A total of 61 people were aboard the Evangelista for Misión a Bordo.

(Nov. 2, 2012 - by Ralph Kurtenbach) A few words from his mouth and radio announcer Mauricio Patiño was known in a community hundreds of miles from home. He seemed surprised, but maybe he shouldn't have been. Along the Ucayali River in Peru, his programs air on Pucallpa-based Radio Maranatha.

After being greeted and hugged, Patiño began fielding questions such as "What happened to the Hola Familia (Hi Family) program?" and others by a young teacher, Huendí, who knew all the on-air personalities at the HCJB-ALAS Spanish satellite radio network based in Quito, Ecuador.

The new friend knew them by their voices-the way they laughed or how they interacted with people's social media comments to the show. Patiño's visit made it all more real.

Students look at the biblical basis of missions.

The encounter along the Ucayali was an unexpected delight during a trip in which Patiño had expected to report on medical outreach as part of an unusual "floating missions conference." He accompanied 60 others-including participants, facilitators, coordinators and four police officers for protection-on the annual outreach.

Misión a Bordo (Mission Aboard) took place on the 27-by-91-foot riverboat, the Evangelista, in late September. Conferees-many of them young adults-came from various cities in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. Patiño was invited by HCJB Global's pastoral training director, Américo Saavedra, who serves in Quito, Ecuador, but grew up in Pucallpa, the biggest city on the river.

In Ucayali River communities, speaking Spanish comes second. The area is populated by eastern Peru's indigenous Shipibo-Conibo people group. One of Radio Maranatha's producers dedicates his time to producing Shipibo programs.

Radio Maranatha

Patiño said that beyond basic needs of clothing, food, shelter and medical care are the communities' spiritual needs. In Santa Rosa, for example, an evangelical church building stands unused. Talking with an area resident, Patiño learned that "with all his heart this man wants a pastor for that church. He told us that among some 50 families, only two families in this native community know the gospel."

The riverside visits heightened Patiño's awareness of the "sad reality of the indigenous in this area," adding that the people living along the Ucayali are greatly affected by weather changes. "Sometimes they can plant and harvest; at other times the river is up, and they can't do anything," he explained. The riverboat team provided people with some clothing and attended to their healthcare needs.

Dr. Mark Nelson told expatriate staff in Quito of seeing some 180 patients along with Ecuadorian physicians from Hospital Vozandes-Quito's medical residency program (the five-day trip total was 375 patients). The team had returned to the Evangelista for the night when word from the village came that a small child suffering from pneumonia had gotten worse.

"I talked with the [medical] residents, and one agreed to come with me," Nelson related. "So we put on mud boots and went to the kid's house. He was really sick, and there was no hospital nearby."

Dr. Mark Nelson (right) checks on the condition of a patient.

There, amid the mosquito nets hung in the one-room house, unevenly lit by the flickering flame in a lamp with a small jar of diesel fuel, Nelson was in his element. "It's just one of those things that I really, really enjoy," he said.

Talking afterwards with the two residents, he posed two alternatives-a medical practice like the upscale Axxis clinic near Hospital Vozandes-Quito, or a small rural clinic that provides basic healthcare amid scarcity.

"Would you prefer Axxis or aquí (here)?" he queried. One resident responded, "aquí," while the other was undecided. "I tell this story because I think that's the mission of Misión a Bordo," Nelson told expatriate staff members at Radio Station HCJB in Quito. "God will call some people to the Axxis clinic, but He'll want to challenge some of them with the kind of work we did on the Ucayali River."

Dan Shedd, executive director of HCJB Global's Latin America Region, added that "I see trips like this one as combining the hands of Jesus with the voice of Jesus as well as leadership development."

Source: HCJB Global