Finding Hope in Kenya, Africa: Littworld 2009

I've always been quick to insist I am neither pessimist nor optimist, but a realist. Unfortunately, a realistic assessment offers a dark picture of this world in which I find myself. Materialism and self-centeredness of 'have' nations. Poverty, starvation, despair of 'have nots'. Corruption, injustice, and greed on all fronts. Wars and rumors of wars. A planet gasping under the weight of human wrong choices.

Our Creator has been kind enough to give us a sneak peak at the end of the story (Revelations 21-22). I have no doubts the war is won, the last page written. But the immediate battle looks desperate, casualties piling high, the enemy huge and powerful. And my small candle lifted high to shine God's love and Word into that darkness seems too dim a flicker to make any impact.

Except realist that I am, I should be the last to forget my candle is not raised alone. Or that one tiny flicker adjoined to another and another can add up to a full bonfire of light. Participating in Littworld 2009 this past week, Nov. 1-6, in Nairobi, Kenya, I caught a glimpse of just how bright our pooled light can be against the darkness. And I came away with revitalized assurance that if the final war is not lost, nor is the immediate battle.

What is Littworld?

Littworld is a global conference held every three years (formerly every two years) by Media Associates International (www.littworld.org), a ministry that develops and mentors indigenous Christian publishers and writers to reach their own cultures with the written word. Talented men and women from close to 100 countries have participated to date.

This year for the first time, the continent of Africa hosted Littworld at Brackenhurst International Conference Center in the mountains outside of Nairobi near Kenya's famed Rift Valley. Some 150 delegates from all five continents came together for six days of workshops and networking. The theme: 'One in Word'.

This is my fifth Littworld (I have been privileged to train and mentor Christian writers around the world for more than a decade). My own involvement included several workshops, mentoring with fiction writers, and networking with international publishers regarding translation rights for our own ministry curriculum. All of which exceeded expectations. Far more so did hearing what God had been doing in lives and countries around the planet since we'd last all met face to face in Sao Paolo, Brazil in 2006:

Kenyan ambassador and keynote speaker Bethuel Kiplagat shared how his personal faith in Jesus Christ has impacted a lifetime career in conflict resolution and reconciliation work around Africa.

Alexander Flek, Czech Republic, presented the culmination of a fifteen year vision and his own labor, publication of the 21st century translation Czech Bible.

Sookit Li, Hong Kong, shared new publishing opportunities and challenges in mainland China.

Claudinei Franzini, Brazil, told of 1.2 million Avon ladies carrying Bibles and other products of Editora Mundo Cristao, where he serves as sales manager, to Brazilian households.

As for the majority contingent of publishers and writers from across Africa--Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola, Benin, Zambia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo, Malawi, Camaroon--their life stories and vision give ample reason for hope in that great continent's future.

And so much more . . .

Hakuna Matata
Wednesday included an outing to the Rift Valley, one of the most beautiful spots our Creator has dreamed up for this planet. The Disney movie Lion King was based on the Rift Valley, as its music and famed saying 'hakuna matata' (no worries) was lifted straight from Kenyan culture.

Today the valley contains far more humans than the movie would indicate. But we saw giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, walked the shores of Lake Naivasha, witnessed flamingos taking flight and hippos chatting. As special bonus, we watched the sun set over a spectacular piece of the Rift Valley still so empty of human presence we might have been overlooking the original Garden of Eden claimed by some to have been on this spot.

Who A visit to Kenya wouldn't be complete without its music. would have thought staid and proper publishers and editors from across five continents could get down and boogie Motown-style? But the highlight of Littworld 2009 was definitely seeing old friends and making new, fellowshipping together, the oneness in spirit of a common bond and faith. Everywhere and at all times, people-huddles dotted the Brakenhurst grounds, talking, laughing, sharing ideas, visions, triumphs, life stories, contact information.

The conference ended with what has become a Littworld tradition, a candle-lighting ceremony to the lyrics of an old hymn: 'Bind us together with chords that cannot be broken . . . Bind us together with love." The symbolism was unambiguous. For six days we'd basked in a blaze of collective warmth and light. Now it was time to carry our own individual flames back home, to raise high a light wherever our outbound flights carried us.
But if saying goodbye to one more Littworld is invariably difficult, there are always Facebook and email. As John Maust, president of MAI, commented during the conference: "Once you've been part of Littworld, you can't get away. You are forever member of the ongoing MAI family around the planet."

