2023

November

November 8, 2023: CHURCHES URGED TO SPEAK UP FOR AT-RISK AFGHAN REFUGEES
https://www.eternitynews.com.au/the-church-in-action/churches-urged-to-speak-up-for-at-risk-afghan-refugees/

Australian church leaders and individual Christians are being urged to join a letter-writing campaign as the Pakistan government arrests hundreds of Afghan refugees from ethnic and religious minorities, including Christian converts.

Many Afghan families have gone into hiding to avoid being deported to their home country, where they would likely face human rights abuses. Many have already been repatriated and are hiding in Kabul, according to messages received by Philoi Global, which works for the resettlement of refugees from persecuted minorities.

September

September 29, 2023: Afghan refugees share their stories of courage and faith
https://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/latest-news/afghan-refugees-faith/
Afghan refugees share their stories of courage and faith – and how your prayers and support are helping them persevere.

In a video from earlier this year, Sitara said, “The world knows how the Taliban are against women’s education and women working outside. They don’t want women to be educated because they will give birth to educated children. They will give society educated children, who, maybe someday, will stand against the Taliban.”

September 16, 2023: Taliban Said To Suspect Detained NGO Workers Of Promoting Christianity
https://www.rferl.org/a/humanitarian-ngo-afghanistan-taliban-staff-detentions/32595529.html

Local officials in the central Afghan province where the Taliban detained 18 staffers for a long-serving humanitarian NGO earlier this month suggest the group was suspected of spreading Christianity, RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi has learned.

August

August 28, 2023: Oklahoma Church Shares Love And Christ With Afghan Refugees
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2023/8/21/oklahoma-church-shares-love-and-christ-with-afghan-refugees

Just a week before the April 30, 1975, fall of Saigon, Kluver and her family fled Vietnam aboard a U.S. military aircraft. Her father had labored with the Americans for years before Vietnam fell to communist rule. She was 15 years old.

Nearly half a century later, the former Buddhist provides a loving, steadying presence for a family that escaped Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power two years ago.

The Hashemis made it inside the U.S.-controlled Kabul airport just 30 minutes before an Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at an airport gate.

August 25, 2023: Is there any hope in Afghanistan? A lifeline that the Taliban can’t stop
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/any-hope-in-afghanistan-a-lifeline-that-cant-be-stopped.html

For the Afghan people — and the nation’s growing number of isolated Christians — the past two years have seen many changes for the worse.

Before the Taliban took over in August 2021, girls and women enjoyed days out at the park, playing soccer, riding bikes, and swimming. Schoolgirls skipped along happily to their classes. And young women spent their spare time getting makeovers at the local beauty salons.

Now, recreation is just for men. Only boys can attend secondary school. And the once-thriving beauty salons have closed by order of the Taliban.

August 24, 2023: Here’s why US Evangelicals want the Afghan Adjustment Act
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/heres-why-us-evangelicals-want-the-afghan-adjustment-act.html

… And then, two years ago this week, the tide changed again. As evangelicals saw the horrifying images of the evacuation after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, our refugee resettlement programs were overwhelmed by calls and emails from evangelical Christians eager to donate and volunteer to welcome Afghans, many of whom were now at risk because of their service to the U.S. military. Our warehouses were soon overfull with donations for Afghans. And an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that six-in-10 evangelicals supported the U.S. taking in Afghan refugees, a 35-point shift in public opinion in just a few years.

August 17. 2023: How a grassroots ministry to Afghan refugees ‘snowballed’ into something big
https://christianchronicle.org/how-a-grassroots-ministry-to-afghan-refugees-snowballed-into-something-big/
A Texas church’s outreach started with one Christian couple compelled to ‘do something.’

“We always talk about, ‘Send missionaries around the world,’” Mary said. “This is a mission field where we do not have to go anywhere. God gave it to us on our doorstep. All we have to do is just make friends with them.”

June

July 20, 2023: Al Qaeda, ISIS Rebuild in Afghanistan; Christians Face Deadly Danger and Soon the West Could Too
https://www2.cbn.com/news/world/al-qaeda-isis-rebuild-afghanistan-christians-face-deadly-danger-and-soon-west-could-too

A United Nations monitoring team has cautioned in a recent report that terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda and its affiliates, are growing in strength in Afghanistan.

