Afghan Underground Christians Tortured & Left on a Railway to Die — But Jesus Did the Unthinkable

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

I want you to look at my wrists.

You see these scars, these thin white lines that circle around like bracelets.

I got them on a cold November night in 2023, tied to a railway track in Afghanistan, waiting to die.

But I am here today breathing speaking to you and that is why I must tell you this story.

My name is Amina.

It is not the name I was born with but it is the name I carry now for my safety and for the safety of those I left behind.

I am 24 years old.

I am from Kabell, Afghanistan and I am a Christian.

Those last four words in my country are a death sentence.

I need to take you back back before that terrible night so you can understand how I came to be on those tracks.

So you can understand what it costs to follow Jesus in a place where following him can cost you everything.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before our sister continues her story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

I was born in Kbble in the year 2000.

My childhood was not easy, but it was mine.

My father sold vegetables in the market.

My mother stayed home with us, my two younger brothers and me.

We were Muslim like everyone around us.

We prayed five times a day.

We fasted during Ramadan.

We did what was expected.

What was normal? What was safe? When I was 7 years old, everything changed.

The Americans came.

There was war, confusion, fear.

I remember the sound of bombs in the distance like thunder that never stopped.

I remember my father coming home with less money with worry on his face.

But I also remember something else.

I remember the slow change that came to our city.

Foreign aid workers arrived.

Schools for girls opened.

My mother, who had never learned to read, insisted I would be different.

I started school when I was eight.

Can you imagine holding a pencil for the first time at 8 years old? Learning that these symbols on paper held meaning, held power, held entire worlds inside them.

For years, life continued like this.

Difficult, yes.

Dangerous sometimes, yes.

But there was hope.

There was possibility.

I learned English from a teacher who had studied in India.

I learned mathematics.

I learned about the world beyond the mountains that surrounded Kabul.

The city itself, Kabul, it is beautiful in ways people who have never been there cannot understand.

Yes, there is poverty and damage from years of war.

But there are also mountains that turn purple at sunset.

There are markets filled with spices and fabrics in colors so bright they hurt your eyes.

There are streets where old men sit drinking chai and playing chess.

There are gardens hidden behind walls where pomegranate trees grow.

My favorite place was the bookshop near our neighborhood.

The owner was an old man who loved poetry.

 

Sometimes I would go there just to smell the books, to run my fingers along the spines.

He would let me sit in the corner and read for hours, never complaining that I was not buying anything.

It was a good childhood in many ways despite the difficulties.

I had friends at school.

I had dreams of becoming a teacher one day.

I had a father who loved me and told me I could be anything I wanted if I worked hard enough.

Then when I was 15, my father died.

He had a pain in his chest one morning at the market and he fell and he did not get up again.

Heart attack, they told us.

He was only 43 years old.

I watched my mother break that day.

Not just cry, but break like something inside her shattered into pieces that could never be put back together the same way.

She wailed and tore at her clothes, and I did not know how to help her.

I was just a girl and I had lost my father and I did not know how to carry that pain.

We were poor before now we were desperate.

My brothers were too young to work.

One was only 10, the other was seven.

I had to leave school.

The dreams of becoming a teacher, they disappeared like smoke.

I found work cleaning houses for wealthy families in the nicer parts of Kabul.

The work was hard.

I would wake up before dawn and walk across the city.

My hands became rough from scrubbing floors and washing dishes.

My back achd from carrying heavy buckets of water.

I was 16 years old and I felt like an old woman.

But the money I earned, it kept us alive.

It paid for rent.

It bought bread and rice.

It kept my brothers in school even though I could not go anymore.

At night, I would come home exhausted and find my mother sitting in the dark, not speaking, just staring at nothing.

The light had gone out of her eyes when my father died.

She went through the motions of living, but she was not really alive anymore.

I felt so alone during that time.

My friends from school, I lost touch with them.

They were moving forward in their lives while I was stuck cleaning other people’s houses.

I had no one to talk to, no one who understood.

I prayed, of course, five times a day, I performed the prayers I had been taught since childhood, but the words felt empty.

They felt like they were bouncing off the ceiling and falling back down, going nowhere.

I remember one night I was so tired and so sad that I could not stop crying.

I prayed and I begged God to help us, to make things easier, to give my mother back her life.

But nothing changed.

The next day was just as hard as the one before.

I started to wonder if God even heard me, if he even cared, or if we were all just alone in this world, struggling and suffering with no one watching over us.

It was in one of these houses that everything changed again.

The family I worked for, the Amadis were kind to me.

Mrs.

Amadi would sometimes give me extra food to take home.

Things her family did not finish.

She would ask about my mother and brothers, show genuine concern for us.

It was more than most employers did.

