Of the contributions of the CCRA has been pioneering a new approach to church development and Christian service in Ecuador. You were involved in the 40s in the study of Protestant work in Ecuador and the subsequent founding of the United and Indian Mission. Would you comment on how you got involved personally and as a SISSELA in Ecuador?

Yes, I believe that the emphasis on Indian life and the whole question of the condition of the Indians came up at the Montevideo conference in 1925 and it was still in the minds of Presbyterian who took the lead in this in the CCMA to do something for the improvement of life among the Indian people. And in 1943, the Presbyterian board politicians took action requesting the KLA to appoint a commission to study the Indians in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia and to report back their recommendations about starting work there in any one of these countries. So we got together a commission of five. That was Dr. Claudia, a medical man, the board, Dr. Moomaw, rural sociologist, Ph.D. in sociology, Moe Davis, expert in economic and social affairs, and T. Dale, missionary to the Arctic Indians in Mexico. Born in Mexico, I believe, with a Ph.D., an anthropologist from Princeton and myself, they asked me to to lead the group. And we spent nearly five months in these countries, mostly among the Indians, studying the life, the habits and so forth. And it was a very interesting experience. What we came up with in our recommendations was that we form a new mission which will be interdenominational and using for emphasis evangelism, medical work, education and rural development, agriculture, etc.. And we incorporated the United and Indian Mission with these with four mission boards.

In 1945, we sent a man called Dr. Madoc, who had worked in Bolivia very successfully with the Indians, and we sent him down to Ecuador to look around and find a suitable piece of property where we could start work.

And he found it in the north of Ecuador, about 60 miles north of Quito, a farm called Pickell Cheapish.

See a field goal, I believe was about several thousand.

And, well, I don't know the area, but it was quite a large farm. And when we took that over, when we bought the property, the Indians were in the lead. They belonged like the instruments and tools that were handed over at the buildings. Interestingly enough, Dr Matic one Friday afternoon called me on the telephone just as I was about to leave about five o'clock. I picked up the phone and I said, This is the overseas operator and it was Dr Matic calling from Guayaquil QALY AQIM. And he said, I found the property, which I think you want, and I have an option of it until next Monday and that doesn't give us much time. But this was a Friday afternoon, but I got busy early Monday morning. So as I got to the office and the Presbyterian board advanced the twelve thousand dollars we needed, we wired it to him and he bought the property and we sent out missionaries, Mr. Mrs. Redmond and Mrs Paul Straight, SDR, EIC, each one brought up in the Bronx Evangelical missionaries.

They were on MySpace and then we sent out a medical man over countries and so on and carried on this wonderful program.

It's too long. I started to tell you all the developments in that. It went to various phases. Years later, we were informed. By some Ecuadoreans, some lawyers who looked into this, that there was a law in Peru which we know nothing about, that of corporations could not own more than a certain amount of property.

So we had to divest ourselves of the property and we handed it over to a foundation of Ecuadorians in Ecuador. Now, some leaders were produced out of that and the work as developed as merged with the evangelical church to Ecuador. That was the name of it. And I think that we made a contribution at that point.

So it was was it the only United Church that was founded in Latin America that you know of?

Yes, as far as I know, that was.

And what about the Dominican Church and the Dominican Republic?

Yes, that was a united one. Quite right. That was antedated out in the mission. That was the board for Christian Work in Santa Domingo, which was operated from the city office, missing from the Dominican Republic. And they had made it public education, work related programs and so on. And quite successful program. Yes, that was a pioneer, I would say, in this field.

Men have been the leaders in Protestantism in Latin America as well as the leaders in society. But women have started to play a role and the church and Society in your day, even 50 and 60 years ago. Who do you remember as outstanding women leaders in those years?

