Tad Talk
Finally.
I’ve been looking forward to taking you with me on an extended reporting trip since this newsletter began. That was in May, right after I returned from the South Pacific, where I covered a ministry tour of President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Here’s our chance.
I am flying out of Salt Lake City on Thursday to Bogota, Colombia. President Nelson will be visiting Latter-day Saints and others in five countries on this trip — Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil.
He’ll be moving as fast as ever. For example, he will hold devotionals on back-to-back-to-back nights in Guatemala (Saturday), Colombia (Sunday) and Ecuador (Monday). |
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I’ll be traveling with photographer Ravell Call. We’re going into Colombia a few days early to capture stories of the church’s work there, and we’ll be on hand for President Nelson’s movements in that country. We’ll go on to Ecuador to cover his devotional there, and then we’ll stay a couple extra days to again cover stories about the impact of the church in that nation.
Finally, it’ll be on to Brazil, for stops in the nation’s capital, Brasilia, and finally São Paulo, where my father served a church mission in the early 1960s.
President Nelson has visited 22 countries so far. This will be his fourth multi-nation ministry tour. He’ll return to Salt Lake City on Sept. 2 to prepare for his 95th birthday celebration on Sept. 6. He’s shown no signs of slowing down.
Do you know any 94-year-old leaders of global organizations who visit three countries in three days, holding major meetings in each one?
Watch for my story previewing the trip, which is scheduled to be published Aug. 22 on Deseret.com. (Did you notice we changed the website’s name last week?)
You can also expect daily coverage of the tour on Deseret.com from our team, which will include me, Ravell, Church News editor Sarah Jane Weaver and photographer Jeff Allred. |
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What I’m Reading ... Last month I was in Detroit and watched President Nelson shake hands and visit with Safiya, the young daughter (see photo below) of Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Then Safiya sat down with her father and the Nelsons for a discussion on the work the church and the NAACP are doing together. My first thought was: what a good father. He is training her on the issues of the day and preparing her to become a leader herself.
This week, the tie between President Nelson and Johnson returned to mind. I covered only a portion of President Nelson’s first trip, his global tour in the spring of 2018. I went to London and then to Nairobi, Kenya. Then I broke off with photographer Ravell Call, and we flew to Ghana to report and photograph stories about the 1978 priesthood revelation’s impact in Africa. We made sweet friendships. Neither of us will ever forget Cape Coast, Accra or Kumasi. It is because of President Nelson’s tour that I visited Ghana.
This week, Johnson has traveled with NAACP leaders to Ghana to mark the 400th anniversary of the start of the slave trade to what is now the United States of America. That immediately made me think of standing with Ravell next to the hole in the wall of a castle prison in Cape Coast where European ships docked and slaves freshly stolen from their homes and families stepped out of prison and into a boat that would take them across the Atlantic Ocean. (Photo pictured below.)
There is a wealth of information to read as this anniversary has arrived. My visit to the slaving castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, made a new poem resonate with me. It is by Clint Smith for the 1619 Project. Here is an excerpt:
“I slide my ring finger from Senegal
to South Carolina & feel the ocean
separate a million families.”
This is a strong essay that discusses American slavery’s history. However you feel about modern American issues surrounding race, this essay powerfully takes readers back to 1619.
In case you missed it, the church issued this statement. |
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