She had a sister who would visit on Thursdays.

This sister, I will call her Aunt Sia, though she was not my real aunt.

She had lived in Europe for many years and had recently returned to Kabul.

She dressed differently from the other women, more modern.

She spoke multiple languages.

She had an education and confidence that I admired.

Aunt Sariah often talked to me while I worked.

She would ask me questions about my life, about what I thought of things, about my dreams.

She treated me like a person with thoughts worth hearing, not just a servant.

One Thursday afternoon, I was washing dishes in the kitchen when Sariah came in.

She found me crying at the sink.

I was trying to hide it, but tears kept falling into the dishwasher and I could not stop them.

She asked me what was wrong.

At first, I said nothing because you do not burden wealthy people with your problems.

But she kept asking gently and finally everything came pouring out.

I told her about my father, about the weight on my mother’s shoulders, about my brothers who were hungry, about how I was tired, so tired and I was only 16 years old.

I told her I prayed and prayed, but the heavens felt empty.

I told her I did not understand why God, if he was merciful like the Quran said, would let good people suffer so much.

She listened.

She did not interrupt.

She did not judge.

She just listened with her full attention like my words mattered.

When I finished, she dried my hands with a towel and she said something I will never forget.

She said there was someone who understood suffering, who knew what it was like to be tired and in pain and to cry out to heaven.

She said his name was Jesus and he called himself the friend of the brokenhearted.

I should have been shocked.

I should have been afraid.

In Afghanistan, Christians are traitors, enemies, infidels.

The word Christian itself is used as an insult.

But I was not shocked.

I was curious because something in the way she said his name with such tenderness and conviction made me want to know more.

Over the following weeks, Aunt Sariah would talk to me in whispers while I worked.

She never pushed.

She never tried to argue with me about Islam or tell me my religion was wrong.

She just told me stories about Jesus.

How he touched lepers when everyone else feared them and considered them unclean.

How he spoke to women when society said they were worthless and should not be educated.

How he wept when his friend Lazarus died because he knew what loss felt like.

How he was tortured and killed but chose to forgive his killers even while hanging on the cross.

She told me about how Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, welcomed children, defended the oppressed.

She told me about how he challenged the religious leaders who cared more about rules than people.

She told me about how he said he came not for the righteous but for sinners, not for the healthy but for the sick.

And something in these stories reached into the broken places inside me because I was broken.

I was tired and hurting and feeling worthless.

And here was someone who said he saw people like me.

Who said he loved people like me? I want to be honest with you.

I did not convert because of a miracle.

I did not see visions or hear voices from heaven.

I converted because I was broken.

And I met someone who said he was broken too.

Someone who said he understood.

Someone who said, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

” For months I asked questions.

Aunt Sarah gave me a small Bible, a Dari translation which I hid inside a Quran cover.

I would read it late at night by candle light when my family was sleeping.

The words felt like water to someone dying of thirst.

I could not stop reading the Psalms.

Oh, the Psalms.

They were written by people who understood pain, who cried out to God in desperation, who felt abandoned and alone.

David wrote, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And I thought, “Yes, I have felt that.

I have said those exact words in my heart.

” But David also wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

” And something in me wanted to believe that.

Wanted to believe there was a shepherd looking for lost sheep like me.

The gospels amazed me.

The way Jesus spoke to people.

The way he saw past their exteriors to their hearts.

The way he had compassion on crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

the way he said things that turned the world upside down.

Like the last shall be first and the greatest among you must be the servant of all.

I read about how Jesus was betrayed by his friend, abandoned by his disciples, denied by Peter, who swore he would never leave him.

I read about how he was beaten and mocked and spit on and crucified between two criminals.

And I read about how he rose from the dead 3 days later.

How he appeared to his disciples.

How he showed them his wounds and ate with them and proved he was alive.

How he promised to be with them always, even to the end of the age.

It was not an easy decision to follow Jesus.

I need you to understand this.

In the West, you can choose your religion like you choose your clothes.

You can try on different beliefs and see what fits.

In Afghanistan, your religion is your identity, your family, your safety, your life.

To leave Islam is to leave everything.

I thought about my mother.

If she found out I had become a Christian, it would destroy her.

She had already lost her husband.

How could I make her lose her daughter, too? I thought about my brothers.

If people found out I was a Christian, it would bring shame on our family.

My brothers might be rejected, might not be able to marry, might be targeted.

I thought about the risk to my own life.

Apostasy, leaving Islam is punishable by death according to Islamic law.

The Taliban enforces this even before the Taliban took over again.

Converts from Islam lived in constant danger.

But I also thought about the words I had read in the Bible.

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

” He said, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul?” I wrestled with this decision for weeks.

I would read the Bible at night and feel drawn to Jesus.

