When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, many Afghans were forced to flee for their lives. Thousands of Afghans crowded around the Kabul airport and begged to be evacuated. Only a few were allowed to leave. Today you will hear the heart breaking story of one refugee that we were able to help escape from Afghanistan.
Thanks so much for listening to the podcast today. Our ministry is helping Afghan refugees resettle here in the United States. The Afghans need houses, transportation, education, and many other things in order to succeed in this nation. If you want to help an Afghan refugee you can do so by making a donation here.
Transcript:
Daniel King (00:00):
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, many Afghans were forced to flee for their lives. Thousands of Afghans crowded around the cobble airport and begged to be evacuated. Only a few were allowed to leave today. You’ll hear the heartbreaking story of one refugee that we were a able to help escape from Afghanistan.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:24):
Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be say, welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interview full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Danielle King.
Daniel King (01:00):
Welcome to the podcast. My name is Daniel King and today I have a special guest with me from the nation of Afghanistan. Thank you for joining me.
Tayyab (01:10):
Hello? Hello, Ms. Daniel King. My name is Tayyab. My friends call me T and it’s been a pleasure to be on this podcast.
Daniel King (01:16):
Well, thank you so much for being here with me. My family has Afghanistan for many years. My grandparents actually worked in Afghanistan back in the 1950s, and my mother was born in cobble Afghanistan. And so she has grown up loving Afghanistan. She actually lived there until she was eight years old. And when I was a kid, I remember my mom used to talk about Afghanistan all the time. We would pray for the people of Afghanistan every single day. We would be praying for Afghanistan, even back then. People didn’t even know where Afghanistan was on the map, but we knew because my mom loved Afghanistan so much. And then 12 years ago, my father and mother moved to the of Afghanistan and began to work there. And one of the things that they did was to, to start a, a school. And you actually were at the school. Can you tell me a little bit about
Tayyab (02:15):
That? Yes. It was quite a big, big pleasure to work with Mr. And Mrs. King, who were your parents? They had founded the school and it was a school that gave me a world of new opportunities as a young teenager who was trying to pursue education with all the other doors being locked. Mr. King was one of the divine gifts that I received in Afghanistan with his family by giving me a job opportunity as a teacher, I was able to serve and help people while simultaneously, simultaneously helping myself by pursuing my gift of education. And that was through an online medium. So I’m very, very thankful to have been gifted that opportunity to help people from individuals with ADHD, to just normal, everyday Afghans that were just wanting and were very loved. The gift of education. I just wanted to be a part of that movement with the Bahar movement. How did
Daniel King (03:04):
You originally meet my parents?
Tayyab (03:07):
I was part of a, an American school funded by U S a I D in Cobal Afghanistan by the name of the international school of Kabal and the staff was predominantly foreigners and Mr. And Mrs. King were one of the parents of a teacher by the name of Mr. Mr.
Daniel King (03:23):
David King, Mr. David was a teacher there. Yes. And then he actually married a girl who was an art teacher at the school. Her name is Leslie. And so now David and Leslie live in chiro Egypt mm-hmm <affirmative> and they, they teach at
Tayyab (03:37):
A school there. Yes. And I’m, I was very, very surprised, but very, very happy for the two of them, cuz they were just an amazing match of very good people. Miss Listly is an amazing, amazing human being. And so is Mr. Mr. David K
Daniel King (03:48):
A great, great, great. I can see he was a great friend of yours. Okay. So my parents were, were there in Afghanistan. They, they had this school many different students came to the school and you were, were one of the teachers. My mother actually died and went to heaven in April. And so she was loved by many of the Afghan people. What are some memories that you have of my mother? How, how did she impact your life? Well, first
Tayyab (04:15):
Of all Mrs. King was an amazing human being. And I know personally in my heart that she is in heaven. And one of my great memories from Mrs. King is when, at the end of the school days, when all the students would be gathered in the hallway, Mrs. King would help say the Bahar Moto, which was Bahar is our school. Bahar is a new beginning. Bahar is excellent and Bahar is fun. And she would say in a he huge amount of energy every single time. And we would feel just welcomed around her, just whenever I needed her help with transferring money from my, from my academic work or anything along those lines or buying textbooks online, she was always there to help and serve my people and just humanity in general. And I feel like us here coming to the states has been Mr. King’s way of just appreciating and honoring miss Mrs. King’s passing and her love from my people. And so Mrs. King, she might not know it, but just me being here in there in here in the states is because of her. And I truly did love her from the bottom of my heart. And I know she is in peace and she’s in heaven right now.
