I have been so busy over the last couple of weeks I can't even describe it. So much going on in Afghanistan. For those of us in Kabul the word of the day is "Transition". All efforts towards getting the Afghans in front of everything. I guess we have always had that mission, but there seems to be a renewed emphasis with this. Finally!
I have been flying quite a bit. Every time I see a Black Hawk flying by I wonder if it's someone I know; I wonder if it's one of you. I trust you are flying safe and "keeping your head on a swivel".
Raise your hand if you have done any snow landings. I had alot of fun flying from Kabul to TK. Everything above about 10,500 ft was snow, so we took the opportunity to discuss the differences between "white out" landings and "brown outs". Pretty cool. Unfortunately the snow covers the "red rocks", so landing off-site is a bit more tricky. If you don't know, red rocks indicate an old Russian mine field, so....don't land on those. They paint the rocks white when the area has been cleared by US or other coalition forces. Anyway, good luck with the cold weather, remember to review icing and other limitations you may not have looked at in a while.
Here's a quick word of encouragement for you.
This week I was doing some reading and thinking about Christians throughout the entire world. How it was amazing that what started out as a small "fringe religion" more than 2000 years ago is now holistically looked at as a "Christian Movement", and has literally spread across the globe.
How did this happen?
I believe that this happened because of the commonalities found within God's human creation. Put another way, one reason Christianity has grown over the past 2000 years, to nearly all peoples of the world, is due to our God given commonalities.
The fact is that God placed inside His creation (all humans) the longing to know more about eternity with Him. You can see this in Ecclesiastes 3:11, "...he has put eternity into man's heart." This is a huge commonality among all human beings; the longing to know more about the Creator. It's pretty cool that the Creator placed within His creation (us) the desire to know more of Him who did the creating. I am so glad God did this!
A second commonality amongst all peoples is that we share dominion of the created world. Genesis 1:28 & 29 shows us that we "have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You have them all for food."
A third commonality is that God can also be seen within His worldly creation. Romans 1:19-23 details, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." Very Cool!
So we can see three commonalities that tie all human kind together. The truth that reveals that all people have a longing to know God and eternity with Him, the truth that we all have dominion over the world He created for us, and the truth that He can be seen in the world itself.
Where does this truth leave us? Christianity is for everyone in the world, including all those you encounter while serving in Afghanistan. It is not a United States of America belief system, but a belief system inspired by God himself. Everyone in the world has inside of them these common truths. So no matter how different a person may look on the outside, remember that we are much more common on the inside than you may think.
God Bless!