Then in the morning I would be afraid and think maybe I should forget about this.

Go back to being a normal Muslim girl.

Stay safe.

But I could not forget.

Once you have tasted truth, you cannot pretend you have not.

Once you have felt that pull toward Jesus, you cannot ignore it.

I was 17 years old when I prayed alone in my room one night and told Jesus that I believed he died for me, that I believed he rose again and that I wanted to follow him no matter the cost.

I did not feel lightning.

I did not feel an earthquake.

I felt peace.

For the first time since my father died, I felt peace that reached down into the deepest parts of my soul.

But peace and safety are not the same thing.

Ansariah connected me with the underground church.

Yes, there are Christians in Afghanistan.

Not many, but we are there hidden, scattered, worshshiping in secret like the early church in the book of Acts.

The first time I attended a service, I was terrified.

Ansariah took me to a house in an old part of the city.

We went after dark when most people were inside their homes.

We did not walk directly there, but took a complicated route through different streets, doubling back several times to make sure no one was following us.

At the door, there was a code knock.

Three fast knocks, two slow, one fast, like a heartbeat with a pause.

The door opened just a crack and we slipped inside quickly.

Someone closed it immediately behind us.

Inside, we were led down to a basement.

The house belonged to a family who had been Christian for three generations, practicing their faith in secret all that time.

Their grandfather had converted decades ago and had passed the faith down to his children and grandchildren.

There were perhaps 15 people in that small basement room, men and women, young and old.

Some were born into Christian families who had practiced in secret for generations.

Others were converts like me, people who had found Jesus and decided he was worth the risk.

We sat on cushions on the floor.

The windows were covered with thick blankets so no light would show outside.

We spoke in whispers, always aware that sound could travel, that neighbors might hear, that one wrong move could get us all killed.

And we worshiped.

I had never experienced anything like it.

In the mosque, everything was formal, ritualistic, prescribed.

You prayed the same prayers in the same way at the same times.

There was no room for spontaneity, no room for emotion.

No room for personal expression.

Here there was joy.

There was freedom.

People raised their hands toward heaven.

People had tears running down their faces.

An old man played a tab drum very softly.

And we sang hymns in Dari so quietly you could barely hear us.

But the emotion, the love in that room, it was loud.

It was so loud in my spirit.

The songs were simple, often just a few lines repeated over and over.

But they meant something.

They were not just words we were required to say.

They were prayers.

They were declarations.

They were worship from the heart.

When we prayed, people did not just recite memorized prayers.

They talked to God like he was there in the room with us.

They thanked him for specific things.

They asked him for help with specific problems.

They prayed for each other by name.

And when we read from the Bible, it was not just reading.

People would share what the verses meant to them.

They would tell stories of how God had worked in their lives.

They would encourage each other to stay faithful.

I felt like I had come home.

These people, most of whom I had just met, they felt like family.

Real family.

The kind that loves you not because they have to, but because they choose to.

They baptized me 3 months later in a plastic tub in someone’s basement in water that we had heated on a stove.

When I went under that water, I was saying goodbye to my old life.

When I came up gasping, water running down my face, I was saying hello to a new one.

A dangerous one, but a real one.

For three years, this became my life.

I worked during the day cleaning houses, earning money to support my mother and brothers who never knew about my conversion.

And whenever I could, I gathered with my church family.

We met once a week, sometimes twice if it was safe.

We rotated between different houses to avoid establishing a pattern.

We were careful never to arrive or leave at the same time.

We used different roots.

We told different stories to explain our absence to family and neighbors.

We called ourselves brothers and sisters.

And we meant it.

These people became more than friends.

They became the family I could not tell my real family about.

There was brother Rasheed, an old man who had been a Christian for 40 years.

He had a beard white as snow and eyes that crinkled when he smiled.

He had memorized most of the New Testament and would recite it to us during our meetings.

His voice would shake with emotion when he quoted passages about God’s love and faithfulness.

There was sister Parisa close to my age who had converted from Islam like me.

We became close friends.

We would meet at the market sometimes pretending to shop, but really we were praying for each other, encouraging each other, sharing what God was teaching us.

She was engaged to be married to a Muslim man, and the weight of that secret was crushing her.

She did not know how to tell him.

She did not know if she should.

There was brother Hassan, a teacher at a boy’s school who risked everything to share his faith.

He had led several of his students to Christ over the years, always carefully, always wisely.

He knew that one wrong word to the wrong student could end his life.

There was sister Mina, a widow with three children who somehow managed to raise them as Christians in complete secrecy.

She taught them about Jesus in whispers at bedtime.

She taught them to pray silently in their hearts.

She lived in constant fear that they would say something to the wrong person and their whole family would be killed.

There was sister Leila, the widow in whose house we often met.

