Christmas Party at a City Dump

More info at this site:

Conversation, Invitation, Integration, Congregation

Cradling the bass on my lap, I peer across the top of the music stand to watch Analizbeth tuck her violin under her chin. Sliding across the strings, her bow releases from the instrument the strains of a beautiful melody.

Her sister, Jessica, is at the piano. On guitar, Beth leads the worship band, and with Gabriel also at guitar, the team consists of more than half Ecuadorians.

Pastor Len has publicly credited Spotlight Listeners´ Club with flinging open the English-speaking church’s doors to the Quito community. The face of the congregation has changed with regular English-conversation evenings at church.

Analizbeth, Jessica and Gabriel (also Jonathan and Juan Pablo, violinist and drummer respectively) all are under 30. Just like much of Ecuador and much of Latin America is under age 30. Is it any wonder then, that the EFC group, “20-Somethings”, is experiencing burgeoning growth? Gaining a life of its own, the group is changing the church’s body life.





I think of another Ecuadorian, William, and his involvement in the 20´s group, in discipleship and Bible study. I think of his participation in my conversation group many months ago at Spotlight. He has since moved on to other outreaches at the church. This is integration, even as Spotlight Listeners’ Club continues to stand welcoming new people at the church doors on alternate Wednesdays.

Other Spotlight Listeners' Club coordinators say:

We are meeting once per week (just completed our 7th today) and have an average of about 25 women, plus 8-10 conversation partners each week. We also have a childcare program that can accommodate 12+ babies/toddlers. Our population is primarily Japanese with a few Korean and Arabic women. -Michigan, USA

The Spotlight Club is going absolutely GREAT! It is truly amazing. We are going to have our 8th week tonight (we meet once a week. Of course some of the students have asked for more nights but for right now I think I am going to have to try to stay with just one. We have had some wonderful volunteers and each week we have any where from 8 to 16 "students" come to the club. We can see it gradually growing and it is wonderful. -North Carolina, USA

Those that volunteered did a great job. I had stressed speaking slowly and clearly and had two young women for the basic group that were very creative and excited about what they were doing. The one advanced group leader did a fantastic job as did the leaders (husband and wife about our age) in the middle group. We did the program on Thanksgiving celebrations. We had people at this Spotlight that were originally from Peru, Honduras and Mexico. -Georgia, USA

December?

Yes, it is December. But the signs here for the start of the Christmas month are different.

No bundled-up-in-scarf-and-mitten shoppers, no snow predicted in this century. Instead we do listen to the chiva buses making their evening rounds, and we have heard the traditional song "Chulla Quiteno* " a hundred times already!

The bull fights make some city streets unnavigable, and the blue and red flags of Quito are flying. Once the "founding of Quito" holiday is over, things will begin to seem a little more like December for this South Dakota girl.



I should be happy that our backyard has a blooming 7-foot poinsettia tree . . . but I long to walk into my family greenhouse and see my brother bending over his little potted poinsettias instead. I should be glad that our grass in very green and lush and there are blooming impatiens and marigolds 12 months a year, but just for a few hours a good blizzard would be better for me!!

May the month of December be a peaceful and blessed one for you!!

love,
Kathy

*Melodía - Pasacalle: Alfredo Carpio Flores

Letra: Luis Alberto Valencia

Yo soy el chullita quiteño,

la vida me paso encantado,

para mi, todo es un sueño

bajo este mi cielo amado.

Las lindas chiquillas quiteñas

son dueñas de mi corazón,

no hay mujeres en el mundo

como las de mi canción.

La Loma Grande y La Guaragua

son todos barrios tan queridos de mi gran ciudad;

El Panecillo, la Plaza Grande

ponen el sello inconfundible de su majestad.

Chulla quiteño, eres el dueño

de este precioso patrimonio nacional;

Chulla quiteño, tú constituyes

también, la joya de este Quito colonial.

What are they are singing on those open busses with live bands? Here's a
translation --done by Ralph-- that may help tell the story. A "chulla" had one
pair of shoes (nicely polished) and one suit and lived an existential, somewhat
Bohemain lifestyle. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions on improving
the translation.

I am Quito's high class bum
in my happy-go-lucky life
For me, it's all a dream
under this beloved sky.