Well, I remember Rachael Hendlerlite in Brazil, although I cannot give you any precise account of what she did. But she became quite well known up in this country. I worked on that. And Reverend Marcellina, JLI, Yamane Losada and Alosi, a detainee in Buenos Aires who was quite well known as a Protestant minister of the Disciples Church that Maria Foul's and VLS wanted to be a part of. The was a very influential Presbyterian woman in Colombia and her son, Dr Orlando Foul's on board, who was a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame and written books about sociology, quite prominent.

And so there have been women like that and who have made a contribution that have been missionary women who have done the same. I remember that Miss Gertrude Hanks' asked who was the director of the high school for quite a number of years and very well regarded in educational circles in Lima and others like that myside in Rio de Janeiro and also a Methodist school that I might write that very few Latin American churches ordained women as elders or as.

Yes, just been a recent development have been more of those. And the new denomination which is emerging in Brazil, is going to ordain women, elders and deacons. They're not prepared, I think, to ordain them as ministers, but they'll get to that.

I understand the Cuban church has ordained women ministers now. Yes, I think I have. Yes. That leads me to a name that is very familiar to Cuban Presbyterians. Edward Odel, you remember him and his work there. What are the things that you consider to be very important about his long ministry in Cuba?

Yes, I do have a very high regard and love for this man. He had a lot to do with my coming into the CSA as he was a member of this committee that called me. But he traveled widely throughout the Caribbean as the executive from the Board of National Elections and was loved by all the citizens in those countries. He once told me that if he could persuade.

A hundred young people to give their life to Christian service who feel that he had contributed to those countries and he did more than that many people given their lives in that way.

Another outstanding Latin America leader in Latin America is Dr. Migas and Uys Bonino, the in I and all who is now a president of the World Council of Churches.

What do you remember about his career since you first knew him 20, 30 years ago?

Well, he has been a liberal theologian for many years and has written many articles and some books about Latin America along the lines of liberal theology.

He believes that the Latin Americans should exercise the leadership of the churches. He has been rather critical of some foreign missionaries from the United States, particularly, who have not understood the Latin American culture and customs and have been foreign to foreign and the they have a traditional migas. Bonino is very erudite and has made a great contribution to the what I would call the energy of liberation. And as the World Council is one of the president, he is quite influential in ecumenical circles. Yes, he is one of the bright spots. And he and Dr. Mrs. Couch in the seminary, a great asset to the work in Argentina. And Beatrice Milanov couch down to his wife, is quite a theologian in our own right and very outspoken on these social issues that we should list her as one of the outstanding American women.

Yes, that's right. I forgotten about that when you she's probably the first to win a doctor to earn a doctorate theology degree among Latin American. Well, yes, yes, yes. There are two missionaries that you know well who are now in their fourth decade of missionary service, Jim Wright and Jim Goff. Let's talk first about Jim Wright in Brazil.

Yes, he and his brother Paul are what they were, the sons of the abolitionist in Brazil, phospholipid Paul some years ago disappeared. He was very outspoken politically and evidently he was arrested. And nobody knows what happened to you. And Jim Wright, a perfectly bilingual and very knowledgeable about Brazil and tremendously concerned about human rights, was assigned, I believe was two years ago by the program agency to work on human rights with Cardinal Evariste of that EP a. I still am an ass. And they worked closely together like like brothers. I never thought I'd see that day when the Catholic and Protestant would work like that in the same office and give credit to people and the program agency for assigning him to that work. He was recently given to the Witherspoon Award for his work in human rights and involved in the development of the new organization and as a reaction to the authoritarian Presbyterian Church, which has meant so much harm to the work in Brazil. So Jim Wright is a man to reckon with. He knows so much about Brazil and he writes very well. I have encouraged him to write a book about his experiences in human rights, especially in so.

And what about Jim Goff, who, you know, when he started in Colombia in the late 40s?

Yes, I've known Jim all these years, he and his wife Margaret, and quite an affection for them. He became very prominent in the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia and assembled all the facts and data about the persecution of Protestants and beginning in 1949 50 and through the year.