Daniel King (05:18):
Yeah. My mother was a great woman. I, I think everything that I know came because of her love for God and her love for people. And then her love for me as a, as a son. And I was so proud of both of my parents working in Afghanistan, sometimes very dangerous situations, but my mom and dad were there because they, they loved the people of AF Afghanistan. So in August a great tragedy happened in Afghanistan. Yes. The, the Taliban government began to take over Afghanistan and then on August 15th, the they officially took over the, the city of cobble and because of the, the Taliban strictness, a lot of people wanted to get out of Afghanistan. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And, and so tell me a little bit about why people were maybe scared of, of the Taliban, why they didn’t wanna stay there in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Tayyab (06:20):
This was not the first time that Taliban had taken control over Afghanistan. This was an occurrence that happened within two decades, two, two decades ago, Taliban had come and now it was just their coming again. And so people had seen the principles that they believed in. They’re very tyrannical individuals that follow extremely conservative laws in the, in the name of their faith. And I personally do not believe that there are people of their faith because I am personally a Muslim and that the principles that they follow is not in a accordance to the Muslim faith. So things that they would do is just like prevent women from pursuing education. Just day to day free will was taken away basically from people because people had to follow very strict rules on a daily basis religious rules, or just some random social norms, like not being able to even interact with people of the other gender women not being allowed to go to work things that were just absolutely out of the ordinary. And people did not see lives continuing in this path because they, they had realized what their rights are and they’re willing to fight for them. So everybody wanted to get out the country until this place was safe once again.
Daniel King (07:28):
And so you wanted to escape from Afghanistan. I think that the, the fall of Afghanistan happened very quickly. Like no one thought that the tele on would take over so quickly, certainly here in the United States, everyone thought that that the Taliban maybe would fight in the Southern provinces mm-hmm <affirmative>, but when they began to take over cobble, yeah. Suddenly everyone became very concerned and everyone saw on the news, there were airplanes taking off and people were actually hanging onto the outs side of the airplane and fall off the airplane. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and thousands of people rushed the airport, just trying to get on any airplane in order to leave. And, and really the whole situation was extremely chaotic, a great tragedy. Many people were hurt and some people were even killed. And you were there right in the of it. Tell me about what
Tayyab (08:21):
Happened. So three weeks before the actual coming of the Taliban, we saw it happening. It was becoming a reality on a daily basis. We saw it becoming a reality two years ago, but we never saw it as an actually happening. We, we had hope we had hope, but three weeks before the 31st of August, the fall of the Afghan government provinces start falling on a daily basis. And every single day we heard another province had fall. Another province had fallen. And before we knew within three weeks, the capital was in, in risk of falling to the terrorists. And we were, we were hopeful that our government would make a last effort to protect our people and the government, but that’s not what happened. They surrendered the entire country on the 31st of August. And that was the most difficult day of our lives because we saw our country, a country that we had fought for for the peace of, for the last two decades to new coming of our country, for peace in our country.