Ah, the beautiful Quito ladies!
To them my heart belongs
No other women in the world compare
With those I sing of in this song

The Great Hill and the Guaragua
they're great barrios in my wonderful city
Bread Loaf Hill, Independence Plaza
Leave an undeniable seal of their majesty

High class hobo, you are the master
of this precious national treasure
living for the moment bum, you too belong
the jewel in fact, of colonial Quito

Football ! Not Futbol . . . At Least for A Day

Six hours of American football in South America.



The locals didn't know what to think. They stood on the bridge (a crosswalk for the 8 lanes of Pan American highway traffic underneath) gazing down at us.

"Futbol* Americano" they call it. One Saturday a year, the sophomore class hosts a day of fun. A day for North Americans and Canadians to pretend they are "home". Complete with imported soda pop, and a sloppy Joe for lunch, you almost think you're in your old hometown.




Before the first ball was snapped, the event's coordinator asked us to join him in a prayer. For clear skies we gave thanks, then begged for safety for the players. Previous years had been plagued with injuries, concussions, broken bones, stitches. This year the Lord gave us a perfect day, with no serious injuries and no lightning storms!!


The teams were made up of quite a variety. One was mostly north American college/post college kids down here for a year of mission work. One team was composed of our kids' teachers, many of them reliving high school days of throwing the pigskin, but also some teachers who have lived in South America all their lives, either as MK's or nationals.

The student team our oldest was on had a junior from Asia who saw a football for the first time at practice the day before!!

It is known as the "Turkey Bowl". Our family goes to watch every year - a little taste of "Home" for Ralph and me.

*futbol means "soccer" in Spanish

An Economic System With Values

"It is important that Europe fight for its ideas and values to help
bring back confidence. We want capitalism based on entrepreneurs
and not speculators. We want morality and transparency. The world
needs Europe to show its stability." Oct. 08

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France




"October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in
stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May,
March, June, December, August, and February."

Mark Twain
1835-1910

Worldwide Web of . . . . Martian Reports?

“Martians have landed and are quickly making their way to the capital!”

Is this true? Why of course not.

But people heard it and perceived as as a threat.

The October 1938 version of “War of the Worlds” is the classic. Another occasion was February 12, 1949, the eve that martians were said to have landed in Ecuador, as dramatized on Radio Quito. The panicked response of listeners paralleled that of nearly 11 years earlier on the Columbia radio network.

In the Ecuador episode, the Martians’ initial assault occurred at Latacunga, with the deadly sweep northward to Quito and Cotocollao, near the international airport. With growing panic in the streets, the actors at Radio Quito revealed the truth. Fear turned to anger which turned into a riot outside the building that housed the radio station and El Comercio newspaper. That night, the facilities were burned down, resulting in several deaths. Those who had authored the radio production fled the country.

Radio was relatively young and its power to inform, entertain and motivate listeners was still being discovered. In the 1940s, the martian takeover had also played out in Chile.

Consider the Internet today. Stories of foreboding still work, but in different venues, with different results. I-phone guru Steve Jobs was hospitalized with chest pains – or at least that was the report on CNN’s Ireport.

Apple stock dropped below its traditional price floor of $100, but recovered as the "news" was corrected. When Jobs gave a press conference to the traditional media, a big, bold banner behind him read, “The rumors of my death are highly exaggerated.”

Our modern population might be too sophisticated for panic at the sound of a field reporter’s last gasps of life as martian gasses asphyxiate him. But we’re not always saavy enough to determine the truth or error of today’s citizen journalists.

Collaborative efforts provide some notably good results, but damaging reports will still filter in. In his October 3 column, John C. Dvorak said of inaccuracies, disinformation and hoaxes we see with citizen journalism, “It’s like a bad forest fire: it can be contained but not controlled.”

He wrote that citizen journalists would be heavily criticized for false report on Jobs, but that we all need to “get over it. We’re stuck with what we have.” We have a world of information. Consume with care.

Xavier Almeida of Radio Quito wishes such a dramatization were possible again. Take a few minutes to listen to this 1998 interview and hear his description of the events of February 12, 1949.



An avid shortwave radio listener, Don Moore discovered the story about Radio Quito's version of War of the Worlds while at a university library in Michigan, USA. Listen to Don in this telephone interview.

Historic photo used with permission of El Comercio

Read the News and Look for Reasons to Smile

A different tack now, on news of the growing financial crisis.

Does a broadcast announcer ever get the giggles when talking about the “footsie 100” of Britain’s markets?

