Afghanistan (MNN) — The Persian New Year begins Sunday, but there’s not much to celebrate in Afghanistan.
The Haft-Sin table is an important Persian tradition, but food is unavailable and money is hard to come by. Believers face severe torture or death if they’re discovered, either at the hands of the Taliban or their own Muslim family members.
Afghans like Roya are discovering Jesus.
(Representative photo courtesy of Heart4Iran)
And yet, hope remains. Afghans like Roya are discovering Jesus:
“My name is Roya and I had to drop out of school to care for my sick mother and younger siblings. One day she put Mohabat TV on while she was resting and we loved hearing about the different stories in the Bible. We continued to watch different programs each day, and eventually, my father and siblings joined us. It was a miracle that my family joined together to feed ourselves spiritually and give our hearts to Jesus; we even got our own Bible! It was shortly after this that my dear mother passed away and we were left with such grief and pain, and then the Taliban invaded. We tried to find a place to hide our Bible but everything happened so fast– they attacked our home, arresting my father and seized our Bible. We haven’t heard from my father since then and I am not allowed to leave my home without the presence of a male relative right now.
“Our other family members are devout Muslims and do not know we are Christians and they will expose us to the Taliban if we are found out. I am asking for prayers for my family, for my father to come home and for our safety.”
“Please continue to pray for Afghanistan. Afghans are suffering, they’re in pain. Let’s not forget what happened,” Heart4Iran’s Mike Ansari says.
“How soon the media forgets; how soon we forget. God doesn’t forget. We need to pray for them.”
Here are five ways you can help Afghan Christians through Heart4Iran. Pray that Afghans who feel their life is over will discover the hope only Jesus can offer.
“Since the fall of Afghanistan, the number of calls from Afghan people to our ministry skyrocketed. One-hundred-percent of the people who [called during] the first six months after the Taliban took over Afghanistan [were] traumatized; they all felt betrayed,” Ansari says.
“We had to hire Afghan-born Christian converts that are trained in trauma counseling. We are providing counseling through our call center to the Muslims of Iran and Afghanistan.”
Haft-sin is an arrangement of seven symbolic items whose names start with the letter “س” pronounced as “seen”. It is traditionally displayed at Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, which is celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, marking the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
(Photo courtesy of RODNAE Productions/Pexels)