I struggled with this intensely, especially after reading hundreds of emails with personal pleas, and poring over documentation of entire Afghan families with real faces and identities. I could not do it. But I had to do it. Along with my co-worker, Faisal Al Mutar, I ultimately did pick just five based on a basic evaluation of relative risk and ease of extraction. The moral weight of such a decision was overwhelming. We should have never been in a position to make such a call in the first place. 

On Saturday night I had just sat down to have a drink with a friend when he got a call. He apologized for having to take it, but it was urgent: it was about the Afghan women’s orchestra. They were stuck in Kabul and desperate to get out. He was involved in the effort to extract them.
Twenty minutes later, we ordered another martini.
I’ve been thinking a lot these past two weeks about luck. The luck of where we are born. The luck of the parents we are born to. And, right now, the luck of who we know.
Knowing — or having proximity to someone who knows my well-placed friend, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — is a matter of life or death for untold numbers of Afghans.
The question of who will live and who will die — part of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that all Jews say on the high holy days, which are just around the corner — is supposed to be in the hands of God. But right now, for so many Afghans, the answer to that question is in the hands of the Taliban. The chance to live relies on Americans: those who have the luck to live in freedom and those who are determined to right what the Biden administration has gotten so horribly wrong.
Melissa Chen is one of those people.
Melissa co-founded an organization called Ideas Beyond Borders, which digitizes and translates English books and articles into Arabic. And not just any books: Books like Orwell’s ‘“Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now,” and a graphic novel based on John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty.” Works that promote reason, pluralism and liberty. Suffice it to say the translators she works with in places like Egypt, Syria and Iraq do so at great risk.
Because of her connections in the Middle East — and because she is the kind of person who lives by her principles — it did not surprise me that she found herself involved in the efforts to save Afghans from the horrors of the Taliban. She shares some of the details of those remarkable efforts in the essay below.
The operation to get American allies out of Kabul has been dubbed the Underground Railroad and Digital Dunkirk. But I can’t help but think of the MS St. Louis. That’s the ship that came to this country in 1939 packed with more 900 Jews fleeing Germany. To our country’s eternal shame we turned the ship around and into the arms of the Third Reich. — BW
For the past two weeks I have been part of a 21st century Underground Railroad. We are a ragtag group — combat veterans, human rights activists, ex-special forces, State Department officials, intelligence agents, members of Congress, non-profit organizers, and private individuals with the resources to charter planes and helicopters — who have stepped into the vacuum left by the Biden administration.
Today the Pentagon announced the end of our 20-year war in Afghanistan. But there are hundreds of Americans and an estimated 250,000 Afghan allies who remain trapped there. Many of these Afghans, due to the nature of their work, their religious beliefs, their minority ethnic status or even just their appearance (say, sporting tattoos anywhere on their bodies), see escape as a matter of life and death. As Kabul descended into chaos, their pleas for help leaving were largely met with bureaucratic silence.
The operation to save them began before the Taliban were seen riding bumper cars in amusement parks and occupying the presidential palace. Many veterans and civilians who had deep ties to the country were under no illusions about the nature of the Taliban and what a deal with them would mean for the people who had worked with the U.S.
Long before Kabul fell, I noticed that military friends started using Facebook and Twitter to figure out how to help their “terps” — interpreters, linguists and translators who served alongside them during their tours in Afghanistan. WhatsApp groups, email threads, and ad hoc task forces with their own central command centers sprang up spontaneously. Google docs were cobbled together to compile and share resources for individuals assisting their Afghan friends in their evacuation and eventual resettlement. No one was relying on a White House that had voluntarily closed Bagram Airbase or a commander-in-chief who, as of last month, was assuring the American public that a Taliban takeover “is not inevitable.”
No One Left Behind, a charity that was founded to help interpreters through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program and resettle them in the U.S., has been at the vanguard of these efforts. Human Rights Foundation and Human Rights First were very effective in helping activists and dissidents secure political asylum. AfghanEvac, a self-organized group of beltway insiders and outsiders, have been logistical ninjas, chartering planes and requesting landing rights in neighboring countries. The Commercial Task Force set up shop in a conference room at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C., and has so far helped evacuate 5,000 Afghan refugees. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton set up a war room office to take over the duties and responsibilities that the State Department had abdicated. Democratic Rep. Andy Kim had his office set up an email account to assist those seeking help evacuating allies.
And then there were the extraction teams like Task Force Pineapple and Task Force Dunkirk, informal, volunteer groups of U.S. veterans who took matters in their own hands to launch dangerous secret missions to save hundreds of at-risk Afghan allies and their families.
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Another expression of the Immanuel Principle is our hope of our eternal residence with God in heaven; God himself is our eternal dwelling. Between Eden and the Incarnation, the Immanuel Principle was God’s intent, as evidenced in his appearances to man through OT theophanies. Through these appearances we see Christ Himself, manifested through revelations and visions. The OT theophanies reveal to us the God the promises of the onewho would come and dwell with us.

Introduction:  The Immanuel Principle
If we tend to think of “Immanuel: God with us” mostly at Christmas, a deeper study will show it to be a core concept throughout Scripture. As some have explained: ‘The Immanuel Principle’ is God’s intent to be with us and His creation. Understanding and appreciating the Immanuel Principle is one of the reasons why we celebrate the Christmas season. Even though Christmas observance is not scripturally mandated, we should celebrate God’s intent for us to know that he is with us through Christ’s incarnation. It is the core of our Christian hope.