Family.

A family of likeminded brothers and sisters in faith, lifting high the flame of God's love, bound as one in God's word, a blaze in the darkness.

Now that's something of which I'm thrilled to be a member.

Afghanistan: No Easy Solution

How to change a nation, bring about peace instead of war, transform hatred and greed to compassion and unselfishness? Whether Afghanistan or Iraq, Somalia or the collapsed Soviet Union, on-lookers shake their heads in baffled frustration. Despite trillions of dollars in aid and military expenditure, too much shed blood, and the best of intentions, how is it that introducing principles of democracy and freedom around the globe has produced so little lasting peace or prosperity?

A better question: can outsiders ever truly purchase freedom for another culture or people?

I wrote a blog column leading up to Afghanistan's August elections, questioning 'Do They Matter?' After all, regardless of who squeezed out the most votes, Afghanistan would remain a fundamentalist sharia regime with minimal freedom of worship, speech, or media, under the thumb of a warlord-infested government ranked among the planet's most corrupt. And with incumbent candidate Hamid Karzai dominating media access, writing his own election code, and personally appointing each member of the so-called 'Independent Election Commission', not even Karzai's increasingly reluctant Western allies had delusions any of 40+ opposition candidates had a chance. Spending over 200 million dollars of American taxpayer money to mount this election seemed more an exercise in futility than any faith in democracy.

Still, even my pessimism was taken aback at the blatant dishonesty and violence that ended up marking the elections. As much as one-third of all votes cast turned out to be ballot-stuffing by Karzai underlings, including election officials. Less than 10% of voters turned out in some regions, while in others ballots added up to ten times all registered voters. Meanwhile Karzai screamed Western plot at any suggestion of irregularities in the voting process. More than one American diplomat has resigned in protest. Violence has surged against a government increasingly seen as illegitimate, both by the Afghanis and foreign nations currently paying the bills.

All of which has been rather awkward for Karzai's chief ally, the United States government, which was counting on a reasonably clean stab at democracy to justify a continued outpouring of funds and troops into Afghanistan. Under extreme pressure Karzai has now agreed to a November 7 run-off, less than three weeks after the final vote tally. The short time frame hardly permits any serious campaign to be mounted or issues of fraud and security to be addressed. Nor does even run-off opponent Abdullah Abdullah expect any other outcome than a handy Karzai win. Which makes this second round little more than a face-saver for Karzai and his Western allies--along with another sizeable expenditure of funds by American taxpayers.

So where does that leave the future? An election run-off may rehabilitate Karzai's public image enough to justify continued Western support of his regime. But it doesn't address the issue of rank corruption, the wealthy growing wealthier off foreign aid contracts while widows and children continue to starve in Kabul streets, a growing insurgency fueled by the frustration of ordinary Afghanis, who have given up hope of promised freedoms and a better life and who see NATO and American forces as complicit with an illegitimate and dishonest regime.

A top-ranking American general in the zone has suggested a simple solution. Forget nation building. Forget any serious attempts at democracy or rule of law. The West needs to recognize Afghanistan is at least twenty years behind Pakistan. If the American people and military will just commit to the long-run, another twenty years or so involvement should bring Afghanistan up to where Pakistan is today.

And exactly where is that?

Currently Pakistan is a fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship that routinely uses sharia-based blasphemy and apostasy laws to imprison and execute Christians for their faith. It is also a terror-sponsoring state, whose ISI (military intelligence) worked with the U.S. to develop and arm the Taliban against the Soviets back in the 80s, while siphoning off billions in American military aid to finance their own operations, including Muslim extremist terror networks working to overthrow neighboring 'infidel' India.

Worse, they are a nuclear power, their weapons developed in defiance of the same international proliferation laws being raised against Iran; in fact, Pakistani nuclear scientists have been heavily involved in Iran's developing nuclear industry. Beyond all this, like Afghanistan, Pakistan is ranked as one of the planet's most corrupt governments.

