IAM and Afghanistan

I'm going to comment today on something that is technically none of my business. By which I mean that it has little do with Joel. I have never been to Afghanistan. I did not personally know any of the aid workers who were killed there this past week.

So I'm taking full advantage of the artistic license afforded to me via the Internet by this blog.

Because this event has been on my heart. I never knew Dan Terry, or Tom Little. But I do have friends who knew them. They knew them because their own family spent many years in Afghanistan working with IAM mission.

The Penner's home is full of knick knacks and artwork from Afghanistan, a house I lived in myself for quite a few years as a boarder while the "kids" got their post-secondary education. I heard lots, and lots of stories about life in Afghanistan. And I saw first hand how the experience affect their lives, both bad effects and good, but mostly good.

So I guess I do have a sort of right to a close interest in this subject, and though I did not know the slain workers personally, it feels really important to my heart.

And my heart feels sad. Not just because some very loving people who were doing something important were lost. But sad because of the reaction some people have to it.

I have read some comments, from "everyday" people written under the news stories on the Internet. I didn't find any that were negative about the people who were killed.

However, I did find a lot that were negative about Afghanistan. They were angry. They were disillusioned. They were bitter. Yeah, they were negative and even vindictive.

This made me very sad, because though I don't know these slain workers personally, I know them through the stories, and I know how my own friends felt about the people of Afghanistan.

So I feel very safe in saying that if these two men, Dan Terry and Tom Little, read those comments, they would be very distressed. This reaction of angry retaliation would be the last reaction they wanted.

This was not the first time they had run into hostile people. It's just the first time they were actually killed. And these run ins never stopped them from loving.

Much has been made over the question of whether these men were proselytizing or not. I know first hand from my friends that they were tremendously careful to avoid anything that could even be remotely construed this way. I know that they did not have Christian literature to hand out. It is something they didn't do, something that distressed them when others did it, because it jeopardized all missions. In fact, some people from Christian circles have criticized missions like IAM this for the very reason that they do not preach or hand out Bibles.

These were people of integrity who would not break their word. They made a promise not to preach and I know they kept it.

They knew they did not need to preach. They understood that sometimes speech is just a wind blowing. They had a different language.

They spoke with their very lives. Whenever they were kind, whenever someone was helped, they knew what the action said. They knew they didn't need to hand someone a Bible. Because when they handed out a pair of glasses, they knew it was saying "Here is love. Here are my hands, in the place of Jesus' hands, to show you the love of God." All without a single word being spoken.

And here is the true power to transform an evil situation. Not with armies. Not with policies. Not with governments. Not with withholding aid. Not with careful reporting. Not with the censure of nations. Sometimes these things might be helpful, but I have never seen transforming power in any of these things.

The real power lies in ordinary people filled with extraordinary love willing to do anything that God tells them is necessary. Regular people who will not let anything turn them back from giving love and compassion, a power from God which can truly transform hate to love, evil to good.

So if you read this, I'm asking you to do something difficult. Please, do not take away from what these men spent their whole lives doing. I've heard the stories, I know they made a difference for good in this country. If the love of God resides at all in you, follow the example of these men. Respond in love. These men loved the Afghan people. They were wise men and I trust their judgement here.

When you think of it, when you hear about Afghanistan in the news, let's pray for this country and it's people. Even the Taliban. And now that you know about IAM mission, and the work it does there, please say a special prayer for the families of these people, and for the work of the mission to continue.