20:12

Life here is full of possibility, for good or ill. With the troop surge, upcoming presidential elections set for August, and warming weather, security will get worse before it gets better. So the grace increases.

I had an impromptu lunch two weeks ago with a former Harvard professor of public health, someone currently on faculty at Johns Hopkins, a couple who’ve been here 33 years, and a man who is starting an NGO to revive craftsmanship in a Badakhshan town.

It was an edifying meeting. As we talked about, thought about decades of faithful lives passed here during difficult and often heartbreaking times, one of the professors said, “Someone should write these down!” One of the men, wise and gracious, replied, “It has been written down, it just hasn’t been opened yet.”