So let's see if we have it straight. If we commit ourselves to the long run in Afghanistan, continue to pour out American taxpayer dollars and the blood of our sons and daughters, in twenty years or so we just might get--another Pakistan? Not even considered is where any accountability for human rights or religious and personal freedoms fit into this equation.

Left unaddressed is the underlying assumption that it is up to America or NATO to win in Afghanistan. That if the right decisions are made, enough troops and money poured in, a strong enough commitment is made, then peace and stability must inevitably follow like a correct answer popping up on a calculator screen.

Unfortunately, winning this war isn't up to America or NATO, but the Afghan people. Unless the Afghanis themselves are willing to make a stand, not just against the Taliban, but against the corruption, unjust law, Islamic extremist thinking, oppression and violence that permeates every level of Afghan society, no amount of good will, aid, or military intervention can produce a long-term peace and stability.

Afghanistan's current leadership has proved more than happy to leave security issues to foreign troops while they count looted aid dollars behind well-guarded walls of their ornate Kabuli mansions. The Afghan National Police, many of them rehabilitated warlord militias and currently rated the most corrupt institution in Afghanistan, are too busy squeezing largesse out of their countrymen to secure their streets. The new Afghan army is rated slightly less corrupt than the police, mainly because they have less day-to-day contact with the locals, but shows little willingness to risk their own necks and a tendency to go AWOL any time the fighting gets serious.

Meanwhile, redefined American military strategy in Afghanistan includes falling back to concentrate on providing security for 'major population centers'. Sounds good. Except America doesn't have enough manpower to patrol our own inner-city streets against gangs and criminal activity. Nor was our military ever designed to provide ground security for an unwilling foreign population. The very fact that eight years down the road from liberation it is somehow now assumed to be American responsibility to secure Afghan population centers shows how far askew the U.S. mission in Afghanistan has drifted.

And if by some miracle and enough military presence, it proves possible to reduce somewhat the daily murder and mayhem currently reigning in Afghanistan, what global difference will it make? Islamic extremist groups shift easily across the entire Muslim world. Al Qaida is only one of countless factions with similar ideology and goals. Do we invade Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, even Mindanao in the Philippines?

Because in the long run, the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not just about extremists opposing the West. It is part of a much larger and long-term civil war within the Muslim world itself between fundamentalist Islam and the corrupt, extravagant aristocracies who have funneled oil revenue and other resources into their own pockets. Surely Cold War history should have taught us the futility of stepping in to prop up one corrupt regime out of fear the alternative might be worse (Iran, Iraq, Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, are a few places we've done so and are still paying the price). America has neither enough money, troops nor will to step in and compel the entire planet or even entire Islamic world 'be good' and 'play nice' with the other.

So what is the answer?

Nothing simple. Certainly nothing that can be accomplished by a few thousand more troops and trillions more dollars in aid, much though I wish it were otherwise. I wish that following the latest strategy suggestions, propping up Pakistan one more time, sticking it out with corrupt local allies offered a long-term hope of success.

Above all, because a lot of genuinely good intentions have been invested in Afghanistan. American and NATO troops have fought courageously and well. Plenty of individual Afghanis have worked hard to make a difference in their country. I have not met a single long-term humanitarian worker nor many Afghanis who want American and NATO forces to abandon Afghanistan. But nor have I met any who believes that the current course--especially in collaboration with present Afghan leadership--will bring about long-term success.

There is an answer. It is not easy nor quick, but it is simple. It is, in fact, the theme I address in my most recent Tyndale House Publishers release Veiled Freedom, set in Afghanistan. With the best of intentions, one cannot impose freedom from without. It must be the choice of a people.

You see, change that truly transforms society comes through changed hearts, not circumstances. And hearts change only when they are restored to personal relationship with their Creator and heavenly Father through the love of Jesus Christ and transforming power of the Holy Spirit. When God promised restoration to an idolatrous, wicked Israel, He described it this way: "I will give you a new heart . . . I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).

And therein lies hope for Afghanistan.

Because despite all the dismal headlines, hearts are being changed across Afghanistan, quietly, daily, under the radar and despite lack of freedom and oppression, through individuals coming face to face with the love of Isa Masih, Jesus Christ as lived out by Isa-followers willing to risk their own lives to share that love. And when enough individual hearts change from hate to love, cruelty to kindness, greed to selflessness, their society will never be the same.