I used to work in radio news. Several years ago I queried my co-workers

on pronouncing the the Nikkei in Japan’s markets and came up varied different answers , with "NEE keh" winning out.

Amid reports of all the suffering of last spring’s Sichuan earthquake in China, why would a moment of amusement brighten my emotions as I read? Very simply, I liked the wordplay as a reporter's favorites -- “who” and “when” -- appeared quite literally in the story. President Hu Jintao urged all out rescue efforts, even as Premier Wen Jiabao was traveling to devastated Sichuan province.

As a “Ralph”, I am slow to poke fun of people’s names, for mine is no easy handle. Thankfully, it is much shorter than the one time foreign minister of Qatar – Sheikh Hamad bin Jassin bin Jabr al-Thani. As far as I can tell, he only got the “Sheikh” tacked onto his name. Micahel Zammit Cutajar worked harder at giving a radio announcer a fractured jaw, getting appointed as the (take a breath and then say it) Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Whew!

I logged a lot of hours editing Reuters newspaper reports to use as broadcast copy, and so little amusements quietly crept in. Did anyone else’s mind replay old “Smash!” and “Pow!” scenes from Batman when encountering the name, Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono, of Indonesia? Maybe just me.

Is there really religious teaching about “Our Lady of Unraveling Knots”?

What novelist would tag a Philippines Archbishop with the surname of Sin?

Life’s Author, that's who.

Life can be a “who’s on first?” comedy, ala Abbott and Costello routine. Or a tragedy of “I don’t know” even how to take up the first thread of string to try to unravel a knot. An unexpected death, great loss in a natural disaster, or a stock market slide that seems to not have found a bottom.

All make a lot more sense when we call on the Name that holds no irony, needs no earthly intermediary and bears nothing but goodwill and grace for us.

Watching the One Who´s Worthy

If you ever come to our church, don't watch the worship group.

Oh don't get me wrong! I think that Beth and her team do a great job, as do Brad & Sandy, or Sally and Lucy. It's not that at all.

Watch as the gal at the front of the church plays “air guitar” during the worship choruses. In fact, she plays every other instrument the team at the front plays too – air drums, air organ, air shaker or egg, air violin, air piano.
==

Here we are, here we are*
the broken and used, mistreated, abused
Here we are
==

Something is not right. She is homeless, I believe. Her shock of black hair, self-cut it appears. Her green polyester, stretch slacks and the home-made, padded vest. It is the same. The instruments change; the clothes are pretty much the same. My wife leans over and says, “I want to give her a pair of shoes; those have had it.”

But something is also very right. She worships freely, abandoning inhibitions about what others may think. I recall a Sunday we sang about That Day –one day in the future of all who follow Jesus -- when we shall find our completeness in Him. I watched our air musician and rejoiced. She has as much available in eternity as I do. And she may be better practiced at freely worshipping the One who deserves all of us – mind, emotion, body, and will.

Here You are, here You are
The beautiful One who came like a Son
Here You are

Someday, she will not seek overnight shelter in our hospital nor desire to live on the streets. In Christ, there is hope for something better. Something glorious.

But there is more than just hope for a future Kingdom. There is hope on Earth, although all solutions won't appear here. In Air Musician's home country of Indonesia, our organization has assisted in the start-up of a couple dozen radio stations. Our brothers and sisters press on with the message of salvation as the world watches. Their eyes are fixed on the beautiful One who came like a Son.

Their faith encourages me. Our friend, Ty,** knows the price that some of our Indonesian brothers and sisters pay for their faith in Christ.

Here we are, here we are
Bandaged and bruised, awaiting a cure
Here we are

Here You are, here You are
Our beautiful King, bringing relief
here You are with us

So we lift up our voices, and open our hands
Let go of the things, that have kept us from Him

Things. They can be thought patterns, habits. And then again, things. Just all the stuff that we think we want. I know I do. Maybe someday I can be satisfied with just an air guitar, instead of a collection of guitars.

In May in a rural field near La Cygne, Kansas, more than 3,000 students gathered for “Paradise”, an event to worship Jesus through Scripture, prayer and singing. Erin Roach*** wrote about it for Baptist Press. She said, “much effort was made to ensure that all attention would be on Jesus, the only name promoted at the gathering. Nothing was sold or advertised, no one made money, and no agenda was advanced.”