And I was able to get a special appropriations for him to continue that work to produce and then pick it up from his reports, factual and precise, and these were distributed off in this country and around the world, even to the Vatican.

So Jim Goff did a great work in that way. Now, he was after that, he went to Mexico and cooperated with the bishop of Vaca, that seewhy and the ACA.

And when we were there spending a few weeks in front of that, he took us to a mass.

The cathedral and introduced us to the to the bishop, there was quite a person.

Now, where is he now?

He is now in Managua, Nicaragua, and very much involved in what is going on there and doesn't sit still. He he works out things and things happen when he's around. A mom of two in Lima, by the way, they their main work was to translate documents from Spanish that came to their desk and put into English and disseminate them in the English speaking world.

And they did a great job in another missionary that you may remember in Uruguay by the name of Earl Smith, started a movement about nonviolent resistance to injustice. And his movement has sort of grown has grown across the years. What can you tell us about the results of that Earl Smith movement?

Well, I believe it was a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. That's where you got all this impulse from. And I think the people in Uruguay were ready for the movement that they had it up there that it never became. I don't believe it became a large movement. But he was influential among the Protestant people and especially who of life and just what had been done in recent years where he is, I don't know.

But I understand that the Nobel Peace Prize winner, what's his name, basically Esquivel was a part of that movement that Earl Smith sponsored write about 20 or 30 years ago.

Yes, that is a wonderful thing about Christian work. If you can capture the minds to using the word in the best sense of young people and give them enthusiasm and dedication for the Christian principles and service and witness, you've done something because they carry on the work that you've done and that is as it should be. And so I think that that movement will really live on. When you get men like Paskeville picking it up, it is difficult. There are all kinds of problems. You get criticized, you get vilified, but that's part of it.

And there have been three Latin Americans that I think of that you have known who have come here to serve in the church in the United States, the Chilean gado GHG ardeo the Colombian wealthy VLT y and another Colombian, Castillo. Sebastiano, what do you think about Latin Americans, quote, leaving their countries and coming here?

Well, if everybody did that, I would be against that. I don't know what you can do to prevent them. They feel they can serve in that way and served their countries, too. And I think there's something to that. Antonio, of course, was born in Colombia, known to you. And I knew him as a pastor there. And then he was and he came up to this country in the U.S. as they continue to put Chile, not Chile. But he had quite a ministry there. And then he came back. I think one of his sons was had a problem, medical problem, and they came up to the United States and he has to remain here. And I understand that they are giving his wife, Rakow, American citizens and he is the second for some sort of justice. And then the program agency, I'm doing a fine work, moved around among the churches and things like that.

And on Tuesday, October and harder and harder from Chile and one of the bright young pastors that was brought up to this country and became the Center for Latin American Office and later moved to, I believe, to the to left was a Methodist boy.

And Castillo, you will be CCPOA young Presbyterian from Colombia who came up to here and is on the staff of the Gutenberg Seminary.

I have great hopes for him.

I wish that he would go back to Columbia some time and serve them, I don't know when that would happen, but that is his decision.

Let's go back to Madras, 1938, where you met E. Stanley Jones. What do you remember about him and his contribution at Madras?

Well, I had heard about Stanley Jones as one of the great evangelists of our time, but some of his books. But I never seen him before in person. And on the last day, in the closing moments of the conference, he went up to the platform and Chairman Dr Martin allowed him to speak, know if I was going to say.

And he said, you have been spending all your time discussing the church when you should have been discussing the kingdom and he left the platform. So he said some of us delegates discussed that afterwards and were critical of Stanley Jones and didn't know what he was talking about. But over the years, I have come to see that he he had a valid point. I believe that the church has neglected the whole issue of the kingdom. And Dr. Jones, I know, believed believed that it was the main theme of Jesus ministry to reach with the gospel. Do you find that is true? But somehow we got sidetracked at the Lenten see in my church, England. But it should have belonged to a couple of years of professor from the seminary in New York from Princeton, who is now dead, gave the talks.

