Fatana's story

Day 3: Pray for peace and healing

Decades of war have left many Hazara physically and emotionally scarred. After witnessing so much brutality and experiencing so much tragedy, Hazara women suffer depression and anxiety. Families are still separated, many not knowing if their loved ones are alive or dead. Ask God to prolong the peace in Afghanistan. Ask Him to bring healing to the hearts and minds of families as they begin to respond to the gospel of peace.

Fatana's story

Fatana* wearily watches the last burnt orange streaks of sunlight dissolve into darkness. It seems to her that the last ten years have been a perpetual night. Hunger claimed two of her sisters. They submitted to death after starvation whittled their slender frames down to the bone. Her father was tortured in prison. One brother was gunned down by Taliban soldiers as he fled the village, racing for safety in the mountains. Another brother escaped. She prays that he is still alive, but has no way of finding him.

Now Fatana is helping her mother care for the younger children. All the children playing in their one room home makes her mother's head hurt. Her headaches are worse every day. She tried all the herbal remedies suggested by village ladies. Today she will go to the mullah, a Muslim spiritual leader, and pay him to write a verse from the Koran that she will wear around her neck. She hopes this charm will render powerless any curse that someone put on her. She thinks her headaches might go away if she goes to the special mosque and gives some money to the poor. She would do anything for just one day of peace.

Fatana hopes to go to school one day, but her mother won't let her out of her sight. She is terrified of loosing yet another child. Fatana can't remember the last time she heard her mother laugh. The intensity she sees in her mother's eyes is fear, bordering on panic. Her anxiety is everpresent. So Fatana stays home.

Fatana has never known a time of peace in Afghanistan. She has only known fighting. One enemy after another occupied her village. They spoke different languages, but they all carried guns. There is no peace in her family either. Although Fatana is only 10 years old, her father has arranged for her to marry her cousin. According to the Muslim faith, she must be married in order to go to heaven. She knows her cousin will probably hit her the way her father beats her mother.

Fatana leans over her embroidery and wishes she could play outside like the boys. She gently sets her sewing aside to prepare herself for afternoon prayer. Fatana speaks Hazaragi, but she prays in Arabic. She doesn't understand the words of the prayers she recites from memory, but she hopes that God will know how much she wants to have a peaceful life and a normal childhood.

“Does God see me? Does He care? Can anyone tell me?” Fatana's heart cries. Pray for Fatana and her family to find hope and peace in the person of Jesus Christ.

Use Ezekial 34:16,25,28 as you pray right now.

*Names have been changed to protect individuals. Photos do not represent the individual described in the story.

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