Despite promises that Afghanistan would not again become a haven for terrorists, the 27-page report says such as Al Qaeda “have greater freedom of maneuver under the Taliban” than before and that “the threat of terrorism is rising in both Afghanistan and the region.”

Bill Roggio, editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Long War Journal, told CBN News, “The Taliban have been cooperating with Al Qaeda – has been supporting and sheltering Al Qaeda. It did it during the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and it continues to this day.”

May

May 15, 2023: Film: An urgent call to action on behalf of Afghan Christian refugees
https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/47182

CSW says: “We believe your voice holds unimaginable power and can save lives.” It also asks for the support of prayer.

Afghanistan’s politics, economics and society changed significantly on 15 August 2021, when the government fell following the US military withdrawal and the Taliban’s takeover of the country’s capital, Kabul. The Taliban’s swift advance prompted several thousand Afghan men, women and children to leave their homes and head for neighbouring countries, fearing the group’s long history of violence, targeted oppression and persecution of minorities and vulnerable groups.

For many Afghans, the takeover heralded a return ‘to the darkest days,’ as UN Secretary-General António Guterres described it.

April

April 3, 2023: Taliban puts bounty on Afghan Christians
https://www.mnnonline.org/news/taliban-puts-bounty-on-afghan-christians/

“There are secret prayer meetings and teaching sessions; people are giving each other encouragement and hope. They are reaching out and evangelizing the lost around them, which is incredibly courageous, considering the implications,” Silk says.

March

March 9, 2023: ‘Extreme, Bizarre, Brutal’: Christians Hiding and on the Run as Taliban Afghanistan Horrors Rage
https://www.faithwire.com/2023/03/09/extreme-bizarre-brutal-christians-hiding-and-on-the-run-as-taliban-afghanistan-horrors-rage/

“The Taliban seized control of the government,” he told CBN’s Faithwire. “It’s been 18 months of the Taliban returning to a very draconian, medieval rule.”

Curry continued, “Their theology drives the way they see the world. It’s a medieval interpretation of Islam. Women can’t go to school, can’t hold jobs, females’ faces are covered.”

And that’s not all. Curry said there are “extreme, bizarre, brutal punishments” being waged against anyone who challenges Islam or the Taliban, with other extremist groups like the Islamic State trying to push the Taliban to even more depraved behavior.

March 2, 2023: Afghanistan is worse than ever. America should take responsibility.
(Global Christian Relief) — Eighteen months after the Taliban takeover, conditions range from barbaric to bizarre.
https://religionnews.com/2023/03/02/afghanistan-is-worse-than-ever-america-should-take-responsibility/

Until recently, Afghan professor Ismail Mashal could be found wheeling books around Kabul and passing them out for free in response to the Taliban’s ban on higher education for women and girls. An outspoken critic of the Islamist government, Professor Mashal dramatically quit his job on live TV and tore his diploma to protest the ban on women attending university. But then, on Feb. 2, Mashal was violently beaten by members of the Taliban, arrested and hauled off to an unknown location.

Sadly, this incident of repression is just one of many that regularly take place in Afghanistan. In the 18 months since the U.S. withdrawal, the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime continues to disintegrate, delving ever further into the completely brutal and absurd. The United States — and democracy’s allies around the world — clearly should be doing more to help Afghanistan and its people.

January

Afghan Christians Are Very Online
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2023/january/afghanistan-christian-church-afghan-bible-college-sat7-dari.html

As Taliban increases restrictions on women and minorities, enterprising ministries offer seminaries and sermons where there are no churches.

“I want to help evangelize women,” said Hosseini, coordinator for the nascent Afghan Bible College (ABC), “and then equip them for ministry.”

Begun in 2020 by a Korean missionary in Turkey, ABC is an online college with some in-person training. With ten affiliated lecturers, including three with PhDs, it aims to prepare leaders for the next generation of Afghan Christians—estimated to number up to 12,000 before last year’s takeover of their homeland by the Taliban.