A Glimpse of Jeremiah's Jerusalem

I never forgot my first glimpse of Kabul during the time of the Taliban. It was after the Mujahadeen war of the 90’s. The Mujahadeen warlords behaved in typical Afghan fashion – each positioning on a hilltop overlooking the King’s Palace and Karte Se. Forming alliances with one warlord, treachery, betrayal, backstabbing each other, and the end result is that none took control, the King’s Palace, Queen’s Palace, and most of Karte Se were destroyed. Not a single house went without some mark of the war – whether bullet marks, rockets dropping through roofs, fire, bombs. Only one house went without a mark of war – the Christian Community Church of Kabul, known as the CCCK by foreigners and Afghans alike. 

My DH and I arrived in Kabul in early September with our young baby.  I had my colleagues send me an outfit, so that when I arrived Kabul, I had properly veiled as we walked through the empty and dark Kabul airport.  Because I was clearly a nursing mother, the guards merely waived us through security – they were happy to have any foreigners coming to their country. 

We were told our apartment wasn’t quite ready, so we would be taken to another office to wait, have lunch and go there in the afternoon. I didn’t want to complain, since we were brand new.  Frustratingly, I could feel a mild case of fever and flu-like symptoms coming on, and the baby and I were weary of all the change. We just wanted to get to our apartment and begin settling in. 

Finally, it was time to pile back in the car with all our luggage, and drive across the empty city. I will never forget what I saw as we slowly drove into Karte Se – the speed necessitated by numerous potholes.  It was when we got to Demezong, the chowk where the post office was and turned onto Durulamen Road that runs all the way to the King’s palace, that my eyes widened into shock:  I had traveled in over 55 countries of the world before I married DH, but NOTHING prepared me for what I saw. 

Immediately,  the vision of Jerusalem when it was sacked by the Babylonians, as described by Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations came to mind.  His words accurately described Kabul at the time of the Taliban rule.  My heart broke as I later read his words: 

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.  Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. 

The roads to [Kabul] mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her virgins have been afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly. Her foes have become the head; her enemis prosper, because the Lord has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe. ….The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength.

For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate for the enemy has prevailed….Her gates have sunk into the groun; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord. 

The elders […] on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads, and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground…infants and babies faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, ‘Where is the bread and wine?’ as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.”

I now knew just a bit more what he saw, and the pain he must have felt to see his own people destroyed because of their obstinance.  War is a terrible thing, sometimes necessitated as an instrument of God’s judgment, sometimes just purely evil. But oh, how the mothers, babies, children, young men, young women, old men, old women suffer. Rule under the Taliban, under Shariah law, is hell on earth. If one’s Utopia is a place ruled by fear, hatred, coldness, and poverty, than Shariah Law is the way to obtain it. 

We arrived at what was to be our home for the next 6 months or so. The first floor was completely sandbagged on the outside, but we were led to the upstairs. Our first security briefing in-country was to be told to run downstairs if we heard shelling, and we were taught how to use the VHF radios (okay, DH already knew everything about how to use them, but I needed the orientation).  Security call was nightly, to make sure everyone was in long before the Taliban-imposed curfew. 

This was the beginning of learning how to live in a city just a short ways from the front-line of a terrible war.