When art director Joan Nickerson unveiled the cover art for this issue, the nods of approval from staff signaled the successful end of a project that had taken the Christianity Today Institute halfway around the world and back again.
Preparations for the trip to South Africa began in December 1985, when initial visa applications were made. At about the same time, however, racial tensions were reaching a new fever pitch, and the government’s own wariness of foreign journalists witnessing violence firsthand delayed document processing for what was an anxious three months. Travel plans were in a continual state of flux, waiting for Johannesburg to give final visa approval—or denial. Then in March, visas were approved for an April visit, and CT executive editor Terry Muck; CTI’s chief operating officer, Paul Robbins; and two others from the CT Institute began making final plans.
Ably assisting with those plans was editorial coordinator Marty White. Her assignment was to set up the visiting group’s schedule, which eventually consisted of over 80 individual meetings and interviews. Of course, such arrangements had to be made during normal South African business hours—or between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. Chicago time! By departure day, a slightly weary Marty had meticulously mapped out each day’s agenda. (Special thanks to a patient husband, Chad.)
As for the trip itself, the foursome lived with the multiple tensions and dilemmas of this tinderbox situation for nearly three weeks. And their report is both a recounting of those tensions and a personal, often poignant, look at men and women in the church holding forth the only hope in what, humanly speaking, is a hopeless situation.
Harold Smith, Managing Editor
