Donna Kushner, a missionary in her lifetime, both overseas and to immigrant families stateside, writes of the story of her Afghan friends.
Nargis and Ali were married 20 days before the Taliban retook Kabul. Because Ali had worked for the U.S. military, the couple thought it best to flee.
The phone connection sounded a bit like Oliver, one of my closest Ugandan friends, was crushing newspapers on the other end. I held the phone an inch from my ear.
But I didn’t miss what made my hand fly to my chest: “Aisha…she passed. It was just too late. Things were already too bad.”
My husband and I, kids in tow, were maneuvering at a snail’s pace through a traffic jam in our trusty high-clearance minivan. Our speakers happily trumpeted the Christmas CD my mom had sent, and we chatted, our energy high for our Christmas shopping in the city and the Christmas party of our non-profit (which, with the barbecue and kids running around in shorts, tends to look a little more like the Fourth of July).
It was sometime after “Let it Snow” that our heads all swiveled to the driver’s side, where a man was banging—hard—on the outside of our van. Never a good sign in Kampala.
