Erika Khana

Five years ago, while still in the US, I can remember getting contact information about the people who live in Kabul. “Erika, she has a gift of hospitality. If you need a place to just be, she is a great person to get in contact with.” Instead of her last name, Schmidt, I wrote down “Khana” (khana means home) next to her phone number.

In Kabul, the energetic sixty-or-so year old Canadian/German woman was always miraculously in her element. Though for the first year and a half, I would never go to that home, (since single women lived there it would not have been appropriate) Erika was always out and about, always starting new projects, always looking for someone to come beside her and give her a hand - or take it over.

At the local tea and sandwich shop, I spotted Erika with a lovely young lady from Tajikistan so I stopped by their table and said hello. That was how I met Hamroz, who was one of the single ladies living in Erika’s house. In the early days of our relationship, Erika was on “my” side, advising Hamroz to take me seriously. “My” side became “our” side and she remains a very special personal friend.

Afghan people depend tremendously on Erika. When there is a serious problem, they are more likely to show up on her doorstep than at the hospital. And she stays with people through their tough times; she might let a project go, but stays with the people.

At an Afghan wedding last week, as is the custom, the men were separated from the woman. I did not know until afterwards, but Hamroz and Erika were the only foreigners among the women. Uncharacteristically, they spent time visiting with each other instead of focusing on the Afghans. As Erika drove us home, we scheduled a time for her to visit us.

Two nights later, she prepared a hot bath for herself and relaxed. The next morning, her cold body was found in the cold water. Erika had been called home.

Off the Chain, but at the Post

Usually we let our dog roam free, since there is a large fence around our property. To protect our guests who were on the way out from overly friendly Puppy Jaan, I walked the dog over to the chain. Since she was content to stay put, I did not bother to hook the chain on. The trouble became apparent after the guests had left.

The dog could not be unchained, since she was already loose. Yet there was no way to convince her that she was loose – she stayed right next to the post we usually chain her to. That night the temperature dropped and a freezing rain fell. Poor Puppy stayed next to the post, unable to take shelter in her dog house...

People take drugs because at first it feels so great, though later you feel sick if you don’t take them. The drug controls you in that you take more without making any conscious decision. All sin is like this. Young people become addicted to pornography to the point where they don’t “decide” to spend time with it, it just happens. Those who are habitually angry (or bitter, or offended, or jealous, etc.) quickly get to the point where the sin of choice dominates their hearts without any conscious decision on their part.

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

When you have long ago ceased to make decisions and now sin by habit your behavior is very difficult to control. Most will not even take responsibility, but will instead excuse themselves with “that’s the way I am”.


Yet, those who have set their hearts on knowing a holy God will take personal responsibility for this deep rooted bad behavior that we all have. For those that will, there is good news:

John 8:36 "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Most will live out their lives, off the chain but at the post. And they will not blame themselves for making any decision to do so!

Retroblog - 2007

We are physically at war here, but because you are not a participant your brain erases that fact from short term memory. You do your job, go shopping, make friends, get married and are given in marriage. The war seems to be somewhere else, beyond the mountains, or on the other side of the TV tube. Occasionally, there will be an explosion in town – the natural tendency is to try to not let that impact your day, even though there are extra detours and traffic jams. When there is a military convoy on the road, keep a good distance – so that anyone after them doesn’t get you and so that they don’t get nervous and shoot you themselves.

In the realm of spiritual warfare, there is a natural tendency to try to live your life out as a non-participant. No one in their right mind wants to be involved in real war, physical or spiritual. But if you follow the Spirit’s leading, you will find yourself in the middle of some confused battle, and the incoming shots will be all too real, aimed right at your soul. Then, you can refuse to believe that it is really spiritual. You can refuse to believe that it’s really warfare. You can duck and hide. You can blame the people around you, or yourself, or God. Or you can listen again to the Holy Spirit, who in wisdom positioned you in the battle, and shoot back, for pathetic that your capabilities might seem. None of us fights individually as isolated foot soldiers. There are always legions willing to follow your lead. And your advances always affect people on another part of the front you will never meet, your little victories are turning points in stories we will never hear, until after the enemy gates fall once and for all.

The gates of hell can never go on the offensive – gates are fixed positions. The issue at hand is how long they can prevail under our attack. Retreat is not an option for us – ducking and hiding is sufficient short-term coverage, though fatal in the long term (if you persist in it you will die of old age). Angels will follow your lead, but there is no glory in ducking, nor in hiding. Power and glory abound when the church, united with Him, is revealed (not hidden), especially when she has taken new positions right up near the gates.

