In South Africa these days, the bright torch of victory over apartheid is not yet lit. Smoldering struggle and hope flicker over funeral proces-sions, miners' strikes, neighborhood protests at "removals" of families from long-established homes. As so often happens in a time of intense struggle, the tinder of human pain flares up in forms of creativity-poetry, drama, stories, art and photography. As some of those flames are gathered into Torch in the Night, we who live at a distance begin to see the suffering and heroism of ordinary people living through this period of South Africa's history.

Torch in the Night is a book for worship, incorporating us into a stream of prayerful effort to transform a country controlled by a minority that enshrines racism. Worship will not let us keep our distance but demands of us the courage for conversion where we are. Patterns of greed, of discrimination, of increasing extremes of wealth and poverty can be traced in any town. South Africa itself is a microcosm of worldwide relations between nations of the North and of the South.

The task of transformation overwhelms us when we forget that God is involved with us. Torch in the Night illumines the faith of those who face reality and continue to hope. The book itself is designed around a series of different themes. Some groups may choose to work through all the themes, meeting on a regular basis to contribute to an ongoing current of prayer. Others may select particular themes for particular occasions. In either case, we hope that worship will help groups move toward action that will kindle the flames of transformation.