My Family

I was born in the city of Herat in Afghanistan, located close to the Iranian and Turkmenistan borders.  My father is a doctor. I am the oldest of six, five brothers and one little sister.

One evening in 2010, my father was kidnapped by a terrorist group within the Taliban.  They broke into our home and took him away by force. In the morning, they leveled accusations against him:  He was working on a military base for the government and his salary paid by them, was not Halal (covered by Muslim law).  They sent a message to our family, “Your father is with us, if you want him back alive, you must pay us $40,000.”  At the time we did not have that kind of money, as my father had just spent his resources on building our family a new house. But, like a miracle, as neighbors and friends heard about our situation, during the next few days they came together and collected $35,000 among themselves which we offered as ransom.

The Taliban kept my father for three days while they tortured him, but eventually they accepted the ransom, although they misled my brother by guiding him to three false addresses before he finally found him.  My father was badly hurt, but did survive.  The two men in charge of the kidnapping were arrested by the government forces; one was sentences to 20 years, the other 15 years imprisonment.  Shortly after that, our family began receiving threatening phone calls from the Taliban, even from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

They were ordering my father to go to the Judge and talk with him to insist that the two guys charged was a mistake, that they were innocent as a matter of wrong identity.

But the government knew they had the right men, as they were part of the Taliban leadership, so the kidnappers remained in prison. Our family kept being harassed, so we decided to move from our new home to another part of town, thinking we would be safer.

One morning as my father opened the front gate to go to work,  he saw an object fastened to the gate.  It turned out to be bomb.  He contacted the authorities who came and deactivated it.  Other times when I answered the phone the voice would say, “We will kill your whole family!” We contacted the Judge, the government authorities, the offices of the foreign NGOs and the United Nations office and asked for protection, but they all stated it would not be possible. Therefore we left our city and moved to another city, Mazar-e-Sharif, located near the borders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, hoping our lives would be better.

Studies and Work on Military Base

We had a financial problem since we  needed to repay the funds our friends and neighbors had given us for the ransom.  So, as I began my university studies, my father also found me a job at a very large ISO international military base containing foreign troops from many different countries.  I was assigned to the Project German Training Team. The first three months I cleaned the barracks.  Later, I was entrusted a better job as security guard inside the camp. I shared room with an Afghani German translator, and we became very good friends.

One day, one of my friend’s German trainers told him that his father would come on a visit for a week from Germany—could he spend some time with him and help with interpretation?  He agreed and asked me to help when he took the guest around Kabul to show him around.  On the last day, as we took the guest to the airport, we expected to be paid for our time, but to our disappointment, he did not give us any monetary compensation, he just handed my friend a book as a gift.

The Book

My friend was very angry, feeling he had waisted a whole week for nothing, as he was used to be paid well a professional interpreter.  I suggested, perhaps the German had placed money inside the book, so when we arrived back to our room, we carefully examined it, but found nothing, so my friend threw the book on the table and walked away.  I had a thought, “What if the book is of more value than money?”  We removed the top book jacket, and to our horror found it was Injeel (the Bible). “Oh, no”, my friend exclaimed, “this is not a gift, this is not a book – it is a bomb! If anyone find we have a Bible in our room, we will be killed before we can explain where the book came from!” In Afghanistan it is a death sentence to have a Bible, as all Muslims are taught the Bible is corrupt and will pervert the reader. We were very afraid that night, so we hid the book.  We were curious, so after a week, I suggested we read the book to find out how the Christians pray. My friend opened the book and began reading from the beginning.  The Old Testament with the story about the creation was very interesting, as much is the same as in the Qur’an, although the names and places are different.  In the Qur’an a verse states: ”I believe in God, I believe in all the books of God which tells us about Injeel I believe in the Prophet I believe in the day of Resurrection”, so I told my friend, “Since it mentions Injeel, it’s okay to read this Bible, even though it is corrupted.”

Comparing the Bible with the Qur’an

After 4-5 months of reading, we came to the New Testament.  My friend read  the Gospel of John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God!”  That reminded me what I had read as a child in the Qur’an’s Book of Miriam (Mary) that Gabriel, God’s angel, came to Miriam with the Word of God, that God’s Spirit would come and give her a son, who would be called Isa (Jesus). 

This became very interesting as we saw the connection between the two books. We decided to begin comparing the Bible with the Qur’an. Since we did not know Arabic very well, I was able to get the Qur’an in my own language, Farsi.  At night after everybody was asleep, my friend would read the Bible, I would read the Qur’an, and we compared the two.

This continued till I found written in Surah al-Ma’idah Third Book of Qur’an all the miracles Jesus did.  It also states that He was not crucified but was taken into heaven and will come back on Judgement Day and judge the infidels.  It hit me that it’s neither Allah, nor Muhammed who will come and judge on Judgement Day—but Jesus!  Another story in the Qur’an impacting us, was when Muhammed was ill in bed, and his disciples came to him and asked him, “O, Prophet, what will happen to you when you die?” Muhammed answered, ”I don’t know where I am going – heaven or hell.”
So—all this time we had been following the Prophet who is promising us Heaven, but does not have a clue where he is going himself?  On the other hand, in the Bible’s New Testament, we read that Jesus not only promises us eternal life, but He was resurrected and ascended into Heaven where He now sits and prays for us.  Muhammad also writes that, if you have doubt about the revelations, go and ask the people of the Book, which means Christians and Jews, because they have the Injeel, which means the Light.

At this point my friend said, “Much which is written in the Qur’an is in the Bible, but in the Bible Jesus says we shall love another, even our enemies.”  As an Afghan-German interpreter,  my friend would go with many troops on different missions in Afghanistan.  One day, the Taliban captured one of his close friends and cut his head off in front of  his eyes, and while they did that, they were reading words from the Qur’an. He thought, “I am tired of killings and hatred.  I think I found a new way.  I don’t know what or how I should do this.” So, he simply prayed, “I believe you Jesus, I believe the Bible, please forgive my sins.”

Finding a New Way

After that, my friend told me he had now found a new way.  I watched him for a week to see if he would be punished or die—instead I saw him so happy and radiant, “I feel free and I have now contact with God, I can talk directly with Him without having to read in Arabic.” After a while, I wanted the same experience. I asked Jesus to come into my life.  For one year, we lived in Afghanistan as believers. No one knew, which was okay.

On October 1, 2013, we were praying late and my friend forgot to hide the Bible. One of our coworkers found it.  He reported us to his father, who was one of the leaders at the local Mosque.  They visited my friend’s mom, threatened her, and had her call us and command us to go to the Mosque to repent.

The Escape

We knew they would kill us, not only because we had changed religion, but also because we had been working with foreigners at a military camp.   We decided to escape.  We packed up some clothes and money and left during the night for the neighboring country, Tajikistan.  At the border town we hid in a hotel for three days, waiting for a friend to get us our passports and a visa to get into Russia.  But it was too late.  The Taliban was looking for us and had blocked our passports. They published our pictures on the local TV news, everybody was looking for us.

Finally, we came across a taxi driver who was willing to drive us to the Russian border for $1,500. We gave him almost all the money we had, and he drove us across the Afghan border into Tajikistan, and continued driving for one day till we crossed the Kyrgyzstan border.  There he stopped and demanded more money—which we did not have—to drive us all the way to Russia. He dumped us in the middle of nowhere with no money, no food, no visas, no passports.   

Another taxi drove by. For the remainder of our money, $55.00 he picked us up and drove us a few miles and  dropped us off at the UNHCR (refugee branch of the U.N.)  There, we were told they could not help us because Kyrgyzstan is a Muslim country.  We would be sent back to our country.  They put us up for two weeks in a shelter, but without food.  Eventually, they contacted the Kyrgyz immigration authorities and they brought us to the capital of Bishkek and asked us to go to the Afghan Embassy and get identification cards, which we did not, since they would have reported us back to the Taliban, and we would have been deportet back to Afghanistan.

The Miracle of Healing

The first night in Bishkek, we sat on a bench, and suddenly I had excruciating, unbearable pain in one of my kidneys.   My friend thought I was dying and tried to get me into a hospital, but since I had no money, they refused to treat me.   I don’t know what happened, but I began to pray for myself, then my friend prayed for me.  I fell asleep, and when I awoke, there was no more pain as I passed a kidney stone. That was the first miracle I experienced!

In Bishkek, we were passed around to different agencies, from the UNHCR, the local immigration office, the Human Rights office who gave us a place to stay, but again without food.  We did not know anyone nor speak the language.

The Waiting Time – Learning, Growing, Maturing in Faith

We thought, perhaps we should look for a church, and we found an Russians Orthodox church.  When we went inside, we met another Afghan man and woman who also were refugees.  They invited us to their home and fed us, and we stayed there for 10 days.  We learned that a kind woman in America, R.K. from The Bridge International was helping them, so we were introduced to her on Skype.  R.K. also helped both my friend and me, and began regularly sending funds through the Afghan we had met, to help support us.  We learned later, that this Afghan posing as a Christian brother was dishonest.  He  withheld the money R.K. sent to us and took it for himself, then lied to her that we had received it.  She stayed in touch with us and tried to help us in our situation.

R.K. contacted German officials, informing them that one of their translators was stranded in Kyrgyzstan.  They responded, so in 2014, my friend got a visa to move to Germany, where he is doing well. I was refused the German SIV, so I remained in Kyrgyzstan.  In the Spring of 2014, R.K. came to Kyrgyzstan, where I met her in person.

I lived in Kyrgyzstan another five years, where God opened many doors for fellowship—via the International Church, foreign mission organizations, individual missionaries and local believer who demonstrated the real love of the Body of Christ.  Several  assisted with the college tuition, and R.K. also helped me during this time.  I graduated with a degree in Business Management.  Simultaneously, I  studied the Word of God, and began sharing my faith among Muslims from many countries using the Qur’an as a door opener to point to ISA—Jesus, God’s Son, the Savior of the World! I became the  leader of the International  Christian Student Fellowship.  I know God kept me in Kyrgyzstan for those years to teach, train, and mature me in the faith to be a witness for Him to my people, and Muslims in other places!

Immigration to Canada  

An American Missionary, James Hutchington and his family, helped me a lot.  He presented my case to the pastor of a Canadian church, who was visiting Bishkek.  After being interviewed, they decided to sponsor my immigration to Canada.  Through a long, difficult process, in 2019 my visa was approved. I moved to Manitoba where I now live, work, fellowship, and learning the Western way of life!

FROM R.K.’s CORNER

At this moment in time, you need no introduction to the nation of Afghanistan.  Due to the retreat of American troops and the fall of the country, including the capital of Kabul, to the Taliban, an internationally recognized terrorist group, the news media on a daily basis are filled 24-7 with reports from the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan.
In the mid 1990’s, I had the privilege of personally becoming acquainted with a community of 2000 Afghan refugees living in Kazakhstan.  The Bridge helped  them establish a grade school for their children, where they were taught in their own language, through their own culture while living in diaspora. I came to love this beautiful, poetic mountain people, tragically trapped today by the evil ideology of Taliban’s extreme Islamic terrorism.
               In 2013, I was introduced to four Afghan refugees who had fled Afghanistan to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The Bridge helped them while waiting to settle elsewhere.
               Bahram Aira is one of them, now living in Canada.  He has a powerful testimony which might help us understand the reality of what is happening in his home country; also how the power of God’s Word enlightens and transforms a soul and heart, even in a follower of Islam!

PLEASE PRAY FOR PEACE, SAFETY AND PROVISION FOR THE PEOPLE IN AFGHANISTAN AND THAT MANY MAY EXPERIENCE TRUE PEACE BY COMING TO FAITH IN HIM –  WHO IS THE PRINCE OF PEACE!

Bringing Peace and Prosperity to a War-Torn People
The Heart: Culture of Peace

If you look at the work of Village of Peace in Afghanistan from the outside, you first see the chickens, the gardens, the sewing machines and dresses, the peanuts and saffron.

But that is not really what it’s all about. It’s about a fundamental change in the country, a change in culture. That is precisely why we train all our people in our corporate culture.

It is based on five core values: seek peace, have compassion, be generous, pass on the good, and be a good leader. These values ​​are reasonably at odds with generally accepted standards in Afghan society, where violence and jealousy determine mutual communication.

“It doesn’t matter what question is asked,” a training participant once said, “in our society the answer is always violence.”  We notice that our ‘Philosophy of Peace’ is popular with people. They are fed up with violence and want to build a future. Village of Peace is a cooperative organization in partnership between a group of caring leaders in business, entrepreneurship, and educators from the West, and Afghan nationals who desire to actively rebuild their communities and war torn country for peace, prosperity, and self-reliance.

Short Background Information

Village of Peace has existed for almost five years. During that time, the foundation has been built thoroughly: the basis on which the Afghans can now continue to rebuild themselves. We now have four well-functioning centers in the country: in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Bamyan and Herat. These centers form the DNA of the organization. Here Afghans can receive training, projects are started, and they experience the organizational culture and core values ​​in practice.

The Programs

This year, we purchased two plots of land. Those plots are the key to developing ownership, a principle that is of paramount importance at Village of Peace. After all, by making Afghan orphans the owners of land, they will build their own future and that of Afghanistan.

With the Food Security Program we combat malnutrition in Afghanistan.  We have been experimenting with a variety of crops that are conducive to Afghan soil, and which nutrients need to be added for a healthy crop.  The peanut harvest failed, so we are learning from our mistakes and researching why and how to improve our methods.  The saffron growth, on the other hand, has been very successful.  As we learn, the team teaches the local farmers how to expand their agriculture and bring them in as partners.

An important part of this program is High Diversity Gardening, in which the women learn to grow vegetables in their gardens which strengthen their immune system and combat malnutrition-related diseases. And it works: the women have more energy and their anemia has disappeared.

What started less than two years ago as a modest Chicken Farm has now grown into a large social enterprise with healthy revenue, growth and profits. The impact is already noticeable: a genuine chicken industry is emerging in Bamyan. There is good contact with the local government and farmers from the area. Almost naturally, cooperative methods arise that strengthen the position of farmers, for example when it comes to purchasing of raw materials.

Please click on this link and watch the Chicken Farm operations, run by and for Afghans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-54ElwE1v4&feature=youtu.be

The dozen or so women who work at the Sewing Workshop in Kabul, have reason to celebrate—they have achieved very good results after a difficult start.  They began by sewing traditional dresser for women, and would travel to their homes to do the measuring and fitting, as few had transportation.  That became very labor intensive, and it was difficult for them to make a profit.  Then, they came up with the idea of expending into designing and sewing dresses for young, professional women in the city who can afford to pay decently for a modern dress.  They work tirelessly in a positive, joyful atmosphere to meet the needs of clothing for their community, and they have become a well known business for the quality and service to their customers.  Last year, they sewed and sold 2000 home-made items of clothing!  Here, you watch them celebrate their success with their Manager with a chocolate cake!

Last year we established several small-scale Bakeries in Mazar. Based on the women’s feedback, the groups are a bit smaller and there is extra support toward the sale and promotion of the bread loaves. The women are proud of what they have achieved and eager to create and plan improvements for the future.

Our first Community Center opened in 2019! We had a long wait time before for the government approved all official documents, but our patience is rewarded. The four local supervisors have been living on the site since the summer, and the first orphans were selected in mid-December and moved to Sarpanah. More children will follow this year.

It is an exciting process: the design and form of Sarpanah will serve as a blueprint for future communities. The intention is that the widows also take care of one or more homeless orphans. In this manner we stimulate new social structures, so that women and children – who no longer enjoy protection and care from their biological family – can experience the safety and security of a family.

The Human Development Training – our basic training course,  teaches the core values ​​and practices in an Afghan context of compassion, generosity, transparency, leadership and peace is becoming increasingly popular. Some men attend, and many women who attend bring their adolescence daughters to the classes to learn this new way of thinking and living which give them hope to achieve their dreams of doing great things!  A new generation is emerging with a new, fresh vision for their people and their country!

Helping Corona Virus Victims—Food Parcels to 500 Families

Our campaign for emergency relief to Afghanistan was launched at the end of April. The outbreak of the Corona virus had an enormous impact on Afghanistan. The people were already living under severe circumstances and these measures only made it worse. Many people lost their homes or jobs and have no income to take care of their families.

In the past month, we discovered that many of you care about the fate of the Afghans and are willing to support them financially. That is heartwarming for us, and especially for our Afghan teams. All the responses and gifts greatly encouraged them.  Our Afghan teams have to date been able to distribute more than five hundred food parcels in several cities, and they plan to continue. Working in close consultation with the local authorities, they researched which families were eligible for the emergency aid. Here, we show you how the parcels were distributed among the families in need.

In March, far-reaching measures were taken around the world to contain the spread of the Corona virus. This was also the case in Afghanistan and neighboring countries. Many Afghan men, who worked in factories in Iran, returned en mass, about 700,000! Fleeing from Corona, they came looking for new work. Many families ended up in refugee camps.  The concern is, that as they return to their towns and villages, they will spread the Corona virus to all corners of Afghanistan and overwhelm the few existing medical facilities.

To help the poorest families hardest hit, our Afghan teams suggested handing out food parcels. These packages would contain essential and long-lasting food products, such as flour, rice, chickpeas and oil. They would be supplemented with hygiene products, such as soap and disinfectant. Thanks to all the generous donations, the team was able to get started within two weeks., and plan to continue their efforts. Here you see the courtyard of our office in Mazar.

In close cooperation with the local authorities, it was determined which families were the first to receive help. In this way it was ensured that the various aid projects of other organizations worked well together. During the registration process, information is also given about Corona. The women are also given a flyer in which hygiene measures are explained.  After registration, the women receive the food package. Because it is too much to carry themselves, they wait in the shade for their lift – at social distancing of 5 ft!

In Kabul there are several small camps at great distances from each other. There is a shop at the camp where we place our order for the packages. In this way we also help support the business of the local middle class family.

In Herat, smart use was made of the empty space next to the school where normally English lessons are given. All packages were prepared early in the morning. About a hundred packages were distributed that day.

In total, our teams were able to distribute about five hundred emergency packages. An Afghan family consists of an average of seven people. This means we were able to provide food to a total of 3,500 Afghan men, women and children.

Please mark Your Donation Village of Peace!

From R.K.’s Corner

Have you been following the news media’s coverage of the eruption of unrest in the streets in some of the large U.S. cities?  The unlawful death of a black man by a police officer, caused protesters marching in the streets against what they deem systematic racism and police brutality, calling for reform in the way police handles law enforcement among Afro Americans.  Regretfully, several militant Marxist revolutionary anarchist groups were embedded in the crowds.  They helped create mayhem, egging on mobs who began looting, burning their own black neighborhoods and assaulting the public and the police. The unrest is growing in the streets, calling for police reform with demands for equal treatment by law enforcement, while leaders are calling for law and order in the streets and endeavoring to unite lawmakers across the political aisle in Congress for more equitable legislation.  There are sentiments, especially among segments of the younger generation, to abolish the American Constitution, which is based on the bedrock of the Biblical Judeo-Christian worldview, which declares: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

As a young man, our longstanding friend and partner behind the vision and development of The Village of Peace, PW, received a call to move with his young family to Afghanistan to share the Good News with the people there. The Soviet Army’s 1979 invasion of the country, and subsequent continual wars derailed his plans—but he never lost the vision.  Four years ago, almost 40 years later, the dream came true, but differently than planned.  In the last five years, he has successfully mobilized an international group of western professionals and volunteers who are working hand in hand with Afghan men and women to forge fundamental cultural change in the country based on five core values: peace, compassion, generosity, transparency, good leadership!  The irony is – young Afghans are successfully incorporating the values of Western civilization into their lives which many young people in America are walking away from and rejecting!  Perhaps they have somethings to teach us?