Science, Magic and Miracles

The mistake man made was to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Before that, God would walk with man every morning and help him get his priorities straight. That was and remains God’s unchangeable desire – to personally guide us – but the desire to try to figure things out on our own apart from Him burns deeply in our hearts.

The Law, which was written not only in the Jewish Torah, but also in the heart of every man born, is like a mirror that shows us where we are – separated from Him. It is merciless in that it points out our condition without offering a remedy.

Miracles happen when the presence of God breaks back into our lives. The blind see, the dirty become clean, the lame walk, we have a place to go while the army that was bearing down on us is drown. All of which directs us to Calvary, where the punishments that justice demands (because of our misguided decisions about good and evil apart from God) are once and for all satisfied. There, it becomes possible to turn around from the bad decisions of our past and receive the ongoing personal counsel that God wanted to give us in the first place.

Magic is available to patch up consequences that appear because we are living apart from God. The seemingly good news is that we can have supernatural help to get what we need, want and desire while we continue manage our lives separated from our creator.

Science helps us understand the reality we live in. The paradox of it is, the more you lean on science to order your world, the more it becomes for you either magic or miracle.

Sunday or Monday ends Ramazan and starts three days of Eid celebration. (They don’t depend on science to say which day the new moon will appear to start the holiday. Every year they announce that they’ve sighted the new moon several hours after sunset – an astronomical impossibility). The first day is for visiting families, the other two are for visiting coworkers and clansmen. To visit someone is to show your respect for them. There is a protocol for visiting, including limiting time spent because the hosts, too, must go out and visit. But if you’re in our neck of the woods, scrap the protocol and come on over and set a spell.

Focusing the Blur

We started up the International School of Kabul on an impossible to fulfill timeline. In June, 2005 USAID awarded a grant to rent land for a top-notch International School in Kabul. Classes started that September. I was the first of the new “ISK” people to arrive in town – having come to work on language. Back then, the school building that has housed my classroom for the last four and a half years was a freshly dug pit into which the foundations were being laid. Back then, the street between our properties was a dump where what was not grazed by the passing sheep was burned.

So it started with a blur of activity. “Supervising” workers when I knew neither their language nor their job. Receiving new staff members. Unloading shipments. Language tutoring. Meeting Afghan friends. Finding a place to run and running there. Languange tutoring. Unloading shipments. Sipping chai. At the time, the opening of the school seemed like it would be the end of the blur; today it is remembered as the beginning.

Today, it seems as though Hamroz and I have been together forever. We have an uncanny way of knowing each other’s thoughts and emotions. What a blessing it is to know and be known in such a way. There was a time, back then in the blur, when we would not even be seen together.

Today, it is hard to imagine doing anything other than teaching 6th grade at the International School. The kids, as always, are not just learning to perform academically, but to think, to question, to reason. Younger siblings get confused with their brothers and sisters who passed through my classroom in years past. We are school family; there is that energy, that bond, that affection. Not truly Afghan, not truly American, we are a third culture familiar unto ourselves. Yet, there was a time when we were strangers feeling each other out.

Today, Hamroz and I have friends who visit. Our house is full of the clanking of dinner plates and coffee/tea mugs. People watching TV, talking and laughing around that little Persian table (it’s just big enough to get a knee under it), different groups in the guestroom and the living room. Back then, there were two groups of friends, “his and hers”, today our friends are “ours”.

Turning 50 - Part I

When I turn 50 I will be halfway done training for my athletic goal: to set the world record in the 26 mile marathon - the age group record for people 100 years older and above. There are several strings of good logic behind it.

When I was 19 year old I ran my best (not fastest) marathon in 2hrs 29 min. For two of the next three years I was listed as one of the country’s elite marathon runners, in spite of my young age. It is not unusual for the Olympic Gold medal winner in the marathon to be 40 years and older – it is not a young man’s sport. Therefore, I only recently gave up on the idea of winning a gold medal at the Olympics (maybe ten minutes ago).

To finish that quickly, you can not jog – you need to RUN - 26 miles. The average time is 5 ½ minutes per mile and most high schoolers on a sports team can not run 440 yards (1 lap on a track) at that pace. That’s the first beauty of my new goal – you don’t have to run fast (which gets you so out of breath), you just have to survive.

