The Runner From Kabul

In August 2021, when the last American planes lifted off from Kabul's airport, thousands of Afghan families were left behind with nothing but fear and silence. For weeks, no word came. Phone lines went dead. The internet was severed. Families in the United States paced their kitchens at three in the morning, refreshing screens that showed nothing.

Then a young aid worker named Fatima crossed the border into Pakistan on foot, carrying a phone full of names and messages. She walked for two days through mountain passes to reach a village with cell service. When she finally connected, she began making calls — one after another — to families scattered across America. "Your mother is alive. Your brother made it out. They are safe."

Those who received her calls described the moment the same way: they collapsed. They wept. They gathered everyone in the house and repeated the words out loud, because good news that extraordinary cannot be whispered. It has to be proclaimed.

Isaiah saw this same scene centuries before Fatima was born. A messenger appears on the mountains, feet dusty from the journey, carrying the only words that matter: "Your God reigns." The exile is over. The Almighty has not forgotten His people. Salvation is not a rumor — it is arriving.

Every Sunday, the church stands in Fatima's shoes. We are the runners. We carry news too good and too urgent to keep to ourselves. The Holy One has come, and all the ends of the earth will see it.