Under the Southern Cross

Set in South Africa during the decline of Apartheid, a story about the disparity of religious idealism and human frailty. Ben Greene is a young American schoolteacher who is sent by his church to assess the mental and physical state of John Rice, an aging missionary who has gone missing in Botswana. The search leads into a war zone in Angola where Ben is caught in a fire-fight and a child dies in his arms. Then, he discovers Rice’s body among a group of murdered missionaries. Left on foot, Ben and his African interpreter Tembu are forced to find their way to safety through the treacherous Okavango swamp.Ben returns to South Africa physically and emotionally scarred, but determined to compensate for Rice’s loss and to assuage the pain of his own guilt. He and his young wife Marilyn settle in Cape Town, immersing themselves in a burgeoning ministry led by a flamboyant evangelist named Alexander Van Hemel. Unaware of his sinister agenda, the couple find themselves entangled in a dark web from which escape is costly and painful. 3