We'll miss you, Audrey Jackson
The Christian Chronicle's managing editor is moving on to her next adventure.
WE’LL MISS YOU, Audrey.
When The Christian Chronicle hired Audrey Jackson four years ago, I wrote a column describing her as “the right person to join our team.”
The 2021 journalism graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Ark., certainly proved to be that. In her time with the Chronicle, her exceptional reporting, writing, photography and newspaper design skills all have impressed us. Last year, we promoted her to managing editor.
But now we’re saying goodbye — at least for now — and wishing Audrey all the best as she moves to Louisville, Ky., where her fiancé, Zach, is completing a residency in emergency medicine.
Read Audrey’s farewell column and her final story — from El Salvador, the 18th country her Chronicle work took her — below. And feel free to email her at audrey@christianchronicle.org to thank her for her contribution to real news that honors God.
Say goodbye to this byline
By Audrey Jackson | Managing Editor
OKLAHOMA CITY — For most of you, I’m just a byline. But, if you’re interested, I’d like to give you a little insight into this part of my life.
Four years ago, I graduated from Harding University in Searcy, Ark., and moved to Oklahoma City to join The Christian Chronicle staff.
It was a gamble on the Chronicle’s part.
Despite good references, I was virtually untested. The COVID-19 global pandemic had disrupted my college education, leaving me without an internship as newsrooms and media agencies went remote and pared down to essential employees. The only journalistic clips I’d produced were for Harding’s campus newspaper, The Bison.
But Bobby Ross Jr., the Chronicle’s editor-in-chief, and Erik Tryggestad, its president and CEO, must have seen potential because they invited me to interview in person after a phone call.
I think it’s fair to say that — at least in the beginning — we butted heads.
In the land of ‘The Savior,’ Bibles are welcomed
By Audrey Jackson | Managing Editor
SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR — In between class periods, children gathered to chat and play in a school’s open-air hallway.
Nearby, older students worked on state-issued laptops. A girl studied geology slides. One boy reviewed his most recent assignment. Another played Minecraft online.
Bars — on the windows, gates and walls — separated these children from the outside world.
Philip Holsinger, a journalist and 2010 graduate of the master of ministry program at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., stood inside photographing the peaceful schoolyard.
The scene lacked the anger and vengeance he expected to find when he arrived 18 months earlier.
“My friend was calling me from El Salvador, saying, ‘You’ve got to come and see this. It’s working. The country is transforming,’” Holsinger recalled. “And I said, ‘No way. I know it’s not transforming. If it is, it’s going to be smoke and mirrors, and it’s just not real.’”
But now Holsinger isn’t so sure.
“I wondered in my spirit, is this a godly thing that’s happening here?” Holsinger said. “Is God behind this? And then it looks like there might be evidence that that’s true.”