Her husband had been killed in a bombing years before.

She lived alone, which made her house somewhat safer for meetings, though nothing was truly safe.

She was quiet and gentle, always serving others, always making sure everyone had chai and something to eat.

We loved each other.

We prayed for each other.

We carried each other’s burdens.

We broke bread together, sharing communion with pieces of naan and grape juice in tiny cups.

Remembering Jesus’s sacrifice, remembering that he gave his body and blood for us.

We celebrated when someone new came to faith.

We mourned when someone was arrested or disappeared.

We supported each other financially, when someone lost their job or faced hardship.

But we were always afraid.

You must understand the fear.

It was constant like breathing.

Every knock on the door could be the Taliban.

Every stranger who looked at you too long could be an informant.

Every time you left a church meeting and walked home through dark streets, you wondered if you would make it back.

You wondered if this was the night you would be caught.

The fear was not irrational.

It was based on reality.

We all knew stories of Christians who had been discovered.

Some were beaten and released as a warning.

Some were imprisoned and tortured.

Some simply disappeared and their families never learned what happened to them.

But we decided the risk was worth it because faith is not meant to be private and isolated.

Because we needed each other.

Because when you carry a secret that could get you killed, you need people who carry the same secret, who understand, who can pray with you when you are weak and celebrate with you when you are strong.

And because Jesus said where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there among them.

We needed to feel his presence.

We needed to know we were not alone.

We needed to worship together because that is what believers are meant to do.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan again in August 2021, the fear became terror.

I was 21 years old.

I watched on television as the government fell in days like a house of cards collapsing.

I watched the president flee the country abandoning us to our fate.

I watched the Taliban enter Kbble in their trucks, firing guns in the air, celebrating their victory.

The scenes at the airport, I will never forget them.

Thousands of people desperate to escape, pushing and shoving and climbing over walls.

people clinging to airplanes as they took off.

Bodies falling from the sky.

It was like watching the end of the world.

Many foreigners left.

Many Afghans who had worked with the Americans or the previous government fled if they could.

There was chaos, panic, a sense that everything was falling apart.

Our underground church became smaller.

Some members managed to escape to Pakistan or Iran in the chaos.

Others went into deeper hiding.

Others we simply stopped hearing from and we did not know if they had fled or been caught or killed.

But some of us stayed.

Where could we go? My mother and brothers needed me.

I could not abandon them.

And our church, those who remained, we needed each other more than ever.

We decided that if we were going to die in Afghanistan, we would die as Christians.

We would not deny Jesus to save our lives.

We would stay faithful no matter what happened.

The Taliban changed everything quickly.

Girls could not go to school after sixth grade.

Women could not work most jobs, which meant I lost my work cleaning houses.

You had to pray at the mosque or people would report you.

The religious police walk the streets with sticks, enforcing Sharia law, beating people for violations like improper dress or playing music or not having a long enough beard.

Fear settled over the country like a thick fog.

No one trusted anyone.

Neighbors reported on neighbors.

Family members informed on each other.

Everyone was suspicious of everyone else.

We became more careful with our meetings.

We changed our locations constantly, never using the same house more than once a month.

We used coded language in messages.

We never wrote down names or addresses.

We never stayed in one place too long.

Our church shrank to about 18 regular members.

Some had fled.

Some had gone so deep into hiding we lost contact with them.

These 18 of us, we were the ones who remained, who continued to meet despite the increased danger.

And yet, we kept meeting every week, risking everything.

We gathered to worship Jesus.

Why? Why would we risk our lives for a few hours in a basement singing and praying? Because that is what it means to follow Jesus.

Not just to believe in your heart, but to live it out.

Not just to have private faith, but to be part of his body, his church.

Because we believed his words when he said, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my father in heaven.

But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my father in heaven.

” Because we had counted the cost and decided Jesus was worth it.

In the months before that terrible night, the pressure increased.

We heard reports of house-to-house searches in some neighborhoods, Taliban looking for Christians, and for people who had worked with the previous government.

We heard rumors of Christians being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, executed.

We heard that the Taliban had informant networks specifically watching for any signs of conversion from Islam.

We knew our time was running out.

There was one close call about 2 months before the raid.

We were meeting in a basement when we heard Taliban trucks on the street outside.

Someone must have reported suspicious activity, people coming and going from that house.

We turned off all lights immediately.

We stopped singing midong.

We barely breathed.

We prayed silently, desperately, as we heard them knock on the door upstairs.

The homeowner, a brave man whose name I will not say to protect his family if any survive, he answered calmly.

He told them his cousins were visiting from another province, that we were having a family gathering.

Nothing illegal, nothing suspicious.

They demanded to search the house.

We heard their boots walking through the rooms above us.

