The CT staff wanted a relaxed week between Christmas and New Year's, so they polished up this issue's contents before Christmas. But then, the day after Christmas, a death-dealing tsunami inundated the shores of South Asia.

One of the few editors on duty was Agnieszka Tennant. Before coming to CT, she worked for the City News Service in Chicago, chasing emergency vehicles—sometimes into treacherous neighborhoods. She felt the old adrenaline surge return, and she quickly called Christian relief agencies to gather their initial reports from the affected region. Her report on CT's website was our first coverage of the devastation.

As the rest of the staff returned from vacation, managing editor Mark Galli decided to change the cover story—five days before this issue was to print. On these pages, you'll find the last-minute tsunami reporting of Agnieszka Tennant and Stan Guthrie, as well as the design heroics of Gary Gnidovic and Windy Haugen. Special thanks goes to agencies like World Vision and World Relief for opening their channels of communication to us. And we're grateful as well to others with an international reach: the Bible League, which provided news on Indonesia; Australian journalist Paul Gallagher, who connected us with sources at Lanka Bible College; and John Maust of Media Associates International, who led us to writers in Java and India. Evangelicalism's global nature and ready network paid dividends in both relief and reporting.

The time-zone difference has meant long hours for our staff. One late night, Agnieszka Tennant was interviewing World Vision's first-response manager in Colombo. The intrusion alarm went off in our building, and Agnieszka had to decide: Call security and deal with a possible ...