Kinda reminds me of the late Keith Green, so passionate that people would hear that he instituted a “whatever you can afford to pay” policy on his LPs. Here's the after-concert agenda for Casting Crowns: “Melodee DeVevo prays for marriages, Chrs Huffman for those who are in ministry, Megan Garrett for mothers, Andy Williams for those who battle addictions, Juan DeVevo for fathers and families, Hector Cervantes for men to walk with God, and Mark Hall for those who are “still on the outside looking in.” ****

Don't look at the worshippers, whether they're on stage or in the front pew. But listen to the words, as they sing:

You are the one who has come
and is coming again,
to make it alright
You're the remedy
Oh, in us You're the remedy

Let us be the remedy
Let us bring the remedy

*song lyrics by David Crowder Band. The link is http://www.davidcrowderband.com/
***see full story here http://www.baptistmessenger.com/a/search/author/Erin%20Roach
****see full story here http://charismamag.com/cms/printPage.php?id=17191

50 Years of Care at the Edge of the Amazon

Thanks for taking nine minutes of your time to view a video we have put out celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our hospital in Shell.

This hospital has been a major catalyst for sharing the gospel on the edge of the Amazon in Ecuador.
(Thanks to Duane for putting this together.)
http://www.youtube.com/v/FUpUBODssBw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0">

Cobblestone, Cheering Crowds, Lighted Churches

And a few live bands in a really fun 10K run though the historic downtown. I rode down to the Start with Dale, along with Stu, Ben, Loren, Janelle, Sharon and Steve and his family.
I wish I could say lightning quick legs made none of my shots of the live music turn out. But no, I have to blame my camera's shutter delay instead.

Brass bands and drum corps played, and in between those musical interludes, groups of military men chanted cadence as they jogged along. Their voices echoed up and down the narrow streets.
As Stu told me before we began,
"Nothing really opens up" during the race through those streets from centuries ago.

You might gain a few steps here or there, but it's mostly wall to wall runners. People stood on the quaint balconies this city's old town is known for, and others watch from doorways or the sidewalk.



Besides the encouragement I gleaned as the soldiers shouted "Latacunga! step, step, step, step, Loja! step, step, step, step, Quito ! . . .

I also enjoyed seeing the wheelchair participants. A fella got a little help from a friend as he wheeled his way up a 30 degree grade early in the race.

And of course the churches. It's called
Ruta de las Iglesias or loosely translated the Church Run. If you're interested, here's the list:
La Basilica, La Merced, San Francisco, La Compania, El Sagrario, La Catedral, La Concepcion, San Agustin, Santo Domingo, Santa Catalina and San Blas.

It's well organized, with a chip supplied when you register and chip return booths after the finish line. Your personal time is sent to the e-mail address that you provided upon registration. The only precaution is that plastic water bags by the hundreds are discarded at water stops and that can get a little slippery sometimes.




Watch your step at times, expect lots of other runners and not too wide of track, anticipate the altitude (Quito is about 2,800 meters).

And don't go too fast. You might miss the scenery.

Death Upon Death and New Life from a Citizen Journalist

On September 8, 2004, the CBS program 60 Minutes aired an investigation by Dan Rather offering typed information as proof President George W. Bush had evaded the draft. Later that evening Harry MacDougald, posting on FreeRepublic.com, challenged the validity of the documents based on the style of typeface. Other bloggers picked up the post and searched for examples of 1970s typewriters.* -Clyde H. Bentley, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor, University of Missouri School of Journalism

Dr. Bentley goes on to tell how the thread was picked up by popular blogs the DrudgeReport.com, and then the mainstream media. The documents on 60 Minutes were proven to have been forged and CBS apologized.

“"The pajamahadeen reduced Mr Rather" was the e-mail forward in my Inbox. (See story here.)
But in September 2004 I didn’t foresee how a diffused form of gathering and dispersing news would forever change journalism.

I was grieving our cuts to English-language programming on international shortwave, including newscasts that were global in scope. I was also convinced that international broadcasters had arranged their own “we- -no-longer-have-an-audience” self-fulfilling prophecies by cutting broadcasts. (Late 2003 story here.)

Our newswire contract ended; I closed down our newsroom, then translated copy from Spanish for English newscasts on our local FM. The “death of shortwave” discussion continued, but my time in shortwave broadcasting had ended. I held out hope, for my predessor in public relations had written, “The future of shortwave and AM radio has arrived. It is called DRM or Digital Radio Mondial . . . “

The FM newscasts continued for 18 months before my predecessor moved to other things and I shifted to public relations myself. My heart is still in news and so it isn’t easy four years later to read bleak reports about newspapers and their future.

