Beginning Family Life Under the Taliban

When we finally arrived to our apartment in the afternoon in Karte Se, a distinguished old Afghan man was just finishing mopping the floor. He had a long, snowy white beard, and appeared to be in his 60’s.

The apartment was better and bigger than expected. We didn’t have electricity, but we had a large living room, a large bathroom, the hallway was really large extra sitting room. The kitchen was extremely narrow, but cozy and easy to heat. We had three bedrooms, which became an office, the baby’s room, and our room. 

I had wanted a teddy bear theme for our baby, but knew that going to Afghanistan, that was a luxury I would never have. When I walked into the baby’s room, I was stunned to see a Winnie-the-Pooh theme on the wall, (wasn’t what I would have chosen but it WAS a teddy bear room), and the crib was neatly laid out and ready to lay the baby down.  The baby seemed to sense immediately we were “home” and went right to sleep.  I knew God had answered a young mother's heart desire.

We began to settle into life with no electricity, cold running water from a gravity-fed water tank on the roof, and a simple life that was more like “camping” inside of cinder block walls. Dust was incessant. The first week, we had almost no visitors. We had no money, and there was almost no food in the house. We were afraid to go out of the house, because we didn't have the language and we had heard such scary things about the Taliban. 

It turned out that because we were in Kabul due to a partnership agreement between two agencies...ours and our Afghanistan partner, each thought the other was caring for us, when in reality, no one was. Finally, by the end of the week, people realized what dire circumstances we were facing, and came to show us how to get money, do our grocery shopping, and get some basic vocabulary for getting out and meeting people.

First Demonic Attack in Afghanistan
Sadly, our anger and frustration over a number of issues began to build over the following months, which included being irritated with our leadership and how our orientation was going. Really, the problem was ours, but we had allowed our anger to move into contempt for them.

One morning, as I was cooking breakfast, I asked DH what his dream had been...he had woken me up with his tossing and turning and even swinging arms. It turns out he had been having the same dream 3 nights in a row, and in it he was fighting the same scary demonic looking person.

I drew him out, asking him to describe the person.  To our horror, we had been having dreams where we were engaging the same personage. He was pure evil.  We immediately realized something spiritual was going on, and since we were both being troubled by the same dream, we knew it was something in us that was allowing this to happen.

Through prayer, the Spirit revealed to us how our anger had given the enemy a foothold into our lives. We lost no time getting on our knees and repenting of our anger and contempt for our leaders, and asking our Lord's forgiveness. We endeavored after that to extend grace and trust in our leadership, and clearer communication with what our needs were. By lowering our expectations, we were able to move into easier relationships with them and allow more understanding of the pressures they were facing.

Years later, when we became leaders, we saw how much grace our leadership really had extended to us, and how clearly people in their first 6 months in Afghanistan are clearly not themselves...they are under so much culture stress. It is up to those of us who are mature to help newer and younger workers realize the gap between their expectations and the reality, and how to process their emotions.