They take turns staying awake, praying and walking the floor while others sleep. For these Christians, in a safe house deep in Afghanistan, time is running out. Together, they live in fear of a single knock on their hiding place door. The Taliban are going door-to-door killing the men and beating and raping the women. The people must mark their house with an ‘X’ if they have a girl over 12 years old, so that the Taliban can take them. If they find a young girl and the house was not marked they will execute the entire family.
The orphans, if they’re lucky enough to be left behind, are starving. Two little girls who managed to hide after their parents were murdered — but eventually, they got so hungry that they ventured out to the market. The Taliban found them, raped them, and beat them.
The Biden administration has already moved on. They’re fighting abortion laws and ordering vaccine mandates — not giving a single word about the thousands of people they abandoned and left behind. Whatever time they do spend on Afghanistan is reserved for their victory propaganda, declaring the withdrawal a huge success. Meanwhile, 7,000 miles away, fathers are handing guns to their wives and daughters so that they can kill themselves if the terrorists come.
It doesn’t seem like much of a success to Jaiuddin and the other Christians huddled in Kabul, wondering if this night will be their last. He is not afraid to die. “Pray for us,” he pleaded. “We are praying… that the Lord would put his angels around our house for our protection and safety.”
“God has a plan,” one Christian leader in hiding insisted. “He knows what’s best for His children in Afghanistan. The church has been united. Through this hardship, the church will grow,” he predicts.
That prediction is already coming true as a growing number of Afghans are turning to Christ each day despite the severe persecution they are experiencing. People there plainly see the darkness of Islam and they’re running toward the light of the gospel.
Joel Richardson, with Global Catalytic Ministries (GCM), explained, “History proves that oppressive Islamic governance leads to revival in the Church. Iran has the fastest growing Church in the world. Seven years after the ISIS blitzkrieg, there’s a revival in northern Syria…the establishment of Islamic government provides ripe soil for the Church to grow.”
The Church in Afghanistan is determined to do the same.
“They’re still actively meeting, studying the scriptures together and sharing the gospel,” said Richardson. “They say they’re scared. Many of them are in despair, but it’s in that weakness that they’re still pushing forward and they’re finding sweetness in all of it.”
Dr. Rex Rogers, president of Christian media ministry SAT-7 USA stated, “Although Christians have been forced into hiding, Afghan children—the future of the nation—are certainly not hiding their curiosity about Jesus. It brings tears to my eyes when I hear these Afghan children quoting Jesus’ words by heart, creating their own worship songs, and using them to deal with the intense fear they’re going through.”
The ministry’s Christian satellite television and online programs—presented round-the-clock by Middle East Christians speaking the local Farsi and Dari languages—reach every part of the nation, including remote mountain villages where people have never met a Christian in person.
“Our local director told me: ‘This is where we unite as Christians, this is where we pray for each other, this is where we become stronger as one Church under the Lord,'” Rogers said.
“They’ve given their future, their fate, over to the will of God, knowing that it could result in martyrdom. They understand that very, very clearly, yet they’re pushing forward regardless,” he said.
The biggest prayer request right now is for divine protection. One Christian recently referenced Luke 4:29-30, saying, “They got up, drove (Jesus) out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill, on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”
To be hidden from those who seek to do them harm, as they continue to go out and make disciples of men. That is the wish of the Afghan Church.