Change a heart, change a nation.

And that includes Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Goes To The Polls

Afghanistan goes to the polls tomorrow amidst growing violence and little enthusiasm. Many of you have undoubtedly been following the drama on the news. For both Western governments and Afghanis, the toss-up seems to be the continuing rule of Hamid Karzai, which has been characterized by corruption, incompetence, and escalating violence, and 40 or so other candidates, none of which can muster enough votes among them to compete with the incumbent.

Afghan culture dictates throwing in with the perceived winner, and many warlords and regional and ethnic leaders have already promised Karzai their followers' votes. So much for individual democracy! Karzai, the master of compromise, has brought back two notorious warlords as his vice presidential candidates, promising top government positions to local leaders who come over to his side.

Meanwhile many rural areas don't expect to vote at all. Ironically, in extremely conservative areas where women can't vote personally, women outregister men two to one (registered, of course, by their menfolk with no proof necessary of their existence) where in areas where women can actually leave their homes, men outregister women two to one. All to say no one is expecting any honesty in the vote. But American observers are already saying that if the vote is within even 10-20 percent of what is considered fair, it will be counted a success. Interesting, considering such an election in Iran was roundly denounced. Let's not even talk about what would happen if 10-20 % off was counted in the U.S.

Is there any point to this election? Rather than repeat myself, let me direct you to two earlier op-eds on this subject.

http://jeanettewindle.blogspot.com/2009/03/afghanistans-upcoming-elections-do-they.html

http://jeanettewindle.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-democracy-enough.html

Meanwhile, we should not throw up our hands in hopeless dismay. On the contrary, this is time to raise our hands in fervent prayer. How can we be praying as Afghanis go to the polls in just a few short hours on the other side of the globe?

*Pray for God's sovereignty and will in this election, regardless of the result.
*Pray for a move towards individual freedom and human rights, especially rights of worship, speech, and women's equality, none of which the Karzai government has honored under the current sharia legal system.
*Pray for followers of Isa Masih (Jesus Christ) who must worship underground but are growing in numbers and faith.
*Pray for the safety of American and other coalition soldiers in harm's way as they try to provide security for this election.

And if you have not yet read Veiled Freedom or know someone wanting to know just what is going on in Afghanistan--and what is the true Source of freedom--this is the perfect time. Here is a wonderful new review that came out today. http://www.blogger.com/

On Hold

I'm ready to admit it. I am a terrible blogger. Not because I don't continue to care passionately about the issues I've written on to date in this blog. Freedom of speech and worship. Justice on a national and international level. The consequences of actions made in fear or ignorance on my own nation's future as well as that of billions around the world. The suffering and courage and awesome fortitude of spiritual brothers and sisters whose lives have crossed mine around the world.

No, my problem is that I clearly do not have the compartmentalized brain necessary--well, let's say to be the president. Like Winnie the Pooh, I am a bear of very limited brain. When I get into the zone of a major writing project, every other focus is shut out. With magazine issues (see www.bcmintl.org for the on-line version of BCM World) and other ministry writing that is non-negotiable, you can guess what gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. This blog.

The good news (at least for those fans eagerly waiting) is that I am in the midst of massive rewrites for Veiled Freedom's sequel, Freedom's Furnace. From my POV, also good news is I've decided to stop stressing about one more writing task needing done as I bury myself again in Afghanistan and the incredibly complex situation of its upcoming elections, disintegrating liberties, and hidden ugliness as well as hope that is the background of this sequel.

Yes, my limited brain power is desperately needed elsewhere. So I am placing this blog on hold at least until my manuscript is turned in. I hope you will tune back in this fall when I can again think coherently beyond the pages of Freedom's Furnace for a blog posting worth reading. Meanwhile, I will be posting occasional links and comments on Twitter (@jeanettewindle) and Facebook if you are interested in following the Afghanistan situation and the implications of decisions being made now on the future of all freedom around the world. So if I do not yet count you as a Twitter and FB friend, I hope you will join me there.