They were thorough, opening closets, looking under beds.

We sat in complete silence in the dark basement.

20 people not moving, not speaking, barely breathing.

They searched the upper floors but did not come to the basement.

Maybe they did not see the entrance which was hidden behind a curtain.

Maybe God blinded their eyes.

We do not know when they finally left.

We sat in darkness for another hour, too afraid to move, praying silently and waiting to make sure they were truly gone.

After that night, we knew we were being watched more carefully.

But we also knew we could not stop to stop.

Gathering would be to let fear win, to let the Taliban win, to deny that Jesus was worth the risk.

So we continued more carefully, more prayerfully.

But we continued.

We met every Friday evening.

Friday because that was the Islamic holy day when Taliban attention was focused on the mosques.

Most people would be at Friday prayers which meant fewer people on the streets, fewer eyes watching.

We would arrive at different times over the course of an hour through different routes, entering through back doors and side entrances.

We never greeted each other on the street, never acknowledged each other in public.

Inside, we would sing quietly, our voices barely above whispers.

We would pray with our hands open toward heaven.

We would read scripture, taking turns, savoring every word.

We would share communion with such reverence, remembering that we were doing what Jesus commanded us to do in remembrance of him.

We would encourage each other to remain faithful.

We would weep together for those who had been arrested or killed.

We would hope together for a better future, whether in this life or the next.

And we would remind each other of what Jesus said, “In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart.

I have overcome the world.

” We believe those words with everything in us.

We staked our lives on those words.

The last normal gathering we had.

I remember it clearly.

It was mid November 2023.

The weather was getting cold.

Winter was coming.

Someone had brought hot chai in a thermos and we passed it around warming our hands on the cups.

We sat in a circle on the floor wrapped in shawls and blankets against the cold.

Brother Rashid was teaching from the book of Hebrews 11 about the heroes of faith.

He read about people who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, gained what was promised.

He read about women who received back their dead, raised to life again.

Then he read about others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.

People who face jeers and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.

People who were put to death by stoning, sawed into, killed by the sword.

He read that these people were commended for their faith even though they did not receive what was promised in their earthly lives.

They were looking forward to something better to a city with foundations whose architect and builder is God.

And he said that if we died for our faith, we would join their number.

We would be counted among the faithful.

And one day in glory, we would meet them and worship Jesus together forever.

I remember thinking as he spoke, I hope I never have to be that brave.

I hope I never have to choose between my life and my faith.

I hope Jesus comes back before that happens.

But in my heart, I knew that day was coming.

We all knew Afghanistan was closing in on us.

The Taliban was hunting for converts.

Our names, our faces, our meeting places, all of it was becoming known to those who wanted to destroy us.

We were living on borrowed time.

But we were not living in despair because we had something the Taliban could never understand.

We had hope.

We had love.

We had Jesus.

And we believed, truly believed that even if we died, we would live.

Even if the worst happened, God was still good.

Even in the darkest valley, we would fear no evil because he was with us.

I sit here today, years later, thousands of miles away from that basement in Kabul, and I can still smell the chai.

I can still hear the whispered prayers.

I can still feel the rough carpet under my knees as we knelt to worship.

I can still see brother Rasheed’s gentle face as he taught us about faith.

Those were some of the most dangerous days of my life.

They were also some of the most beautiful because I was not alone.

I was surrounded by brothers and sisters who loved Jesus more than life itself.

Who would rather die than deny him.

Who taught me through their lives what real faith looks like.

I did not know then that within 2 weeks our underground church would be raided.

I did not know that I would be dragged out into the night, beaten, tied to railway tracks, and left to be killed by a train.

I did not know that I would face the test I had always feared.

But I also did not know that Jesus had already prepared a miracle.

That he was already working, already moving, already orchestrating our deliverance in ways we could never imagine.

All I knew was that I loved him and I was willing to die for him if that was what he asked.

I just never thought I would actually have to find out if I meant it.

The raid happened on Friday, November 24th, 2023.

I will remember that date for the rest of my life.

It is burned into my memory, like a brand, like a scar that goes deeper than skin, all the way down to my soul.

We were meeting in a house on the eastern edge of Kbble in a neighborhood where the streets were narrow and unpaved, where the houses were pressed close together with shared walls.

It was an older part of the city where families had lived for generations, where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

The house belonged to Sister Leila, the widow whose husband had been killed years before in a market bombing.

She lived alone in this small house that had once held a family.

Her children had grown and moved away.

She had three rooms upstairs and a basement that had been used for storage, but which we had cleaned out to use as our meeting place.

There were 18 of us that night.

I remember counting as people arrived, slipping in through the back entrance one by one over the course of an hour.

18 believers gathered in a basement room that smelled of damp stone and heating oil and old carpet.

