Victory Over the Taliban

In a recent blog I mentioned a Bible verse that had “hyperbole.” Here's Luke 14:26 to illustrate the point:

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.

Hyperbole, then, is willingness to go to extremes--but ridiculous terms are used-- to obey Christ.  He doesn't mean we should hate our parents--but if our love for our Savior is great enough, we get the point of what He is saying.  Now I would like to tell you a story—a true story recorded in Voice of the Martyrs—about what life can be like when you follow Jesus—in Afghanistan. When your father is a top Taliban leader. It is a perfect illustration of a hyperbole.

This story is recent, so the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The protagonists will be named “John” and “Mary.” In the beginning of our story, John was 23, had a wife and baby son, and taught Islamic theology in his home town in Afghanistan. He traveled to Saudi Arabia three years ago on a hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca. As he slept on the way overnight, John dreamed of a man with shining face and shining white clothes, who said, “My son, I see that you are seeking after me, but the real faith is not in Mecca, and I am not there.” This made John think as he performed the rituals of the hajj—what he saw was different; he saw hypocrisy in worship. In another night on the trip, John had a vision (not a dream) of the man in white. “Who are you?” he asked. “I want to talk to you because I love you,” the man replied. “If I tell you who I am, you will lose seven things. You will lose the Quran and Mohammed. You will lose your parents. You will lose your child that you love. You will lose your relatives and everyone will hate you. You will lose your wealth. You will be homeless and they will drive you from your country. If you don’t accept the loss of these seven things, you won’t be able to find Me anymore. Before you were born, I had plans for you. What is your choice?”

“If you tell me your name, I will believe in you.”

The Man replied, “I am your God; I am Jesus Christ.”

Jesus touched John’s head and then he fell asleep. When he woke up, he felt completely different. “I was completely cleansed from the inside, and I felt like I was a newborn baby.” John immediately abandoned the rest of the hajj and flew home. He called his father from the airport in Kabul. Upon arriving home, “Why did you come back?” his father asked angrily. “There are still three days left for the hajj.”
“I found my God. And I don’t believe in your Allah.”
“Whom did you find?”
“I believe in Jesus Christ,” John replied.

“You are an infidel!” his father shouted as he began to beat him. “If you speak to people like this, I will cut out your tongue.”
“I want to tell people,” John said. “I don’t want to stop.”
“If you tell people you have become a Christian, I will burn you, your wife and little son!”

John’s father threw him into a basement bunker on the property that was used for detaining and torturing anti-Taliban insurgents. He was held there for nearly 18 months, enduring repeated torture and pressure to give up his faith in Jesus. No one in the family knew where John was—his father told John’s wife Mary that he was sent to Egypt to study. John was fed almost nothing. His captors put snakes in the basement, but they either died or had no effect on him when they bit him. They also released a vicious guard dog, but it immediately became friendly with John. They even tried to crucify John upside down.

Throughout John’s long, lonely months in the bunker, he often had dreams of Jesus. “God gave me power, and told me, ‘I am with you.’” His father finally released him with a warning. “I agreed that I would not talk about Jesus to him, but I did not promise that I would not speak to anyone about Jesus,” John said.

When John walked into his home that day, after he cleaned up, he went to his wife, Mary. He wanted to tell her about Jesus. “Mary, I have to tell you something.” He said “I have to tell you something first,” she said. She told him that throughout the time he was missing, she had had dreams of Jesus. He comforted her and promised her that her husband would come home. Mary had come to believe in Jesus, but she had not told the family. John joyfully told Mary everything, and the two cried with happiness.

John didn’t stop talking about Jesus. “I began to tell my mother everything about Jesus, and then all my family believed in Jesus. But they didn’t tell anyone because of fear.” John’s mother, sisters, aunts, and cousins all began to follow Jesus. Each night, when his father was gone, John would teach them what he learned through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Many in the community also learned of John’s new faith.

A few months later, when Mary became pregnant with her second child, John’s father instructed them to name the baby Sayeed Muhammed. “No” said John. “I don’t want to give my son an Islamic name. I am naming him Isa” (Jesus). His father exploded in anger and began beating John in the head. “Shut up, you infidel!” Then he threw John back into the bunker. When John’s father told Mary’s father (a mullah, an Islamic leader, and Taliban member), her father confronted her. “Your husband is an infidel,” he said. “You should abort the baby.”
“I believe in Jesus Christ too,” Mary told him. Her father slammed her forehead on the ground and hit her in the mouth, breaking her teeth. Then he began punching her in the abdomen. Then he tossed her limp body into the bunker with John. Her face was severely bruised from the beating.

