I like this man's tenacity......

[trc123]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/09/afghanistan.last.jew/index.html?hpt=T2

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Zablon Simintov is always guaranteed the best seat in his local synagogue here, but the privilege comes with a downside: he's the last Jew in Afghanistan.

The country's 800-year-old Jewish community -- an estimated 40,000 strong at its peak -- is now a party of one.

But Simintov, for his part, isn't going anywhere soon. For more than a decade, he has refused to join his wife and two teenage daughters in Israel.

"My family call me all the time and say, 'Come here, you're the last Jew in Afghanistan, what are you doing there?' " he says.

Simintov, a former carpet dealer, refuses to answer that question. "I don't know why I'm still living here," he says. "It's God's will."

He hasn't seen his daughters -- now ages 14 and 16 -- since his one trip to Israel 12 years ago.

But the bald and bespectacled Simintov says he is content guarding a cupboard full of dusty prayer books -- one is 400 years old, he says -- spending holidays with visitors from Europe and the U.S. and surviving off donations from Jews around the world.................

.......................But Simintov says he is hardly in hiding. "They're all like my brothers here," he said of his fellow Afghans. "It doesn't make a difference whether I'm here or in Israel."

That wasn't the case under Taliban rule, which ended with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, though Taliban forces have been resurgent in parts of the country.

Simintov says he was arrested four times under Taliban rule and that he was beaten while in custody.

"The Taliban was a prOBlem," he says. "They interfered in everyone's business, but now they're gone, they're finished."

Which means that Simintov is more inclined than ever to stay put.

[John81]

He should pack the books and get with his family or have his family come to him.

[trc123]

He should pack the books and get with his family or have his family come to him.

While that may be a point to be made, he's still tenacious. And as you know, there have been times when God used many circumstances out of the norm for his (God's) purposes, even being away from their family.

[John81]

While that may be a point to be made, he's still tenacious. And as you know, there have been times when God used many circumstances out of the norm for his (God's) purposes, even being away from their family.

No doubt, but since this man isn't a born again Christian we can't expect this man is living in God's will.

[trc123]

No doubt, but since this man isn't a born again Christian we can't expect this man is living in God's will.

Yes, true....which is why I didn't say he was living in God's will but rather phrased it "there have been times when God used many circumstances out of the norm for his (God's) purposes.."

[HappyChristian]

Wow - even through being beaten by the Taliban, he stayed. And some Christians can't take being laughed at for going to church!

[JerryNumbers]

True, a modern Christian in America would flee saying, "I'm a Christian, I deserve much better treatment than this, so I will gather together my toys and go home and play by my self."

[John81]

True, a modern Christian in America would flee saying, "I'm a Christian, I deserve much better treatment than this, so I will gather together my toys and go home and play by my self."

You see many American Christians willing to have premarital sex, accept homosexuality as ok, follow women preachers and dress like street walkers in order to fit in with the world.

I've found myself under attack from professing Christians because I believe the Bible is the true Word of God and we are to live by the Book. Time and again professing Christians have attempted to "enlighten" me that all that stuff in the Bible about sex, homosexuality and women are not meant for us today because they were written by women-hating, homo-phOBes.

[JerryNumbers]

2Ti 3:5 "Having a form of godliness..."

This fits many.