Oh, and I did want to share one photo with wonderful expat friends on a hike in Afghanistan with a dear Afghan guide. At 90+ degrees Farenheit, I was happy not to have to wear the more enveloping chapan we donned to step outside in town. I'd share other local pictures, but then I'd have to kill you . . .

Until the last page is written.

Writing Tip #3: Unforgettable Characters from the Eccentric, Unusual, and Just Plain Ornery

How do you come up with your characters? It’s a question every writer receives on a regular basis. The answer—everywhere and everyone. But a recent interview featuring my new Tyndale House Publishers release, Veiled Freedom, added a twist. What strange real life incident inspired a scene in one of your novels? My mind took instant wing south of the equator.

WHAT STRANGE REAL LIFE INCIDENT INSPIRED A SCENE IN ONE OF YOUR NOVELS?

The advance copies of CrossFire, my first adult political/suspense novel set in the U.S./Bolivia counternarcotics war, had just arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where my husband and I served as missionaries and he pastored the International Church. I was enjoying a celebratory lunch at one of the city’s finer restaurants with the American consul, regional heads of World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and other non-profit personnel when we were joined by an eager and somewhat distraught young woman.

She was American, early twenties, a veterinarian grad student working as a volunteer with Bolivia’s endangered species program. Animals seized from poachers or brought in with injuries were treated, then released back into the wild. If rehabilitation was not possible, such animals would end up in the Santa Cruz zoo for an exhibit or breeding program.

Our young volunteer wanted advice from the more experienced expatriates sitting around the table. Something strange was happening in her program. Valuable animals were disappearing, all high-demand specimens for the rare animal black market and too many to dismiss as coincidence. Now she’d come into the city to bring a female jaguarundi into the zoo, its leg injury proscribing rehabilitation, but perfect for the breeding program. But when she’d returned that morning to check on it, the rare jungle cat was gone. No one would admit to who had given orders for its removal.

She shook her head in bewilderment. Local colleagues on her non-profit organization’s payroll had access. But surely their passion for the environment would never permit such criminal behavior. Glancing around the crowded, upper-class eatery, she lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. She wasn’t so sure about the zoo’s director or the local Minister of Environment, both powerful political figures whose mansions in the city’s most elite neighborhood certainly didn’t come from their government salary.

Duh! was our mental response. Anyone who’d been any time at all in Bolivia knew how corrupt its government systems were at all levels, the flood of expatriate non-profits simply offering new pockets from which to build one’s own personal fortune. The guilty could be zoo director, minister, colleagues or most likely all of the above. Definitely not coincidence.

And now she presented her dilemma. Should she go to the police and demand an investigation? Or perhaps, with kind understanding and lack of a judgmental attitude, she should go to these men herself. Explain to them just how important these animals were to Bolivia’s eco-system. Plead with them to abstain from any further depredation of their country’s wildlife. Which option did we at the table feel she should pursue?

None of the above, we unanimously assured her. But when an acquaintance called her away, we exchanged our mutual dismay. Were non-profits really letting volunteers that green and naive out on their own without a babysitter? As to what she should do, we were also in unanimous agreement. Keep her mouth shut and accept the loss of an occasional endangered animal as the cost of doing business in Bolivia. Or go back to the United States before an embassy alert informed us she’d been found floating in some local river with her throat cut. Corrupt and wealthy Bolivian politicians didn’t take kindly to being lectured on changing their ways by young and female expatriate volunteers.

My husband and I with our four children left Bolivia that same week to Miami, where we worked throughout Latin America for the next five years before, so I never saw the young woman again nor was able to follow up on her. But I wondered often over the years if she’d survived her own naiveté to make it back home alive. And since I never found out the end of her story, I chose to write it myself.

Fast-forward several political/suspense novels to my first Tyndale House Publishers title, Betrayed, released March, 2008. Anthropologist Vicki Andrews is researching Guatemala’s “garbage people” when she stumbles across a human body. Curiosity turns to horror as she uncovers no stranger, but an American environmentalist—Vicki’s only sister, Holly.

Read Betrayed, and you will meet that earnest young veterinarian volunteer, right down to the sunburned, round features and actual conversation around that table as well as my own dismayed reactions played out in the mind of protagonist Vicki Andrews.

