welcome November 15, 2004 Issue

Prayer for the world's cities

Kim Shippey

News And Special Projects Editor Rosalie Dunbar has longed for years to go to Detroit, that Michigan city known around the world for its auto industry—and for its struggle to "come back" after the riots of 1967.

Rosalie finally got to Detroit last month, and her story takes the spotlight in this issue. She came away with impressions of a city of enormous potential. "It's wounded and hurting," she tells me, "but it's still very much alive, and is winning the battle for survival, inch by inch by inch. If Detroit offers any lessons for cities in the United States and elsewhere, it's that the human spirit cannot be stopped. And prayer can do a lot to lift the human model toward the divine."

The need for prayer may be obvious to anyone who follows the news media, but Rosalie found those reports don't tell the whole story. "To focus on violence is common in reporting on Detroit," she says, "but the unsung heroes who work hard every day to turn the tide don't get the same notice. What is helpful in thinking about those efforts, which seem small in the face of such need, is that there is a Science—the Science of the Christ—that can restore and regenerate. And it doesn't have to take a million years to get there."

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