCJB will go forward only if we pray and plan for progress. We must not fail in our advantage and special opportunities which seemingly no other group of Christians on earth has at the present time. We must keep “reaching forth unto those things which are before…pressing toward the mark.”
Clarence took the letter to heart and began discussing and praying with members of the staff about the next steps the radio ministry should take. Among the goals they felt God was leading them to focus on was a 50,000-watt shortwave transmitter that would improve the reach of their broadcasts even farther around the world.
As he reflected on what had already been done and what lay ahead to do, Clarence observed, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished if you’re not concerned about who gets the credit.”
Chapter 15
Expanding the Ministry
Clarence and the staff at HCJB continued to work hard throughout the years of the Second World War. Many of the staff had relatives living or fighting in combat zones or who had been captured by the Germans or the Japanese and were being held as prisoners of war. While they kept busy with the work of the radio station, they were concerned about their relatives, and everyone let out a sigh of relief in 1945 when first the Germans and then the Japanese surrendered. The Second World War was over, and the Allies had triumphed. Clarence and Katherine threw a huge party at their home to celebrate the end of the war.
Soon after the war ended, poignant letters arrived at the radio station in Quito, telling of the value of Christian radio broadcasts during the war. One such letter came from a New Zealand serviceman named David. David wrote about how he had been captured by the Japanese and held as a prisoner of war on a remote Pacific island. Knowing that David was an electronics specialist, his Japanese captors had brought him some radio parts and demanded that he build them a shortwave radio receiver. David wrote that he had been able to build the receiver, but he’d also had enough spare parts to secretly build himself a miniature radio receiver. He had hidden the radio during the day, and in the middle of the night he would take it out and scan the dial for a station to listen to. His radio picked up HCJB’s signal loud and clear. David was so relieved to hear a friendly, encouraging voice coming over the radio that he cried. During the day he would share all he could remember about the broadcast with his fellow prisoners of war, and he would eagerly tune in for more the next night.
The Japanese overseers of the prison were so happy that they could tune in and listen to news from Japan on the radio David had built for them that they had asked what they could bring him as a way of showing their appreciation. David had asked for a Bible, confessing in his letter that this was something he would never have thought of asking for before listening to HCJB. The guards had brought not one but four Bibles, and during the next three and a half years that David was incarcerated in the prisoner-of-war camp, he held regular Bible studies that sustained him and many other prisoners.
From Norway, a very long way from the islands of the Pacific Ocean, another story unfolded. During the war the Nazis had occupied Norway. As a result, many young men and women went underground to resist the occupation of their country. Ole, the writer of the letter that arrived at HCJB in Quito, was one of these young men. He wrote about how, on one dark night in a remote farming area of Norway, he had heard an aircraft flying low overhead. He ran outside to see whether the plane was about to crash just in time to see it circle and then drop a parcel, using a small, white parachute. When Ole retrieved the parcel, it had a note attached to it that read, “Friend, here is a radio receiver as an encouragement from Britain’s Royal Air Force.” Since the Nazis had banned the private ownership of all radios, receiving a radio this way was a huge surprise to Ole. But the radio was also a dangerous possession. The penalty for being caught with one was death.
Ignoring the danger, Ole had turned on the radio receiver and had been able to tune in to a program broadcast in English by HCJB. He was ecstatic to learn what was happening in other parts of the world. When the broadcast was over, he hid the radio in the barn. Each night he went out to tend to the cows—and tune in the radio. One night as he tuned in the radio, to his delight he picked up a Swedish woman broadcasting from Quito. Ole understood Swedish better than English, and he listened intently to the broadcast. The woman, Ellen Campaña, had said, “We want you to remember, Christian brothers and sisters in occupied countries, that God loves us and wants us to be filled with love, even for our enemies and those who are oppressing us.”
Ole wrote that although he was already a Christian, that broadcast had encouraged him so much that he arranged for a dozen of his friends to meet nightly in the barn to listen to the program with him. The group kept on tuning in right up until the night that Ellen Campaña announced that the Germans had surrendered. The war was over!
Clarence was touched by such stories and gave thanks to God that the broadcasts of Radio HCJB had been able to bless and encourage people during the long, dark days of the Second World War. But he was not ready to rest on his laurels. In typical fashion he saw the end of the war as an opportunity to extend the reach and type of services that HCJB offered. To that end he and the board of directors of the radio station decided that they needed a permanent office in New York City that could serve as a base for promoting their work and for recruiting staff in the United States and Canada. While the office was being established, Clarence and Reuben agreed to rotate between living in Quito and living in New York. This move was made possible because an able young couple, Abe and Delores Van Der Puy, had arrived to take up leadership positions within the team in Quito.
Reuben and his family took the first term in New York. They set up home in a Manhattan apartment and began a rigorous recruiting and publicity campaign. Reuben visited so many churches and summer Bible conferences in the United States and Canada that he lost count of them. Always his message was the same: “Get involved with world evangelism any way you can! Pray, give, or go.”
In the two years that Reuben was in the United States, Clarence pushed forward with new plans for the radio station. The biggest issue he had to deal with was finding a plot of land outside Quito on which to situate the new 50,000-watt transmitter. This transmitter would be much too powerful for a permit to be issued for its erection on their present site. In addition, the city was growing rapidly, and it was doubtful whether the Quito Light and Power Company could provide the electricity needed to run it. The plan was to find a parcel of about fifty acres of flat land on which to put the new transmitter and antenna. Preferably the site should be located in the middle of a wide valley so that the surrounding mountains did not interfere with the new antenna’s signal. Also, it had to have an adequate water supply. The new transmitter and antenna were going to be powered by diesel generators, and water would be needed to cool them.
Since Quito was located in the Andes, Clarence knew that finding the right piece of land was going to be an interesting challenge. After praying that God would lead them to the right spot, they began their search for the site. It took many months to find it, but finally Clarence heard about a parcel of land for sale at Pifo, about eighteen miles east of Quito. The land was part of a huge farm that had been subdivided into several small farming lots and sold. But because this particular piece of land was not suitable for farming, it had remained unsold. And because it was “useless,” it did not cost nearly as much as other similarly sized plots.
