Article July 9, 2007 Issue

DAILY PRAYERS as a reporter in Africa

BY ABRAHAM MCLAUGHLIN

IN OCTOBER 2002, when The Christian Science Monitor sent me to be its only staff writer in Africa—a continent with 880 million people and 53 countries, not to mention the dangers of war and disease—I knew I needed to be prepared to lean daily on God with all my heart, both to succeed and survive.

So I prayed early and often. A line from a poem by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science and founded the Monitor, became particularly meaningful to me during this time. The poem is called "Christ My Refuge," and I focused on the last verse: