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For more than 20 years the world has heard of the chaos, suffering, and self-destruction of Afghanistan, a dirt-poor land of 25 million between Iran and Pakistan. Soviets invaded in 1979, forcing migration of 5 million Afghanis inside and outside the country. Civil war followed the Soviet pullout. The Taliban Muslim cleric movement seized power in 1994.

Two weeks ago I stood in a Northwest Pakistan refugee camp of 70,000 recent Afghani refugees. I heard their stories and promised to tell them.

Some 160,000 Afghanis have streamed into Pakistan in the last four months. Jalozai Camp is a tent-city giant holding area of 70,000 new arrivals. No one has been there more than three months. Pakistan has closed the Afghan border at Torkham, west of the Khyber Pass, to keep more from entering, but it isn’t stopping the flow.

According to one long-time worker in Afghanistan, “The big problem is there is virtually no one helping them. We couldn’t see anything being done by the UN, the Pakistani government, or non-governmental agencies, except for Shelter Now International, which was giving out quilts. The police are rounding up illegal Afghan refugees and sending them back to Afghanistan.”

Unlike millions of Afghanis who poured into Pakistan 20 years ago, the recent arrivals have fled their homeland because of famine caused by drought, civil war, Taliban oppression, and Afghanistan’s economic collapse. They bring what goods they can carry and barter gold jewelry for food and wood with Jalozai’s townspeople. Most live under colored sheets of plastic held together with rope and three wood sticks, each costing 45 cents. As far as the eye can see are thousands of tents.

Jalozai Camp is divided into blocks and sections. I spent time in Block 30, Section A, home to 624 families. Many came from the same town or village in Afghanistan. All were doing their best to care for one another, but still some 100 died nightly from exposure, mostly children and babies.

“Temperatures in the western provincial capital city of Herat fell to as low as -25 degrees Celsius (-13ºF),” the UN Coordinator’s Office for Afghanistan said in a statement. UNOCHA estimated 80,000 displaced people are in six camps outside Herat, Afghanistan, with five camps already full. Up to 500 displaced people had arrived in Herat each day since mid January. “The drought currently affecting Afghanistan has put at risk the lives of approximately 50,000 families (300,000 people) in the western region,” UNOCHA reported. The organization attributed extremely bad camp conditions to a poor response to funding requests by the donor community. An emergency appeal for $3.5 million in non-food items has received only $200,000. The UN World Food Program said it was running out of food for Afghanistan. UNOCHA fears that displacement will continue for several more months.

Through these terrible conditions, God is softening many Afghanis to the gospel. Men in Jalozai Camp told me how disgusted they were with their Islamic religion and how open they were to a new religious worldview. Islam’s grinding austerity and compassionless legalism are driving many to Christ. The Taliban’s religious and political leader, Mullah Omar, recently issued a decree that any Afghani embracing Christianity will be killed, and anyone selling Christian literature will be sentenced to five years in prison. Still more Afghanis are coming to the Lord than ever before. I believe the Taliban’s cruel tactics will backfire, creating the nation’s greatest-ever openness to the gospel. Evangelicals need to prepare for the coming spiritual harvest.

The main Protestant groups working among the refugees there are Shelter Now International and Operation Mobilization. Some feel now is the most critical time for Afghanis to be loved into the kingdom, to see churches planted, and to see extended families strengthened through community development projects. But perhaps fewer than 20 evangelical workers are among the refugees of northwest Pakistan, and money is needed for Bibles, food, and blankets.

Anyone wanting to help may contact Operation Mobilization at P.O. Box 444, Tyrone, Ga. 30290. Pray for the small Afghani churches now forming throughout northern Pakistan and Delhi, India. And pray that those 624 families in Block 30 Section A of Jalozai Camp will soon enter the kingdom of God.

April 20, 2001