Story number 1 for 5 Feb 1999

We begin today in Ecuador where the government has called for a national day off in an attempt to diffuse a national strike today. HCJB’s Jim Ferrier explains the strike was called on the second anniversary of a former president’s ouster. That has tensions boiling. “Several social groups there have organized a multi-faceted protest against the government’s economic policies. So the military has been activated to try to keep protesters from blocking major highways with burning tires and 12-thousand police officers will be trying to limit damage by strikers.” Ferrier says although HCJB’s broadcast and hospital workers were officially advised to stay home, many of them will do whatever it takes to report to work because… “It lets them [the people] know that our people take the ministry very seriously, that they care about the country…and have been doing for almost 70 years there, reaching out to the people of that country to say we love you and Jesus is the answer for what this country needs.”