Tayyab (09:16):
We saw it fall. As a matter of fact, I, I was part of a protest that I was leading just the week before the fall of cobble, where I let 20,000 people streaming and chanting just for a better Afghanistan, just hail Afghanistan or God help Afghanistan. And it was my way of just fighting from my country when nobody else believed in, in my country, it did not make a difference. Within a week. My country had fallen. We had terrorists in our doorstep and there were specifically threatening multiple individuals that had worked with foreigners, myself included, and was fortunate enough to get out of the country. And I tried various ways, but all my personal mediums of trying to get out Afghanistan, such as applying for visas and scholarships online, none of them were fruitful. And so the only medium which was left left was my faith.
Tayyab (10:06):
And I am a person of faith, I believe in God. And that I just sat down. I put my prayer mat on the ground and I pray towards God like, God, Hey, I’m sorry. I’m not the best of your creations. I know I need your help once in a while. And today is one of those days, I request that you use your divine powers to help ring me out of this country, because I believe that you’re great. And if you believe my purpose out of this country, so I can serve your people out of here and to become a better version of myself and eventually come back in this country and serve my people, please help me get out. And within the next day or so I go had a call from Mr. Robert King, your father and he informed me that there’s a one, a million chance, basically that we’re able to evacuate Afghans from the cobble airport.
Tayyab (10:46):
And he told me to get my stuff packed up and head towards the airport. And so the next morning at seven o’clock and got another phone call from Mr. King. And he said, head towards the airport. There’s other fellow friends of ours there on this institution from Bahar. So I get down from the car, it’s a half an hour, right to the airport. And I see 10,000 people in line stiff together, stuck together. And there wasn’t even room to get in line. Everybody was unable to sit down, move, move around, do whatever. And I saw some famili, a familiar face in this. And so it was one of our fellow teachers. And so we decided to believe, we decided to believe that that God has our purpose beyond this area and there’s difficulties and challenges here, but we can push through. So there was three checkpoints, the first two checkpoints being terrorist checkpoints, and the third being a international forces at that point, British forces checkpoint.
Tayyab (11:36):
So it took us two days, two full days, 48 hours standing and getting beat, getting pushed around, getting hit, getting whipped, but we still believed we still believed we pushed through the first checkpoint within 12 hours or so the next checkpoint again, behind 5,000 people, another 24 hours or so within the second checkpoint. And a third checkpoint took us like eight, 10 hours, this in a cramped up area, the size of a, a shipping container stuffed in 200 people, basically all of us trying to just tell the soldiers to help us get out. And we just told to wait. And, and so we waited and we sat down and we just, we, we were continuing to believe. We continued to believe. And eventually Mr. King had, and Mrs. King Ms. Esther king, who is your sister had was able to get in touch with individuals inside the airport.
Tayyab (12:25):
And they were able to send us a, a team of five seals and help evacuate us. And we did not have papers. We not have anything that made us a proper candidate to get out of the country, but God’s purpose for us was beyond our country at that point in time. And so we believed, and once again, we believed and we got past the checkpoints. We stood in line behind a thousand people to get on a plane. We got on a plane for a cargo plane where 600 people were stuffed inside the cargo, but we still with the difficulties. We still believed we still got through. And we got a full flight to Qatar, Germany, where Qatar to Qatar. And then from Qatar, we were at Qatar for overnight. Unfortunately there was no beds available for me and my friends, but we slept on the ground. I slept on, on concrete, but the fact that I was safe and that there was a process underway, I believed, I believe, and we all believe we still kept pushing. Next morning, we got a fly to Germany. We stayed in Germany for eight days. K started in Germany where there was an American army base. Unfortunately, the conditions there weren’t the best especially when it came to food and just facilities that were available there. I personally lost eight pounds within eight days, but <affirmative>,
Daniel King (13:35):
I’m glad that they helped because the food was not the food sufficient.
Tayyab (13:38):
Yeah. They did not give us food. They starved us to, to keep it candid
Daniel King (13:42):
And on the cargo plane there, there’s just it open there’s no seat seats.