The room was small, maybe 4 m by 5 m.

The ceiling was low with exposed pipes and wiring running across it.

We sat close together on old carpets and cushions that sister Leila had brought down.

A single kerosene heater glowed in the corner, giving just enough warmth to fight the November cold, but not enough to make the room truly comfortable.

The windows, small rectangular openings near the ceiling at ground level outside, were covered with heavy blankets that we had secured with tape and nails.

We had hung additional fabric on the walls, old quilts and bedspreads to help muffle sound.

Every precaution we could think of, we had taken.

We had been meeting for about an hour.

Brother Rasheed had led us in worship, his voice thin but steady as we sang hymns in whispers.

We had shared communion, passing around pieces of naan bread and a single cup of grape juice.

Each person taking a small sip and passing it to the next.

Now we were praying.

We were taking turns.

Each person praying for a few minutes.

Our voices low and careful.

We prayed for our families who did not know we were Christians.

We prayed for believers in other parts of Afghanistan.

We prayed for the Taliban that God would soften their hearts.

We prayed for wisdom, for safety, for strength to remain faithful.

Sister Paresa was praying when it happened.

She was praying for her mother, asking God to open her mother’s heart to the truth about Jesus.

Her voice was breaking with emotion as she spoke, tears running down her face.

I was listening to her pray, my eyes closed, my hands folded in my lap, feeling the weight of her words.

And then we heard the first sound, a crash.

Upstairs, the unmistakable sound of a door being smashed open, wood splintering, the bang echoing through the house.

Everything stopped.

Sister Paresa’s prayer cut off mid-sentence.

Everyone’s eyes flew open for maybe three seconds.

There was absolute silence in our basement as we all processed what we had just heard.

Then we heard the boots, heavy footsteps, multiple men running through the upper floor of the house, the sound of furniture being overturned, things crashing to the floor and shouting, loud, angry shouting and postoan.

I cannot describe to you.

What happens to your body when you realize you are about to die? It is not like fear you have felt before.

It is not like being nervous or worried or scared.

It is primal, physical, overwhelming.

Your heart does not just beat faster.

It pounds so violently you think it will break through your ribs.

You can feel it in your throat, in your ears, in your fingertips.

Your mouth goes completely dry in an instant, like all the moisture in your body has disappeared.

Your hands start shaking uncontrollably.

Tremors.

you cannot control.

No matter how hard you try, your vision becomes sharp and narrow like you are looking through a tunnel.

Everything else fading to the edges.

I looked around the room at the faces of my brothers and sisters.

I saw the same terror on every face, eyes wide, mouths open, bodies frozen.

Sister Paresa grabbed my hand and squeezed it so hard it hurt.

Her palm was sweating.

She was looking at me with such fear, such raw fear that I felt my own terror deepen.

Brother Rasheed stood up, his old body moving faster than I had ever seen him move.

He was trying to position himself between the stairs and the women.

An instinct to protect even though there was no protection possible.

Some people started crying.

Quiet, desperate sounds.

One of the younger men started to pray out loud, fast and frantic, begging God to save us.

We heard them searching the rooms above us.

Heavy boots walking across the floor directly over our heads.

Things being thrown around, glass breaking, more shouting.

They were tearing through Sister Leila’s house, destroying everything.

Sister Ila herself was shaking, her hand over her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut.

This was her home, her sanctuary, and they were destroying it while hunting for us.

For maybe one minute we had hoped that they would not find us, that they would search the upper floors and leave, that somehow they did not know about the basement, that maybe this was a random search, not specifically targeting us.

Then we heard footsteps on the stairs that led down to us.

Someone had found the basement entrance behind the curtain.

The door at the top of the stairs flew open with such force it banged against the wall.

Light flooded down the stairs.

Bright and blinding after sitting in our dimly lit room.

And they came.

Six Taliban fighters, maybe seven.

I could not count accurately.

My brain was not working right.

Everything was happening too fast and too slow at the same time.

They wore the black turbins.

They had long beards.

Some had their faces wrapped with cloth showing only their eyes.

They carried Kalashnikov rifles.

And they came down those stairs like a flood of violence and hatred.

The first thing they did was beat the men.

Brother Hassan, who had been sitting closest to the stairs, was hit in the face with a rifle butt before he could even stand up.

I heard the crack of it, heard him cry out, saw him fall backward with blood exploding from his nose.

Brother Rasheed trying to shield.

Some of the women was kicked in the stomach.

this old man, this gentle teacher who had spent his life serving Jesus.

They kicked him until he curled up on the floor, his arms wrapped around his head trying to protect himself.

The other men were beaten systematically, punched, kicked, hit with rifles.

It happened so fast.

