Kabul

Greetings from Kabul! We're safe but tired. We've just came from a Good Friday service (Fridays are the day of worship here in Afghanistan). It was amazing to see so many Christians gathered together in a building that is known to be a Christian church. The talk of the day was the car bombing that happened earlier in the morning (everyone that we know is OK). So you can imagine the intensity of the prayer time as we prayed for the Lord to stop the violence and the suffering in this country.

The city is a remarkable mix of brand new construction and war-torn empty and eroding shells of buildings. There are many people and lots of activity. The people are friendly and smile when you smile at them. They are very open to foreigners and quite appreciative of the US role in liberating the country from the hands of the Taliban. Many of the locals I've chatted with have stories of suffering under the Taliban. At the same time, tears come to their eyes as they speak of the Americans driving out the Taliban and giving them freedom.

We've been unable to access the internet, thus the gap in our blog. Let me catch you up with some of the things that we saw. SERVE is doing a wonderful job here. We met with one MD who is helping the starving children in the city of Jalalabad. You can see his passion to care for the kids. They use a measurment of the upper arm of the child to determine malnutrition or not. If the upper arm is less than the thickness of two of the worker fingers, they are candidates for care. They run six month rehabilitation and health education programs. Every six months they can help another 200 families. They would love to help more, but lack of funds restricts them.



Then we visited the only school for the deaf that extends into high school. This school is also run by SERVE. More than 150 kids are taught sign language. There is so much joy in the kids and they were all so enthusiastic to interact with us. Like Uganda, the kids steal your heart.

The most difficult, yet also very important work, are the field workers. These 10 workers ride bikes to visit the disabled children in their homes. These are very rural families with no running water, no electric power, and no healtcare. Yet, they love their kids, especially the disabled ones. We saw two kids with cerebral palsey and one with dibilitating arthritis. All of them were very sweet, yet, none of them can care for themselves. The field workers will work with a family for 15 - 18 months to educate and provide therapy.



SERVE is doing amazing work throughout the country. I am proud that we, as a church family, are so intimately connected with them. Please continue to pray for them. Also pray for us as we will be travelling around the area to see more of what they do.

Blessings!
Pastor Kevin.