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.

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.