While they were in the bunker, John’s father took their little son with him to meet some Taliban leaders in another city. Those leaders blamed John’s father for allowing his son to convert, and they ordered him to kill John. Mary’s mother heard about the plan and called John’s mother. She ran to the bunker and broke down the door. She handed John $2400, his computer, and a suitcase. “Please leave Afghanistan” she told them. “I’ll take care of your son.”

Although they didn’t want to leave their son, John and Mary knew that if they stayed at all, they would be killed. They fled. After three days and some distance, John found a Wi-fi “Skype” connection and called his mother. There was his 2-year old son sitting on her lap. John could see his son on the video screen but not her head. His son cried, “Papa! I am fine. Please come back. I miss you.” John’s mother also encouraged them to come home, saying the danger had passed. After the call, when John and Mary made plans to return, John’s mother called back again. “Don’t come back!” she warned. “The Taliban were standing right here when we were talking earlier, with a gun against my head. You must leave immediately.” John and Mary went on the run again, going as far as they could before the money ran out. They tried to register as refugees, but local Muslim workers refused to accept them because they were Christian converts.

But Mary was in severe pain, and could hardly move, having never healed from her father’s beating. A doctor gave them the bad news. The child in Mary’s womb had died, and Mary could die too if the fetus were not removed immediately. The procedure would cost $5,000. John didn’t have any money. That evening at home, John cried while Mary slept. As he prayed, he felt the Lord leading him to anoint his wife with oil and pray over her. John did, and prayed that Jesus would save his unborn son.  Eventually he fell asleep.

The next morning, Mary was up and around, so they went to the doctor. He delivered some incredible news. “The baby is alive! How is this possible?” John shared his whole testimony with the doctor and told him that he had prayed in the name of Jesus that his son would be healed. “It is a miracle” the doctor said. “I’ve never seen something like this in my life.” The doctor called others from the clinic into the room to see Mary and John shared his story with them too. Several people in the room believed in Christ that day.

The Taliban had continued to stalk John. He received threatening phone calls from radicals in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Saudi Arabia. The Taliban issued a demand: they would return to Afghanistan and recant their Christian faith, or their 2-year old son would be killed. The deadline was October 4, 2013. John did everything he could. He spoke to the embassy. He went to the U.N. Refugee Agency. But no one would help. A few days later, John’s father turned the little boy over to the Taliban—in order to restore his honor among his terrorist friends.

A relative called Mary and John with the horrible news that their son died. “The Taliban put a picture of my dead son on their website” John said. The murder of the little boy shocked John’s mother and five sisters. They asked how the Islamic faith could justify killing a child because of his father’s actions. They told John’s father that his acts were shameful, and they then told their whole village that they, too, were following the Jesus Christ that John had shared with them.

“Very soon, we learned from my wife’s brother that my father killed his wife and my five sisters and buried them” John said. “We believe him, because we have not heard or seen anything of my sisters.” Although Mary’s brothers were Taliban members, they disagreed with the leadership about killing John’s son. And then, when the Taliban and John’s father killed John’s sisters, Mary’s brothers initiated a gunfight with other Taliban members. The body of her oldest brother was found days later with one hand cut off, but her youngest brother managed to escape.

When Mary’s father found out that his wife was the one who had revealed the Taliban’s plot to kill the couple, he killed her by feeding her rat poison. John and Mary could only weep and pray, saying, ”God, you know.”

In November 2013, John and Mary were baptized. In February 2014 little Isa was born, perfectly healthy. Because of continual threats from the Taliban, the family was forced to move six times in eight months. John continued to share Jesus with everyone, often speaking with Afghan tradesmen working in the markets. He once prayed with a medical assistant about her infertility, and later she called to tell him she had just learned that she was pregnant. John began using the internet to minister to Afghans around the world, including his former Muslim students in Afghanistan. Many have turned to Christ through John’s powerful witness. John continues to teach new converts. He leads hours of internet worship services with small groups several times a week.

In late 2014, John, Mary, and Isa were accepted as refugees in a Western country. And John continues sharing about Christ. “Every second I work for God I want more people to see Jesus. I don’t want people to see me; I want them to see God. I lost everything, so I want to tell people about Jesus. God said He made many houses in heaven; he needs people in them.”

So, it ended up that many of John’s beloved relatives were murdered—so what was the meaning of my title, “victory” over the Taliban? The answer is: Many souls were won to the Lord. John will see his relatives in heaven again. None of their lives meant so much to them—or him—such as to sway them from their indomitable love for Our Savior. They loved Him so much that their feelings for each other seemed like hate in comparison. Our Lord gave up His life for us. What should we be willing to do for Him?   What Jesus spoke was hyperbole in Luke 14:26 above, but John and Mary were the perfect examples of what it means.

Acknowledgement Voice of the Martyrs, January, 2015