Holly is just one of the many characters who have wandered out of real-life encounters into the pages of my books. A jungle village chief facing off with a condescending female environmentalist (The DMZ). A good-looking and arrogant drug lord heir racing around town in his red Ferrari (CrossFire). A nasty coca-growers union leader I killed off in print to cheers from DEA friends who’d longed to arrest him without ever dreaming the man would weasel his way into his nation’s presidency (FireStorm). A supercilious six-foot-four Special Agent in Charge determined to intimidate a five-one female civilian-me! (The DMZ).

My motto as a writer when eccentric, annoying or even nasty people cross one’s path is simple and effective. Don’t get irritated or even. Just write them into your next book!

Veiled Freedom: An Interview

Veiled Freedom hits stores today. A literary baby that has taken almost two years of research, writing, rewriting, then months of waiting during the editorial and publishing process, is now birthed. I watch my child take its first wobbling steps in bookstores and on-line catalogs with delight and some trepidation. How will this offspring that tore out my heart and soul and brain in its conception fare out there in the vast daunting world of book sales and marketing?
[Featured publicist is grandson J.J. Windle touting Veiled Freedom at Colorado Christian Writer's Conference]

Fortunately, like any author by the time their latest release actually hits shelves, I am far gone enough in my next manuscript, in this case a sequel, Freedom's Furnace, to be distracted from hovering over my child's every move. Meanwhile, many are asking what motivated a political/suspense novelist with roots deep into Latin American politics and culture to write a novel set across the world against the stark, forbidding backdrop of modern-day Afghanistan?

So before I pull myself away from gloating through the nursery window at my newborn and get back to writing its upcoming sibling, may I invite you to pull up a comfortable chair, pour a cup of coffee (or your beverage vice of choice), and listen in on a recent interview:

Why did you write a book about Afghanistan?

Despite the ugliness of war, I rejoiced in the post-9/11 overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban, believing it presaged new hope for freedom and peace in that region. Neither freedom nor peace ever materialized. Instead today's headlines reflect the rising violence, corruption, lawlessness and despair. The signing of Afghanistan's new constitution, establishing an Islamic republic under sharia law--and paid for with Western coalition dollars and the blood of our soldiers--tolled a death knell for any hope of real democracy. And yet the many players I've met in this drama have involved themselves for the most part with the best of intentions. The more I came to know the region and love its people, I was left asking, "Can outsiders ever truly purchase freedom for another culture or people?"

That question birthed Veiled Freedom. A suicide bombing brings together a disillusioned Special Forces veteran, an idealistic relief worker, and an Afghan refugee on Kabul's dusty streets. The ensuing explosion will not only test the hypocrisy of Western leadership and Afghanistan’s new democracy, but start all three on their own personal quest. What is the true source of freedom--and its cost?"

Your research for this book took you to Afghanistan…what was most shocking (or surprising) to you about Afghanistan?

The most shocking was how little has changed, despite eight years of American and NATO occupation and trillions of dollars poured into the country. People are still starving, streets thick with beggars, mud-brick hovels the norm, while less than six percent of the country has electricity. After the initial hopes for freedom the 2001 liberation had raised, most women are back in burqas, in fear of their own men-folk, not the Taliban. Hundreds of girls schools built by foreign aid are once again shut. Islamic sharia law trumps any pretence at freedom and human rights. People express far more concern over the corruption and brutality of the local police and government officials than Taliban. In Kabul, an estimated 1/3 of all salaries are siphoned off by the bribes authorities demand for every service--or just to be left alone.

In stark contrast are entire neighborhoods of turreted, gabled and towered mansions, many owned by government ministers, representing hundreds of millions in squandered aid money and opium. Add to that the high-priced malls, shops, restaurants catering to Afghanistan's new aristocracy and the expatriate community, where a cappuccino costs more than the average Afghani makes in a week. It is easy to understand why so many lash out in anger and violence. Ironically, even at the height of Taliban fighting, 90% of the country was open to aid work (I met many expatriate families, even with small children, who were there throughout the Taliban era). Today with all the foreign troop presence, that figure is reversed with 90% of Afghanistan closed off to aid work because of security concerns.

