About fifteen years ago I married a New Zealander, and we went to live in his country, a considerable distance from my home—the other side of the world, to be precise. A relative gave us an airmail subscription to The Christian Science Monitor; we became so attached to reading its reports that we continued the airmail subscription ourselves, even though the higher postage rate meant paying about five times the cost of the paper itself. The country was small and distant from other centers, and we welcomed the Monitor's lively reports on overseas developments.
Several years later I was appointed circulation representative for the Monitor in Auckland, and there began an adventure that has never stopped. Once I started introducing the Monitor to local groups, I began to build a network of friends that has taken me into the heart of the community, to active people who appreciate receiving a Monitor article about their field.
The founder of the Monitor, Mrs. Eddy, had many homes both before and after her discovery of Christian Science. She valued the peace of a settled home, yet was forced to move many times as the result of her work in establishing the Cause of Christian Science. This work included the founding in 1908 of a world newspaper whose mission could be described as helping mankind find its home. The Monitor respects the best facets of a culture or country, yet points to ways we can grow out of limited national viewpoints, animosities, and apathy about others' sufferings.