Having this goal also reverses the age positions in my marriage, since there is an age gap. I once fielded the question from my wife of what she should do when I get old. She will be eighty something when I am setting the world marathon record – never asked a second time.

There is the need for vacations. Most people like to work themselves exhausted and look forward to several weeks break here and there. I prefer a two hour break (for intense exercise) several times a week and not to look forward to the stress of travel and routine change. Hence, maintaining the workout schedule is a mid-life necessity for me.

Back to Form

It was not at all apparent how far out of shape I was until I got back into it. Tajikistan is the big opportunity. Back in my Navy days, after a three month cruise I could come back to form in 2 or three workouts. But it has been 2/3 of a year now, and the body has aged slightly. So back into the summer vacation routine: up with the sun (4:30 A.M.), and 15 miles before breakfast, then back to bed. To my surprise, I could no longer comfortably do the full 15 miles. Two weeks into it and I’m only up to 13 miles – and no speed at all!

I can feel how my whole body is functioning differently now; there is a tremendous difference. Exercise does the body no good – it is the rest after the exercise that imparts strength. But if you don’t exercise well, you don’t rest right either – the workout is what makes the rest beneficial. After 2/3 of a year without exercise nor good rest, I’ve come to know true rest again. Hamroz notices that even those little scrapes are healing much more quickly these days.

Reflections on the Ground

We get the impression that the fierce battle being waged in the spiritual realms is going well lately, and that reflections of it can be seen on the ground in Central Asia.

- I began to pull around a car that was stopped in the middle of the road in KTown for no apparent reason. Half way around, I noticed that there was a new traffic light installed and he was WAITING for it to change!

- Property ownership is determined by the rule of the jungle more than any reasonable set of legal rights. This makes it an almost impossible environment for investment. The International School would be able to attract investors, but alas, there is still no legal respect of property rights here – especially those of Christian foreigners.

- The International School has become an essential fixture in the KTown landscape anyway, even renting adjacent land from multiple owners. Yet another class graduating this year; it’s getting to the point where it’s becoming hard to remember what happened in which year. The “Old Timers” who remember the first year of the USAID grant are becoming fewer and farther between. The home office continues to find and send first rate replacements for every teacher that wants to leave. We will have a new preschool teacher next year – Hamroz Drew!

Independence Day

I have celebrated various Independence Days around the world and can conclude that there is nothing like the Fourth of July. Every other country celebrates independence from the end of a war or the signing of a treaty - Not America. A-stan celebrates at least three “Independence Days” each year (when the armies of Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the Taliban withdrew). To fight for their independence from Spain, Costa Rica sent an army north to Mexico, unaware that the treaty granting independence had been signed two years earlier. Today they celebrate the treaty and have disbanded the army. T-stan celebrates it’s independence from the Soviet Union even though there is scarce historical evidence that anyone there actually wanted to be independent.

Everyone who recognizes the Fourth of July as US Independence Day participates in a clear statement of American faith. Our independence does not spring from the surrender of Cornwallis nor from the Treaty of Paris, our Declaration of Independence, previous to the battles, is what settled the matter in our minds. Nowhere else in the world are things done like this, because it rests on the intellectual pillar of the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith apart from good works. That is what makes America so different.

According to the doctrine, salvation occurs prior to and apart from any good works. It starts when a person recognizes his own sin (sin being spiritual – not just the physical act of adultery, but the desire; not just the physical act of murder but the angry spirit). No one can control their own spirit so as to never BE a sinner, even apart from DOING anything. You should realize that Christ paid the penalty of sin (death) that justice demands from each one of us. He satisfies the just claims against us if we will accept a new start to life by faith. And the born again experience begins with a public declaration:

Rom 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Rom 10:10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. NASV

Then, the real war, your battle against sin, begins. Never, ever, does salvation depend on your succeeding in doing “good works”. Your ultimate goal - to live in a holy condition (be a “saint”) is secure though you fail and lose battles. The end victory is to be counted as already won - just as when they used to run the Continental Army off the field in the years after the Declaration was signed! It depends on the work Jesus did on the cross that each individual must claim in that momentous declaration of faith. This does not end, but rather begins your war against sin (the fighting of which will become your “good works”).

Then, you are ready for “life, liberty and the pursuit of holiness” as Jefferson wrote before Franklin edited.