Afghanistan

So I have been a bit of a book hermit so to say the past two weeks. It's pretty much all Tyler's fault. Let me explain. Sometimes he brings books home from the Bridge building that have been in the "lost & found" for forever and that no one has claimed. I guess he thinks that maybe his wife might be interested in checking into reading them. Most the time I start them, only to find them boring or not interesting enough for my taste. I am kind of a book snob. It has to be REALLY good to catch and keep my attention. Well, this particular book looked interesting so I started reading all the things people had said about it on the first few pages. Well then I figured, man, this has to be good if all these newspapers and people have said all this about it. So I started reading it. Could not put it down for 5 days. Any free time I had, that book was in my hands. Now, you have probably wondered what about your title of this post? What does all this have to do with Afghanistan? well, this book is about Afghanistan. I am not sure I want to say the title of this book, since it is a hard read. There are things in it that, well, you really just don't want to think about at all. But the reality of it, I learned, is that those things happen. And they happen not only in the country of Afghanistan, but in our own country as well, although the Taliban has never, and I pray will never be in power here.
All this to say, this book got me really thinking about Afghanistan. Not just thinking, but breaking inside over this country's hardships and what people have had to go through over there. There are still many Afghanistan refugees in Pakistan and other countries that do not have homes. A lot of Afghans went back to Afghanistan after the Taliban fell, and now are leaving again because things really haven't improved that much. I just can't imagine it. Leaving your country, going back, then leaving again. Being a "refugee" in someone else's country. Living in a refugee camp with all these other refugees and their families. Not knowing what will happen to you and your family. PLEASE pray for these Afghans. Please pray that God would show them Himself the comfort, peace, and freedom found in Christ.
The author of this book has one other book he wrote, so I went to the library after I finished the other one and got his other one. Read in it 5 days. He is such a brilliant writer. It was just as good as the first one. In this one, though, the story is mainly about Afghan women and what it is like in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Women could not walk down the street without being accompanied by a man. If they did, and got caught, they would be beaten badly or who knows what else. Women could not go to school. They shut down all schools for girls. Women could only go to a hospital for women which didn't have adeqaute supplies and no pain med at all. Now this was all in the book, so I'm taking this author's word for it that this may all be true. The author is an Afghan himself, however.
Anyways, this is getting long. But reading these books has made me come to appreciate where I live. Appreciate that I have never had to run away. That as a women, I am respected and have so many rights in my country. That I can and have gotten to go to school/college/grad school! That I haven't been forced to marry a man three times my age that I do not love. That I am not forced to be a certain religion, nor forced to pray at certain times every single day, but have a personal relationship with the one, True God.
So much despair has filled my heart as I've read these books. It has made me want to go over there and start an orphanage or be a missionary. PLease pray for Afghanistan. That God would send missionaries to take his truth and hope there.

If you'd like to know the name of the author of these books and the titles, you can facebook me or email me.