With the sun up, Clarence could finally see for himself just how desolate and uninhabited the land was. Snow lay on the ground, and soon after sunrise a cold, drenching rain began to fall. Clarence was glad that he had brought along a rubber poncho, which he pulled over his head to protect himself against the elements.
The Indian guide led the men across a broad plateau between two rows of mountain peaks. By midafternoon, Clarence, who was still getting accustomed to the altitude of Quito, found himself getting light-headed and gasping for air. That was when Stuart informed him that they had climbed to an altitude of 13,500 feet above sea level. The good news was that this was as high as they would climb and that before they made camp for the night, they would have already begun their descent down the other side of the Andes. Sure enough, by the time they stopped for the night and had set up camp in the shelter of a rocky outcrop, Clarence was again breathing easier, and he no longer felt so light-headed.
Despite how he felt, Clarence always had his movie camera at the ready to capture on film as much of the experience as he could.
After a chilly night bundled under a pile of blankets by the fire, the group set out again the next morning. Once again the Indian guide walked ahead on foot, leading the two packhorses. Throughout the day the men continued their descent of the eastern side of the Andes Mountains. The trail they followed was rough and steep and in many places had been washed away by landslides, causing the men to make numerous detours. By early afternoon Clarence was noticing more and more trees dotting the barren landscape, and by late afternoon the group had descended into dense jungle. They were now in the Oriente, the eastern portion of Ecuador that was the headwaters of the mighty Amazon River, which flowed eastward for two thousand miles to the sea. As the sun began to set and they stopped to set up camp for the night, Clarence noted the change in climate. The night before he had shivered under a pile of blankets, trying to keep warm; now, in the damp, tropical air of the Oriente, he barely needed a blanket.
The following morning it was time to leave the horses behind and set out on foot through the jungle. Three more Indians arrived at the camp in the morning, to carry the supplies that had been on the packhorses. Once the supplies were loaded onto the Indians’ backs, the group was off through the jungle. By now Clarence was glad to be walking. After two days on horseback, he was stiff and saddle sore. It did not take him too long, however, to discover that this part of the journey was going to be far more difficult and physically taxing than riding on horseback over the Andes.
The trail wound up and over ridge after ridge of foothills, across streams and rivers, and through dense jungle. And if that were not difficult enough, Clarence found himself clambering over the moss-covered trunks of massive, fallen trees. He was amazed at the agile way the Indians slid over the tree trunks, while it required so much effort for him to pull himself over them.
As the day wore on, Clarence found his energy slipping away fast. He was falling behind the others, and eventually Stuart fell back to help and encourage him on. Finally, when the Indians had gotten so far ahead that they were almost out of view, Stuart yelled for them to wait. Since Clarence was too exhausted to continue, Stuart instructed the Indians to construct a small shelter for them for the night. Using bamboo and leaves, the Indians followed his orders, and soon a dome-shaped structure was nestled beside the trail. After eating some dinner, Clarence crawled inside and fell fast asleep. He was too exhausted to care that the floor of the small shelter was mostly mud that squelched under him.
The following morning Clarence emerged from the shelter bleary-eyed but well rested, and much to his delight, his strength had returned. After a cup of coffee and some breakfast, they broke camp and set out again. This time, though, Stuart had told the Indians to slow their pace, and Clarence found it much easier to keep up. However, traveling at a slower pace meant it took them five days to cover what was normally covered in three days. And when they finally switched back to horses for the final two days of the journey, Clarence could not have been happier. He decided that feeling stiff and saddle sore was a small price to pay for not having to slog on foot through the dense jungle.
Finally, nine days after setting out from Quito, they arrived at Dos Ríos. Much to Clarence’s dismay, however, Reuben and Grace Larson were not there. The couple had left two days before for Quito, following the longer but less arduous route over the mountains through the towns of Baños and Ambato, to attend the annual Missionary Alliance Conference. Despite the Larsons’ absence, Clarence and Stuart spent two days exploring the area around Dos Ríos in dugout canoes.
After two days of observing jungle life among the Quichua Indians around Dos Ríos, Clarence and Stuart set out for Quito the way they had come. They, too, had to get back for the annual Missionary Alliance Conference, where Clarence was scheduled to lead the music. For some reason Clarence found the journey back much less stressful, though it was punctuated with numerous stops for him to set up his movie camera and film expansive vistas of the Oriente.
When he arrived safely back in Quito, Clarence could not help but wonder how much easier the whole trip to Dos Ríos would have been in an airplane. In just one hour of flying they could have crossed the same terrain that took them nine days to cross on horseback and by foot.
