I am away from the JRS Afghanistan mission since 2015 and yet the flame of Afghanistan mission continues to burn. I feel happy to know that we are completing 15 years of service under all uncertainties. Being one of the pioneering members of this mission, I would like to share the foundational experience of our life.

 

Encountering different cultures is nothing new to the Society of Jesus but for pioneering Jesuits it is always a new experience. A new cultural environment creates a lot of curiosity and to satisfy that one has to open up one’s own culture first. We began with the culture of the heart by inviting the family members of our local colleagues for a meal without any gender seclusion. This was a watershed moment for breaking the wall of ‘we’ and ‘they’ because this simple gesture of hospitality won the hearts of many households and we got the sense of our people and their culture. And this led to a tremendous amount of interdependence and interconnectedness for carrying out the mission in a collaborative approach.

 

A pioneering mission requires courage, creativity, and passion. One needs to walk an extra mile and take the road that has not been taken. Visionaries do it and then a group takes it forward an extra mile.   Afghans have been trying to paint a rainbow of peace for decades but neither religious nor political nor international powers are able to fulfil their hopes of peace to this day. There is a trust deficit and people don’t buy somebody else’s dreams so easily. One needs to listen to them. People have stories to tell and when you listen to their life-and-death stories, either you are traumatized or you experience God who is laboring for and with them. A labourer cannot be a Santa Claus instead a collaborator. One thing I learned, if you are interested in the well-being of your people, don’t go with list of to-do-things. Instead, ask them what shall I do for you and then how shall we do it?

 

One recent Facebook Afghan-style message from one of my students triggered my foundation experiences. “Receive my hello, my respected teacher. This hello to the one who is unique in this world for me and that is you. That is the one who held my hand with the pen and taught me how to start writing English alphabet. How are you doing my virtual father?”