Happy New Year

We want to wish all of you a very happy New Year and that it may be a year where we focus on Jesus and how we can better know Him, and grow in Him.
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Joshua's at church

This was the first year that Joshua participated in a Christmas presentation at church. He was a sheperd and had a line to say about the true meaning of Christmas.

Joshua is amazing for memorizing things and didn't have much problem to remember his line. Unfortuantely, not all the children showed up the morning of the presentation and so the teacher read the text instead of each child reciting their part.

It was exciting for us to see him participating in this. I still find it hard to believe that he is almost five years old (in April).

Mision Compartida (Shared Mission)

Mision Compartida 2008 is the radiothon that HCJB holds every year from our facilities in Quito, Ecuador. It allows a chance for our listeners to come to the station and see what we do here. It's also a fun time for the kids to play, sing, and hear about Jesus' love for them.

The program ran from December 11 through 13 (Thursday - Saturday). There was around $140,000 pledged to help the station operate through the coming year.

These three days are an opportunity to hear many testimonies from listeners of how God has impacted their lives through the ministry of HCJB.

Improvement in police visibility

We have seen an increase in the number of police patrols through our neighbourhood over the past couple of weeks. This is fantastic as there have been a number of muggings in the area.

Last week a friend stepped into my office to show me a couple of photos he had just taken on his way back to the office.

A few undercover police officers had three young people in handcuffs on the ground...right in front of the street gate to our home!

We give God thanks for the increased patrols by the police and that nobody was in the way when these three people were taken into custody.
Barry
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More family news...

Well, now that Joel is feeling better, Joshua has come down with what appears to be the same thing. Hopefully, he can get over it quickly. Yesterday he slept a good part of the afternoon which definitely seemed to help. Today he was feeling better although still a bit weak.

Tuesday we took Joel to the ophthalmologist and found out that he needs glasses and probably early next year, surgery. Today we went and purchased some glasses for him which he'll be able to start wearing next weekend. At first he didn't want to wear glasses (Joshua did) but after showing him how he could look like daddy, he thought it was an OK idea. It definitely makes him look more sophisticated.

Family life...

Friday morning, we were just sitting down for breakfast when Joel complained that he wasn't feeling good and wanted to go lay down. Thus began a couple of days of fevers and and weird sleep patterns for us.

Today, Joel is feeling much better, eating well, and appearing to be his normal self.

Joshua, Marlene and myself are feeling well, so it appears it was just Joel's turn to not feel so well. We don't know what it was but we're glad that it wasn't anything more serious.

An interesting thing happened on the way...

This past Monday, three of us (Barry, Doug - Director of Media Ministries, and Graham - Regional Director) visited our Hospital Vozandes del Oriente in Shell (a five-hour drive from Quito). On the way we found ourselves almost in the middle of a shootout between Police and some thieves.

On the by-pass around Ambato, suddenly two motorcycles with two riders each went by us on the left. Ahead of us a police truck, which had been sitting in a cut in the meridian, pulled out into the two lanes on our side of the meridian. The first motorcycle went around the front of the police while the second tried to go around the back. Fortunately for the police there wasn't enough room behind the truck and the motorcycle went down. Immediately, some police jumped out and had them covered with their pistols. Two police on motorcycles, who were chasing the thieves, went by us then continuing to pursue the remaining bike.

We had slowed down by this point, not really knowing what was going on. When we got to the overpass you see in the video one of the police on motorcycle was stopped there telling us to stop as well. I turned around to look behind me and saw the second motorcycle turn around on the offramp and come around us to go under the overpass. At this point the motorcycle police began telling us to get out of the van and take cover behind it. It was about this time that I remembered I had a video camera.

Doug and Graham had just gotten out when we heard a series of six or seven shots fired as the motorcycle with the thieves went across the overpass. You can hear one of the ricochets right at the beginning of the video.

God certainly was protecting us on that trip. If we had been about 30 seconds further on we would have been right in the middle of the shots fired.

We found out later that the thieves had stolen $21,000. While the situation was not under control, the police were well coordinated in their pursuit of the thieves and all of them were apprehended.