Tayyab (13:47):
No, no seats whatsoever. Just like I mentioned, it’s just a cargo plane for moving vehicles and tanks and stuff. There’s stuffed in us in inside a cargo plane with 600 of people, but we’re refugees. We understood that. That’s a part of the process, I guess. And so after Germany, which took eight days, eventually we were able to get out Germany. We got a flight to Washington DC, which is a transit flight, a transit flight. And from DC, we got to New Mexico to another flight where we stayed in a refugee base. And you went
Daniel King (14:14):
To Fort yes. There in New Mexico, right? With El Paso and, and New Mexico border. And what’s really interesting is that my family had actually lived in El Paso for 20 years. And my sister melody was there. And she greeted you at the refugee camp there. Yes. In New Mexico. And, and so it’s really a may my, my father and I were here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we were on the phone trying to do everything we could to help you. And the other teachers from the school get out. And even some of the students, yes. We knew that your lives were potentially in danger. And so my, my father was calling every person. He knew mm-hmm, <affirmative> trying to make contacts with the, the United States state department with the, the different entities within the state department. My sister Esther is actually running for Congress in the 17th district of Illinois.
Daniel King (15:15):
And so, because she’s running for Congress, she knows lots of politicians. Yes. And so she was on the phone talking to various senators and Congress people asking them, what can you do to help these Africans? These are friends of my family. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> their lives and are in danger. If they stay there are going to be killed. And, and my sister Esther is also in the military reserves, the army reserves. Yes. And, and so she was actually had some friends that were military there at the airport in cobble and was able to call them and, and, and we were doing everything we could to help you, but like the first day, nothing worked second day, nothing worked by the third day, we were desperate. We, we also were praying and saying, God help us. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> help these Afghans that, that my mother cared so much about. And we really think that it is a huge miracle that God helped you. It is to, to rescue you. And it, it is because God, as a purpose and a plan for your life, that that’s greater than yourself, that, you know, God has something great for you to do in life. And I think it’s just so traumatic what everyone who got out went through, like, what were you feeling in the midst of that? What was going through your head?
Tayyab (16:35):
This is an interesting question. And the answer, the, the initial answer would be, I was feeling that there is hope, hope for me to, to get to a, a level of safety and hope for my friends and my my family members, that there was still hope with than me. But the most overwhelming feeling was fear. You see fear, Mr. Daniel King fear is very powerful. It drives us to get for survival, but it also silences emotions. See, we saw people get killed in front of us. We were shot at, we were beaten. We felt no pain at that point in fi in time, we did not feel any mental impact. You’re not psychologically impacted immediately. We did not break down. We had one goal which was to get freedom. So fear pushed us fear, motivated us, fear, silenced everything. We didn’t care about the people beside us. At that point in time, we cared about our own lives. At that point in time, It just pushed us to a biological instinct, which reminds you to focus on yourself and survive no matter what, it was very, very upsetting. It was took a while for me to process all of this. When I got to safety, that it’s okay to not be afraid anymore, that I was safe. It’s the biggest gift that America has given me.
Daniel King (18:17):
I’m very grateful that America is welcoming so many Afghans with open arms. There, there are some here that maybe are scared of people from another culture or another religion, even different language group. But here in Oklahoma the governor has opened his arms and invited refugees to come. And so here in Tulsa there are scheduled to be 800. Yes, Afghan refugees who will be living here in Tulsa. And our family is delighted because we used to have to travel all the way across the world to meet Afghans. Now we can have good Afghan food right here in Tulsa, because God has brought Afghans who can cook Afghan food to us, you know? And so we’re, we’re super delighted. And, and, and so far, I think Oklahoma has really welcomed Afghan refugees. How have you been received since you arrived here in America?