Back in Quito, Clarence was finally reunited with Reuben and Grace Larson, John and Ruth Clark, and Paul Young and his wife, Bernice, who were all attending the annual Missionary Alliance Conference in the city. It was a wonderful reunion, and as the conference progressed, they all got together to talk about the next step in setting up the radio station. Clarence felt that he had to tell the others about meeting the radio engineers in Guayaquil and about their warning to stay away from the mountains. But as the group prayed about the matter, they all agreed that God was directing them to establish the new radio station in Quito despite the warnings they had received. With that matter settled, they moved on to talk about what to call the station.
“So what are we going to call this new radio station?” Clarence asked,
“By international agreement, each country is assigned a call letter or letters that identify where the station originates from,” Stuart began. “In the United States, those call letters are K and W. The call letters of every radio station there must start with one of those letters, as you well know, Clarence. Here in Ecuador the call letters for the country are HC. Whatever call sign we come up with for the station, it must start with HC, to which we can add two more letters.”
“Back in Chicago we used the slogan ‘Where Jesus Blesses Thousands’ to come up with the call letters for station WJBT. Do you think we could come up with a similar slogan for our new call sign?” Clarence asked.
“That’s a good idea, but it must be in Spanish, since most of our programming will be,” John said.
“How about Hoy Cristo?” Stuart suggested.
Everyone nodded and then Reuben Larson chimed in, “Hoy Cristo Jesús Bendice” (Today Jesus Christ Blesses).
“It has a nice ring to it,” Clarence said, while the other men nodded approvingly. “Then that will be it, and the call letters will be HCJB.”
“Do you think we could come up with a slogan using those letters in English as well?” John asked.
This challenge proved a little more difficult, but eventually they came up with a slogan in English that they all liked—“Heralding Christ Jesus’ Blessings.”
Following the annual Missionary Alliance Conference, Clarence spent the remainder of his time in Quito searching for a site for the new radio station. But as hard as he looked, he could not find a suitable site. While he was searching for the site, Clarence was praying fervently that God would somehow provide the six hundred dollars he needed to make the return trip to the United States. Clarence also expressed his need to the group, and miraculously, Reuben had recently received six hundred dollars. This was a large amount of money for a missionary to have, and Reuben offered to loan it to Clarence so that he could buy a ticket home. Clarence accepted the offer and booked passage back to the United States.
Chapter 9
Trials and Tribulations
As he stepped aboard the steamer in Guayaquil on October 20, 1930, Clarence knew that there were many challenges ahead. Yet, as the ship left Ecuador behind, he was optimistic about the future. In just two weeks he would be back in Chicago, juggling his job at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle with raising awareness and money for the new radio station HCJB. Or at least that was what Clarence thought he would be doing. But when the steamer docked at New York City, bad news awaited him.
While Clarence had been at sea, steaming his way back from Ecuador, his best friend, Richard Oliver Jr., had been killed in a car accident. The funeral had already been held, and all Clarence could do was to visit his friend’s grave and mourn for him there. It was a bitter blow. Clarence had been sure that Richard would play a prominent role in HCJB, but now Richard was gone, and it was not to be.
Clarence returned to Chicago in a somber mood, only to be met with still more bad news. A letter waiting at the apartment informed Clarence that his employment at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle had been terminated and his job given to someone else in his absence. To add insult to injury, there was also a bill for the two thousand dollars of tabernacle money he had used for passage to Ecuador and to support the family while he had been away.
It was hard for Clarence to take in all these changes. His best friend was dead, he had been fired from his job, he was flat broke, and on top of the six hundred dollars he owed Reuben Larson for his passage home, he now owed the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle the enormous sum of two thousand dollars. And all this at the same time he was supposed to be launching the new radio station. Things had never looked so grim.
The day after arriving back in Chicago, Clarence visited Paul Rader. Paul informed him that in his absence a very conservative church missions director had been appointed, and the new director was behind both the firing and the bill. The new missions director apparently did not believe that radio had a role to play in missionary work. And while Paul sympathized with Clarence’s plight, he did not want to interfere with the missions director’s decision, especially since the deepening economic depression meant that giving was down and money was in short supply at the church. Paul explained that the man was trying to do the best for the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle with what he had.
Clarence returned to the family’s apartment feeling even more depressed. It seemed so unfair that one man could cause him so much heartache. There did not appear to be any way through his problems. As he thought about what to do next, Clarence found himself repeating his favorite Bible verses over and over to himself. And as he repeated Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things,” he began to draw strength from it.
The following day Clarence decided to disclose his desperate situation to others, and the all-night prayer group that met at the tabernacle offered to pray that night for the Jones family.
The next day Clarence received a phone call from an old friend, Dr. Gerald Winrod. Gerald explained that he had moved to Oklahoma City and opened a new Gospel Tabernacle there. He was modeling the new tabernacle on the one in Chicago and needed someone to help with the radio ministry. In response Clarence told Gerald that his heart was in Ecuador and that he planned to move to Quito as soon as he could raise the money needed to start a radio station there.
