PRAY WITH SALEHA IN AFGHANISTAN

Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters from Afghanistan, which is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian. 

Meet Saleha (not her real name), in her 40s. She and her husband are members of a movement that wants to bring love and hope to Afghanistan. 

So, unlike many around her, Saleha’s marriage to her husband was for love. “She once told me that she was a privilege child in the whole of Afghanistan, even the whole world, because she is the only wife whose husband love her,” shared Open Doors local partner.

This is because, as a member of the hope movement, her husband loves her. He does not beat her like the other husbands in her community. He even taught her how to read and write.

Suspicions and abduction

Instead of understanding, their families and the community became very suspicious of them. “That is seen by them as a bad thing, an anti-fanatical behaviour. They believe that they have sold their faith in Islam and are agents of the West,” our partner said.

As a result, it became too dangerous for them to stay in their home. But before they could move, her husband disappeared. “He was kidnapped. She was left all alone with no one to take care of her,” our partner said.

Some of their close friends, who share the same hope, took it upon themselves to care for her. She was moved to a different city where another family took her in as their daughter.

But she still waits for him to come home, and that waiting has been for many years. “She loves him so much that she refused to believe that he could possibly be dead,” she said. To her, he is alive even though there is no news and every knock on the door could be him.

The waiting and hoping tormented her. There was a season when she was very angry with God. “It was very difficult to see the journey that she went through. She gets excited whenever someone visits her to pray, send her Bible verses and encourage her. But sometimes she is so sad that she is not listening at all. She was so blinded by her grief and anger. It is in those difficult paths, where she could do nothing or see nothing, that her adopted family and friends continue to love and pray for her,” said our partner.

A new hope

She would sing songs that she and her husband used to sing together. She sang it to remember him. But later, the meaning of the songs broke through her anger.

“She came to realise who was with her and protected her. She remembered the original intent of her husband and her to bring hope to the nation. She remembered the difficult times they went through and how He was with them. And she finally realized that the sacrifice she had made as a young wife, in losing her husband, can nowhere be compared to the Greatest Sacrifice of All Time,” said our partner.

So, she learnt to be a daughter in her new home. She also learnt to be an older sister to her younger siblings, and that’s where she found her mission field, God’s calling for her life. She teaches them the Word of God and help them to memorize scriptures. Her adopted siblings became her own children since she doesn’t have any children.

Please pray for our brothers and sisters from Afghanistan, which is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian. 


Top photo: representative image used