And in the discussion I said, how is it that the church has neglected the idea of the kingdom and said, well, some, you have understood it. And it's just one of those things I know we pray for it every Sunday that I cannot come without knowing what is for me. The kingdom is more or less that I'm synonymous with shalom. It is peace, reconciliation, social justice, joy, righteousness. Leslie Weatherhead, the great missionary preacher whom my wife and I had enjoyed hearing in 1948, the outstanding preacher and Wright of many books said The Kingdom of God is the kingdom of right relationships. Now, Stanley Jones, by the way, in 1972 or three, was in the hotel in Boston and had a stroke in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom, and he was paralyzed, stricken. Take his speech and he lay there for hours on the floor and somebody realized something wrong and they broke through through the window and got into the room and in the hospital and they said he had therapy treatments over and over a period of months, he recovered somewhat and his doctor allowed him to go back to India, where he had spent many, many years, fifty years. And he wrote there in those months, mostly dictating it to his his daughter, who was the wife of Bishop Matthews Methodist Church, his last book, The Divine. Yes. I reviewed it some years ago today book. And by the way, this is the last book. He wrote 29 books and made over a million dollars and royalties and gave it all away, full scholarship for young people to continue their higher education spending.

Just another great person that you knew in his later years with Robert Spear, who you say was with Dr. Inman. I am a and the architect of the committee and cooperation in Latin America. What do you especially remember about Dr. Spear?

He, as you have said, was he and Edmund were the architects. I don't think one could have done it without the other. They complemented each other quite different in that approach. But Dr. Spear, he had the background. He was a layman, by the way. He had a degree from Edinburgh, I believe, and wrote 69 books, was a great writer and reader and. Gave outstanding leadership to the committee of cooperation.

I don't think it would have been what it came to be without Dr. Spencer leadership, and he brought in all these Presbyterian experience and background into that position. And he was the chairman of the committee until 1936 when he retired. Yes, he but he was a great figure and was criticized in some parts of our church, I think unduly. But he he was used to that. He didn't that didn't faze him at all. He once spoke our minister in some years ago and told us this in one of his sermons, that Robosapien I don't know why he gave this a parody of the product of the Good Samaritan. And the the priest were professors in the seminary and it was students. And the Good Samaritan was a communist who happened to come by and help this man in Cuba. The.

Last question is about your perceptions of the American Presbyterian Church or the Presbyterian Church in America from your point of view as a former British citizen and as a former Methodist. How do you feel about being an elder and a participant in the Presbyterian Church over the last 40 years?

I guess very happy when I came to this country in 1940. I realized that to decisions that I was making myself. There was absolutely no pressure. Nobody ever mentioned it to me. They never asked me what church I belong to. I knew I had been in the Union Church in Lima before that in the Methodist Church member of the Methodist Church in England. And I saw the decision to join the president, who was entirely my own. And one of the considerations was that I liked the freedom. There is a spectrum of belief in our church, which is quite wide and is a tolerance. I think at least I like to think in the Presbyterian Church of these different views. This is this is part of our system. And also I felt there was a sensitivity to the great social evils of our time.

And I don't think they've done enough about that. But I felt that that was very significant in the French system. And I knew of the influence of of Calvin in this whole system of the reformed churches. And I like that what I knew about this. And so I became a Presbyterian and also my political affiliation. Nobody asked me what I, I was going to going to do that. And I became a Democrat.

Now, you are theologically astute, as from my perceptions. Thank you. And yet you have never studied theology work.

You picked up your scholarly just my reading and listened to people and lectures.

And what I have come to see as one reads books and articles and so on. I just formulated my own ideas and that's it. I wouldn't dare to go to a seminary and give a lecture on theological propositions. Might make some mistakes, but I do think that one has to.

Formulators own position, and I liked, by the way, and the prestige to the place of Laman, I realized that in general.