On a trip late last year to the neighboring countries of Ghana and Togo, in West Africa, I had the privilege of hearing moving testimonies of spiritual renewal from the many men and women I met. While driving a group of us back to our hotel one night, Rodger, a joyful Togolese man, told me in his native French about an experience he had almost two decades ago, which seems indelibly etched in his mind. Briefly, Rodger grew up in a modest village far from Lomé, the capital of Togo. His large family had few resources and his life-prospects appeared dim. One day, in the early-morning hours, he came across a radio program in French that he had never heard before: Le Héraut de la Science Chrétienne, a shortwave broadcast from Boston of The Herald of Christian Science. What Rodger heard about God and his relationship to divine Love was an eye-opener, and, for him, closed the door forever on poverty.
Mary Baker Eddy, who established the Herald in 1903, wrote, “When the heart speaks, however simple the words, its language is always acceptable to those who have hearts” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 262). As a result of this heart-to-heart communication across continents, Rodger’s life took on new light and hope. He began to study Christian Science and later took Primary class instruction, and for many years has been an active church member in Lomé. (To read Rodger Glokpor’s testimony in English go to http://journal.christianscience.com/blessings-of-love.)
As an editor for the Christian Science publications for two decades now, I’ve heard and read hundreds of accounts like Rodger’s from men, women, and children in villages and cities from Cuba to Cape Verde, and from those serving prison sentences in many countries, seemingly cut off from the world. Hundreds of these have been recorded for our Christian Science periodicals and translated from languages and dialects spoken on almost every continent. They are compelling proof that the persistent and persuasive “still, small voice” of Truth reaches the far corners of the earth to find those in need of comfort and healing. It “reaches over continent and ocean to the globe’s remotest bound,” says Mrs. Eddy in her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. “The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, ‘as when a lion roareth.’ It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear” (p. 559).