Within seconds, all the men in our group were on the floor bleeding, groaning in pain.

The women were screaming high-pitched, terrified screams that echoed off the basement walls.

Some were trying to help the men.

Some were trying to back away into the corners.

There was nowhere to go.

The room was too small.

We were trapped.

The Taliban were shouting over the screaming, cursing us, calling us kafir, infidels, calling us traitors to Islam, traitors to Afghanistan, calling us dogs, pigs, Western spies, CIA agents.

The hatred in their voices was thick and physical, like something you could touch.

One fighter grabbed me by my hair and dragged me across the room.

The pain was blinding, like my scalp was being torn from my skull.

I tried to grab his hand to relieve the pressure, but he just yanked harder.

He threw me against the wall and I hit it so hard the air went out of my lungs.

I could not breathe.

For several seconds, I just could not breathe.

I thought I was dying.

My chest was burning, trying to pull in air that would not come.

When I could finally breathe again, gasping and wheezing, another fighter kicked me in the side.

The pain exploded through my ribs, something cracked.

I felt it break inside me.

They were systematic.

They went through the room and beat every single person.

Old or young, man or woman, it did not matter to them.

They wanted us to know what they thought of us.

They wanted us to feel their contempt, their hatred, their absolute conviction that we deserved this.

Sister Paresa was next to me on the floor.

Her face was bleeding badly.

There was a deep cut above her eye and blood was running down into her eye and she was um trying to wipe it away, but her hands were shaking too much and the blood just kept coming.

I tried to reach for her to help her somehow, but a Taliban fighter stepped on my hand with his boot.

The pain shot up my arm like electricity.

I screamed.

I could not help it.

The scream just came out of me.

He pressed down harder, grinding his boot into my hand.

I could feel the bones in my hand grinding together.

I screamed again.

He leaned down close to my face.

His breath smelled like tobacco and onions.

His eyes were dark and cold and empty of any compassion.

He said one word, just one word.

He asked if I was Christian.

I could have denied it.

I could have lied.

I could have said no.

There has been a mistake.

I am Muslim.

I was just visiting this house.

I did not know these people were Christians.

Please let me go.

The lie was right there, ready to be spoken.

It might have saved me or at least delayed what was coming.

But I looked into his eyes, those cold, hateful eyes, and I thought about Jesus.

I thought about how he stood before Pilate and did not deny who he was.

I thought about the disciples who were beaten by the religious authorities and told to stop preaching.

and they said they must obey God rather than men.

I thought about Steven being stoned to death, praying for his murderers even as they killed him.

And I said, “Yes.

” I said, “Yes, I am Christian.

” He spit in my face.

The saliva hit my cheek and ran down toward my mouth.

I felt it warm and disgusting.

Then he hit me, not with his gun, with his fist, right in my mouth.

I felt my lips split open.

I tasted blood immediately, salty and warm, filling my mouth.

Around the room, they were asking everyone the same question.

One by one, going to each person.

Are you Christian? Are you an apostate? Have you left Islam? And one by one, with bloody faces and broken bodies, my brothers and sisters said, “Yes.

Yes, we are Christians.

Yes, we follow Jesus.

Yes, we have left Islam.

Not one person denied him.

Not one person lied to save themselves.

Not one.

They dragged us up the stairs.

Some people could not walk because of the beatings and had to be carried or supported by others.

Brother Hassan’s nose was clearly broken, blood pouring down his face.

Sister Mina had been hit in the head and seemed dazed, not fully conscious.

Brother Rashid was moving slowly, hunched over, his face gray with pain.

They pushed us out into the street where trucks were waiting.

It was dark outside, probably 9 or 10 at night.

The street was cold.

I could see my breath in the air.

White puffs that disappeared into the darkness.

The street was empty, completely empty.

Our neighbors, if they heard anything, they stayed inside.

No one would help us.

No one would intervene.

To help us would be to join us, to risk the same fate.

So they hid behind their doors and their walls and their curtains.

And they let us be taken.

They threw us into the backs of two trucks.

Toyota pickup trucks with covered beds.

They pushed us in roughly, shoving and hitting us, cramming us together like cargo.

I landed on top of someone.

Maybe brother Hassan.

There was blood everywhere.

On the floor of the truck, on people’s clothes, on my hands.

We were pressed together so tightly I could barely move.

The smell was overwhelming.

Blood and sweat and fear.

Someone was crying.

Someone else was praying in a whisper.

Most were silent in shock.

The truck started moving.

Through gaps in the canvas cover, I could see street lights passing by.

We were driving somewhere, away from the center of the city toward the outskirts.

No one spoke.

We all understood what this meant.

They were taking us away from people, away from witnesses, away from anyone who might see what they were going to do to us.