Steven Rattner summarizes in his Wall Street Journal commentary Red All Over, “the news about newspapers could hardly be more dismal: falling circulation, repeated rounds of layoffs, disappearing ads and a chain of bad earning reports.” (The full story is found here.)

Eric Alterman's article in The New Yorker looks about as gloomy: “Out of Print – The death and life of the American newspaper.” (The full story is here.)

On occasion my work feels like news. And it feels good, in spite of that fact we're dealing with natural catastrophes and human suffering. When our disaster response teams have gone to places such as the quake zone of Nias Island, Indonesia and northern Pakistan, we have often used the traditional journalist/interviewee approach via phone calls.

We have since handed that coverage to “citizen journalist” Steve, who by the way, also happens to be our family physician.




He interviews on either side of a microphone. From flooded Ecuador, he did a stand-up report for GlobalHarry (a citizen journalist in his own right) and you may view that here.

His photos –especially of children – are filled with pathos even as they reflect people’s resilience amid tragedy. He knows how to offer genuine empathy and gain people's trust, and before long he and his wife, Dorothy, have people telling their stories before the microphone.

And Steve is dedicated, staying up nights after he has worked throughout the day in order to upload interviews and photos. In the response to the tsunami in the Solomon Islands, he and Brad slept on the floor of a radio station with Internet service. Intermittently they woke up so Steve could start another upload to the ftp site (file transfer protocol.) They put up a 100 megabyte video (you may see it here.)

One time he wrote me from India, “The dang thing finally went at 5am on the day we were leaving Faridpur Enjoy." I smiled because Steve never wastes time dropping down into the e-mail window to tell you what's on his mind. No, he crams it all into the subject line. I still smile at that.




I worked with him on the ground just once, in flooded Tabasco state in Mexico. In the van ride back from the flooded ranchlands around Villahermosa, he shot picture after picture of the Mexican sunset with his Canon. This was how he and Dorothy had spent their 30th wedding anniversary – helping people with their health needs and providing a listening ear.



I can see arguments both for and against the new form of journalism (Alterman's conclusion on articles that would disappear with the passing of the traditional media is excellent, if not alarming).

But my argument in favor of doctors doing journalism from disaster zones . . . is Steve.



*Discussion paper prepared for the Carnegie-Knight Conference on the Future of Journalism, Cambridge, MA June, 2008

A-nimals at the Z-oo from A to Z

More information at the Henry Doorly Zoo site

A Day at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha

Aging With Grace

Ruthie need not have worried about her transition from a condominium to Scandia Shores, for she is in a cheery place where she entertained us with her usual grace and hospitality.

And her humor has not faded. She refers to her lift chair as her “ejector seat” and demonstrates how it helps her get up after sitting and visiting awhile. She lets us know she doesn't cook or bake much and offers us rootbeer floats instead.

She asks if we know what the device in her bedroom is used for. It's a wonder she doesn't joke about it as her “gumball machine” for it sports a smooth slide on which roll down into a tray . . . her daily medicines. And that is after a voice prompts her that it's time to take her pills.

She is socially active, poised, and can still tell a good story from her years in Ecuador. The people you read about in books like Shadow of the Almighty were her acquaintances and friends.

Then there's Leonard and Imogene with an encouraging word and Imo helping our friend, Kay. Once again it was . . . you guessed it, rootbeer floats. More questions about what the radio station's English Language Service looked like before broadcasts finally ended and more stories from a bygone era rich with ministry, memories and people serving God in a different land.

Leonard tells a joke about a man who put on a new pair of socks every day and after a week he couldn't get his shoes on. He hasn't lost the humor he and Travis shared with listeners on “Cracker Barrel.”

He and Imogene greet me at their front door, Leonard in his “Biola Football-Undefeated since 1908” tee-shirt and so I ask if Biola has a team. “No,” he replies and starts laughing. That was just the beginning of a three-hour visit with friends I had only ever known before via e-mail exchanges.

It wouldn't be fair to say they're talking about the good ol' days, without mentioning their interest in our lives and work as well. They stay abreast of everything that is going on and know about our family. What a wonderful time.

The Floweringest Forty Acres You'll Wanna Visit