What shaped your story the most after being in Afghanistan?

I came away above all with a recognition that true freedom will only come to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in our world, through the love of Isa Masih [Jesus Christ] changing individual hearts. Change enough hearts, and you will see change in a nation. Without changed hearts, all the guns and aid are futile.

Are there parts of your book that are total non-fiction?

I can say honestly that little in Veiled Freedom is completely fiction other than the main characters, who in themselves are an amalgamation of so many I've come to know in Afghanistan, whether humanitarian, private security, embassy, military, who are true-life counterparts to my characters. The prison, Mansion Row, expat life, and other details are all as described. The women prisoner's stories are not only based on real cases, but nowhere near the worst I came across. In truth, so much evil and violence, and not just to women, was too graphic even to include in the book. But the love of Isa Masih [Jesus Christ] is also not fiction, and that is why Veiled Freedom is a story of hope, not despair.

What do you want your readers to take away from reading VF?

I would like readers to close this book with a better understanding of Afghanistan and the entire Muslim world and how vital and interconnected events there, especially such issues as freedom of worship, speech, human rights, are to our own country's future and security. Even more so, I want every reader to come face to face with the Person of Jesus Christ, the only true Hope of lasting change and freedom for our world.

Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Good won a battle this past month in India.

For those who haven't been keeping close tabs on national elections in the planet's most populous democracy, that's understandable. I didn't see much on American cable news, though I would hazard that the BBC did a more thorough job. Suffice it say, over seven hundred million citizens qualified to cast a vote made India's recent elections the largest in human history. Much was at stake. Some would say India's very claim to be called a democracy.

Battling it out for supremacy were the subcontinent's two most powerful political parties. The 'UPA' or Congress party ran on a platform of a secular, democratic India with guaranteed freedom and protection for religious minorities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s platform's has been simple, unwavering and distressingly popular. 'Hindutva', or a forced return to Hinduism and caste rule.

Orissa area village

A decade ago, the BJP dominated India's federal government. In 2004 the UPA knocked them out of national power. But their control of states like Orissa led to the violence this past year that left hundreds of Orissa Christians dead, upwards of 100,000 burned out of homes, and virtually every Christian institution from churches to schools and orphanages razed to the ground (see Orissa Burning). So concerned Christians inside and outside of Orissa have been watchfully monitoring Indian elections.

And praying.

But even those with great faith and hope were stunned by this last week's announcement of election results. In parliamentary elections, the UPA won 2-1 over BJP, giving the moderate secular party a sweeping majority. Meanwhile in Orissa itself, not a single BJP candidate won a seat at either state or national level! What is significant is that neither India's Christian community nor its sizeable Muslim minority combined has a voting bloc large enough to determine the outcome of the elections. BJP's sweeping defeat was only possible because India's 80% Hindu majority voted overwhelmingly against 'Hindutva' extremism and for a secular state.

Orissa area church service

So today Christians--and Muslims--are breathing a little easier in India. Which doesn't mean all concerns for continued violence are gone. Just in the last two weeks, Hindu extremists have attacked Christians within Orissa's remaining refugee camp. Two days ago in Nepal, a Hindu monarchy declared a democratic republic just last May, a church bombing killed two and injured dozens more. Still, the decision of India's voters at the ballot box has been a huge step forward for true democracy and freedom for all its 1.2 billion citizens.

Orissa pastor's wife, husband arrested by Hindu extremist authorities

About the same time, another incident received a whole lot more North American media attention. Whether good, bad, or ugly won, you'll have to decide. It was a book burning. Not just any books. A collection of Bibles. No, the bonfire was no action of Hindu or Muslim extremists. It was carried out by orders of U. S. government personnel. You may have followed the case. An American church, unaware it was against military regulations, raised funds for Bibles in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's most common languages. The Bibles were shipped to a church member serving on Baghram Air Force Base north of Kabul, command center for U. S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

When the soldier showed the Bibles to a chaplain, he was informed of regulations against U.S. military personnel handing out Bibles or any other action that could be construed as proselytizing of Muslims. The soldier turned them over to the chaplain, the chaplain to his own commanding officer. Which would likely have been the end of it except someone in the vicinity was filming the whole thing on the camera phone. It got out to the Islamic news service, Al-Jazeera. At which point the U. S. military quickly assured the world the confiscated Bibles had been safely converted to ash.