The drive lasted maybe 30 minutes, maybe longer.

Time had become strange.

Every bump in the road sent waves of pain through my body.

My mouth was still bleeding.

I could feel the blood running down my chin, dripping onto my shirt.

My hand where the fighter had stepped on it was swelling.

The fingers not bending right.

My ribs sent sharp pains through my chest with every breath.

But the physical pain was nothing compared to the fear.

The fear was a monster, a living thing with claws that dug into my chest and squeezed my heart.

I kept thinking about my mother.

Who would take care of her now? Who would help my brothers? They would never know what happened to me.

I would just disappear like so many others had disappeared.

Another person gone in Afghanistan.

Another body that would never be found.

Another family left wondering forever.

I wanted to pray but I could not form words in my mind.

Everything was just chaos and terror and pain.

The only thing I could think over and over was Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

His name.

Just his name repeating in my head like a heartbeat.

The trucks finally stopped.

The engines went silent.

I heard the fighters getting out, their boots crunching on gravel.

Then they opened the back of our bus, the trucks, and started pulling us out.

We were in the middle of nowhere, empty land on the outskirts of Kabul.

No buildings nearby, just darkness and cold and open space.

The moon was almost full, giving enough light to see, but not bright enough to see clearly.

Everything was shadows and shapes, and there were railway tracks, old metal rails running across the empty ground, disappearing into the darkness in both directions.

I saw the tracks and something cold and terrible settled into my stomach.

A knowing, an understanding of what was about to happen.

I had heard stories, rumors of Taliban executing people by tying them to railway tracks.

I had thought they were exaggerations, horror stories meant to frighten, but they were real.

This was real.

There is an old railway line that runs through that area.

It is not used much anymore.

The infrastructure in Afghanistan is poor.

The trains are old and unreliable.

But a few freight trains still pass through, usually late at night when there is less traffic on the roads, carrying goods between cities.

Everyone local knows the schedule.

Trains pass through around 1:00 in the morning, sometimes another one around 4 in the morning.

Everyone knows this.

The Taliban knew this.

The fighters had flashlights, the beams cutting through the darkness, and they ordered us to walk to the tracks.

Anyone who moved too slowly was hit or kicked forward.

We stumbled across the rough ground.

A group of 18 broken, bleeding people walking to our execution.

When we reached the tracks, they started with brother Rasheed.

Four fighters grabbed him.

this old man who had served Jesus faithfully for 40 years, who had taught so many people about God’s love.

They threw him down on the tracks like he was garbage.

They had wire, thick, heavy wire.

They had brought it specifically for this purpose.

They had planned this, prepared for it.

They tied his hands behind his back first, wrapping the wire around his wrist several times and twisting it tight with pliers.

Then they wrapped wire around his chest and under the rail, securing him to the steel track.

They pulled it so tight he gasped, barely able to breathe.

They did this to each person, one by one, methodically.

They had clearly done this before, or at least planned it carefully.

They knew exactly how to tie us so we could not escape, so we would be in the path of the train so we would definitely be killed.

When my turn came, I tried to resist.

I do not know why.

There was no escape, no possibility of breaking free, but something in me still fought, still refused to accept this.

Two fighters grabbed my arms and forced them behind my back roughly.

I felt my shoulders strain.

Felt the muscles pull.

The wire cut into my wrists as they wrapped it around and around, binding my hands together.

They pulled it so tight I felt my hands going numb almost immediately.

The wire was biting into my skin, cutting through.

Then they pushed me down onto the rail.

The steel was so cold against my back.

Cold like ice, like death.

I could feel it through my clothes, sucking the warmth from my body.

They wrapped more wire around my body, under the rail, and over my chest, pulling it tight enough that breathing became difficult.

Each breath was shallow and painful.

My head was tilted back slightly, resting on the gravel between the tracks.

Rocks and sharp stones pressed into my skull.

I could see the night sky above me, stars scattered across the darkness like diamonds on black cloth.

They moved down the line tying everyone.

Sister Paresa was placed next to me about 2 m away.

Sister Leila was on my other side.

Brother Hassan was across from me.

All of us.

18 believers tied to railway tracks like animals waiting for slaughter.

When they finished securing all of us, the commander walked up and down the line slowly, shining his flashlight on each face.

His own face was hard, without mercy or compassion.

Just satisfaction at a job well done.

I will never forget his face.

He stopped in the middle of where we were tied and spoke.

His voice was calm, almost casual, conversational, like he was discussing the weather.

He said we had betrayed Islam.

We had betrayed Afghanistan.

We had betrayed our families and our ancestors.

He said we were not worthy to be called Afghans.

He said we deserved to die like the dogs we were crushed under the wheels of a train.

He said, “Our false god Jesus could not save us now.

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