Tayyab (19:26):
I have been received with open arms. I love the American people. I love them, truly people of Tulsa, <affirmative> Oklahoma in general, but specif Tulsa have been very, very, very welcoming. We’ve felt like we’re safe that we’re with family. They’ve checked up on us. They’ve made sure that EV every one of our needs are met. If it’s psychological, if it’s physical or just necessary food WiFi’s the smallest things like that. They’ve made sure that we are taken care of. They’ve also let us know that they can be a listening ear. If they need help, if we need help to process something, they will help us work through that. They’ve welcomed us to events. They’ve welcomed, welcomed us to their culture and have also also made us feel like proud of our own culture. Like we have never felt like we, we were unwelcome. We’ve never felt were we were different. We’ve just felt like we were, we were special in a positive light that we were friends from afar brothers and sisters from afar that were just back home, that we were, that we were welcomed. And as soon as we, we met people from different churches, different organizations, and each and every single one of them played a huge role. If it was praying for us, if it was monetary assistance, if it was just remembering us in their thoughts, that all mattered, we felt safe here. We felt welcomed.
Daniel King (20:44):
So what comes next for you now here? What are your hopes and your plans, your dreams for the future
Tayyab (20:52):
After coming to America and going through all of this? This is very difficult journey in my life. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve realized my purpose in life with my set of unique skills. I feel like God has a huge purpose for my it’s currently here in the states, but it will. It is eventually back home, 20 years from now, 25 years from now as me and you were discussing, discussing this afternoon, it is to go back home. You
Daniel King (21:17):
Want go back to Afghani. Why do you, why do you wanna go back? Because
Tayyab (21:21):
I believe that the gift of education, the gift that was passed on to me was the gift that completely transformed my in, in a better light. I want to go back home and build my own system of of schools and universities and pass on this light, this fire of education to other individuals, my people there’s talent back in Afghanistan. There is people still love their country while our flag might have been taken down. It still, it still flies how high in our hearts. We are Afghans. We are proud people. We love our country, and I believe we have a great, good, great future in hand. Well, today, many people might not believe in this dream of mine. I assure you, Mr. Daniel King, there is hope for Afghanistan and there’s people like me that are gonna change the country, bring it to a positive direction, give a big part of it is giving the people the gift of education. It will make them realize what they truly are, how much their value is and how they can as Afghans. And then as human beings completely transform the world.
Daniel King (22:29):
Well, as an American, I want to welcome you with open arms to our nation. We are happy that you are here, and I believe that God will do great things in your life. God has a great plan for your life. And I also share your dream for a peace Afghanistan. For many years, our family has prayed for there to be peace in Afghanistan. And for the last 40 years there every day, there has been very little peace, but someday I believe there will be peace in Afghanistan and the Afghan people will be great in the eyes of the world. And so I’m so delighted that you’re here. Thank you. It’s been an honor for, for being with me on this podcast. And what would you say to Americans who maybe would meet in Afghan or see an Afghan at the store? What, what would you say to them that should do to, to welcome Afghans
Tayyab (23:33):
Fellow Americans and anybody else? Who’s listening to his podcast. I, as an Afghan am one of your brothers, a long lost brother, and there’s your long lost brothers and sisters that have come across the world in hopes that you guys will assist them and help them to at attain attain a level of a level of safety and peace. Welcome them, give them a hug, make sure that they are reminded that they’re safe here and that you love them. We have had a very difficult life with last 40 years, and we’re hoping the next 40 is gonna be a peaceful one, a one with smiles, a one with warmth of family and care. Each one of you can make this difference in their hearts and their lives be that difference for that person. Thank you.
Daniel King (24:20):
Thank you so much for being with me. It’s great to have you here.
Tayyab (24:23):
Thank you, Mr. King.
Daniel King (24:25):
Thanks so much for listening to the podcast today, our ministry is helping Afghan refugees resettle here in the United States. The Afghans need houses, transportation, education, and many other things in order to succeed in this nation. If you want to help an Afghan refugee, you can do so by king of donation@wwwdotkingministries.com. Thank you so much for your generosity and thank you for helping us to help these beautiful Afghan people who have come to our nation for more
Evangelism Podcast Host (24:59):
Information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