So why burn the Bibles instead of simply returning them to their donors? Two reasons were given:

1) Regulations require all discarded trash on U. S. military bases to be burned (I.E: brand-new Bibles are trash).

2) If the Bibles were returned to the donors, they might be given away to some other Dari or Pashto readers (Now I am wondering, back when the CIA was arming Afghan mujahedeen to bring down the Soviet empire, wasn't part of their justification that the Soviets were denying basic human rights like praying, worshipping, reading as you choose to its citizens? Why was it okay to encourage those under communist rule to defy a totalitarian regime, but Americans are now actually helping Islamic regimes deny those freedoms to their own people?).

What is more interesting was the official basis for confiscating and burning said volumes at all, something called a 'force protection measure'. Put briefly, if Muslims even suspected Western coalition soldiers of giving away a Christian holy book, they might be provoked to kill more American soldiers. So let's not only burn the Bibles, but make sure the Islamic world knows, so we're not accused of recycling them. Ironically, in Western news coverage, I saw far more outrage at a U.S. church daring to send Christian literature to Afghanistan than over U.S. military forces aiding and abetting a totalitarian regime in controlling what its citizens can or can't read.

Left unspoken, perhaps because it's a no-brainer, is that no one in all of this has expressed any worries that millions of outraged Christians around the world might resort to rioting, looting, and murder to avenge the burning of their Sacred Scriptures. Imagine instead a Muslim mosque, say, in Egypt, sending a few Korans over to one of its military personnel enrolled in any one of the many Allied Officers exchange programs run on U. S. military bases. I've met plenty of these Muslim-bloc officers, and they have no problem discussing their own faith freely, so this is hardly a far-fetched image. In fact, Saudi Arabia has paid for the building of mosques and dispersal of millions of Korans all over the world.

Now imagine those Korans being seized and burned so as not to offend American Christians. Imagine those responsible announcing this to the entire planet so that no one will get the erroneous idea that a single Koran has survived.

Imagine the world-wide chaos that would ensue!

If that's a hard stretch for the imagination, it's because it just wouldn't happen. Meanwhile, has burning Bibles and then carefully announcing that burning across the entire Muslim world really made our own troops safer? I don't think so--and here's why! In so doing, the American military has sent the entire world--and especially the Muslim bloc--two disastrous messages:

1) Western leadership will bend over backwards to show respect for Islam's holy book, but has none at all for the Book considered sacred by a majority of its own citizens.

2) The greatest military power on earth, that won with such ease in Afghanistan and Iraq, is so petrified of Muslim aggression, it will burn its people's own 'holy book' to appease it. Which in local culture is not interpreted as a conciliatory gesture, but weakness and lack of moral fortitude.

Now personally, while I regret the Bible burning, my outrage is moderate. Why? God's Word cannot be destroyed by burning paper and ink. Totalitarian regimes of all stripes have been burning Bibles clear back to King Jehoiakim torching the prophet Jeremiah's scrolls (Jeremiah chapter 36). The Bible is still here. More Dari and Pashto copies will be printed, regardless of U.S. or Islamic government objections.

Which is precisely why you don't see Christians rioting around the world. I believe with all my heart that such capitulation places our military in more danger in the long term, because Muslim extremists have been encouraged once again that Americans have no moral strength. But I can see why military personnel might feel it was the easiest way out at the time.

Orissa Bible conference, February, 2009

Which in itself is the point. There was an 'easier' way to handle the Orissa situation as well. The BJP, after all, offered Orissa Christians a peaceful solution to their crisis. All they had to do was renounce their faith, reconvert to Hinduism, and promise never to speak of or worship Jesus Christ again, and they would be free to return to their villages and lives.

They chose instead to endure the loss of homes, churches, jobs, lives. They did so without resorting to retaliatory violence. They did so without knowing their steadfast faith and resolve in the face of persecution would send a watching nation to the ballot box to demand an end to extremism.

One has to wonder, judging by recent decisions, if current Western leadership had to trade places with the Orissa Christians, what kind of choice would they make?