The Immanuel Principle is first seen right at the beginning of God’s revelation in the Garden of Eden as God walked and fellowshipped with man in the cool of the evening. When man’s sin broke his communion with God, His still intended to be with us. Through the incarnation he would show Himself to man, to resolve and remove the sin that had necessitated the separation. As God told Moses, “No one can see my face and live” ( Ex. 33:20).
In Christ’s incarnation we would look on Christ and live, in the same way as Israel did when many were bitten by deadly serpents in the wilderness; Moses was instructed to place a serpent made of brass on a pole so any who looked at it would be healed and live (Num 21/Jn 3: 14-16). This anticipates the unmistakable divine providence pointing to the cross of Christ.
Another expression of the Immanuel Principle is our hope of our eternal residence with God in heaven; God himself is our eternal dwelling. Between Eden and the Incarnation, the Immanuel Principle was God’s intent, as evidenced in his appearances to man through OT theophanies. Through these appearances we see Christ Himself, manifested through revelations and visions. The OT theophanies reveal to us the God the promises of the onewho would come and dwell with us.
The God Who Sees Finds Hagar (Gen 16)
In the OT world, Hagar was a least of the least position. As an Egyptian slave woman, and surrogate mother for Abraham’s family at Sarah’s insistence, Sarah came to despise Hagar even though she gave Abraham a son.  Sarah chased Hagar out of the house through her hostile treatment. Gen 16:7 tells us, “The angel of the LORD” went and found her by a spring of water in the desert wilderness.
The Angel of the LORD asked her a question: “Where are you coming from, and where are you going?” The Angel also promised, “I’ll  give you offspring unable to be numbered,” beginning with the child she was now carrying.  Only God Himself could make such a promise.
The text reveals no fear in Hagar of this Angel; the conversation with Him appears quite normal to Hagar. He appeared ordinary to Hagar, much as Christ in His incarnation “has no majesty or beauty that He would stand out” (Isa 53).  During his earthly ministry, people spoke with the Christ, the God-man, “as a man speaks with his friend.” The Gen. 16:13 account tells us Hagar called the name of the LORD who spoke to her “El Roy,” that is, “You are a God of seeing,” for she knew, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”
While the omnipresent Father sees and knows all, He wants us to know that He knows and sees. It is the Incarnate Christ who tells us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). As Hagar said, “I have seen him who sees me.” God sees us as “in Christ.” God cares for us in the Person of Christ, who loved us and gave Himself up for us” ( Eph. 5:2).
Jacob Wrestles with God…and Wins (Gen 32)
If God’s appearance to Abraham (in Gen 18, the promised birth of Isaac to Sarah) reveals a God and Savior who keeps His promises, the appearance of Christ to Jacob even more clearly reveals a Savior who shows us God, not only in His holiness, but in His mercy.
Jacob had run from Esau, his brother, having deceived their father to steal Esau’s birthright.  He had gone to his relative Laban in a far country. Eventually, he wore out his welcome there, too, both men agreeing to set up a pile of stones that neither would by-pass, to harass each other. Jacob was anticipating the reunion with Esau, going so far as to prepare for battle by dividing his family and possessions into two separate caravans.
In this fearful mood, Jacob would encounter the pre-incarnate Christ.  Having sent even his wives away, Jacob spent the night alone. As the Scripture tells us, he wrestled all that night with “a man,” a physical confrontation with an incarnate being, of some sort. The two fought to a draw, eventually the Christ- figure damaging Jacob’s thigh socket to break free from his grip.
Even then, Jacob demanded God’s blessing and received it. Christ changed Jacob’s name to Israel saying, “You have striven with God, and have prevailed.” We too have prevailed with God, through the Person of Christ. Later, Jacob summed up the encounter, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
In addition to Christ’s encounter with Hagar that revealed Him to be the one who cares for us, Jacob’s encounter with Christ reveals Him to be the One who shows us God and yet we live, not just in this lifetime but forever.  As Christ said, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In the person of Christ, we see God, and since Christ paid the penalty for our sin we receive life.
Manoah’s Barren Wife: The Sacrifice for Sin that Saves (Judges 13)
In biblical history, as man’s sin deepens, The Immanuel Principle becomes more essential, and in the case of Manoah’s wife, more detailed. While many OT theophanies can leave out details that render the historic account somewhat ambiguous, perhaps no theophany reveals more about the incarnate Christ than this, to Manoah’s wife. During the time of the Judges, Israel had again fallen into great sin, and God had again sent the Philistines to draw them back to Himself.
Manoah was from the tribe of Dan; his wife was barren. Judges 13: 3 tells us the Angel of the LORD appeared to her alone with a message: “You shall conceive and bear a son.” If this rings familiar, recall Isa 7: 14 and Luke 1:31, both foretelling the virgin birth of Christ. Manoah’s wife was instructed to commit to the Nazarite vow of no alcohol or eating unclean animals, as this son would “begin to save Israel from the Philistines,” to save Israel from the consequences of their sin.
This too would find a greater Immanuel Principle fulfillment. As a virgin, Mary would bear a son, and was told to call His name Jesus, for He would fully “save His people from their sins.” After a while, it occurred to Manoah this Angel of the LORD was God Himself, for he said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen the LORD.”
But her response was insightful, and theologically brilliant. She replied: “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these” (13: 23). She knew about the purpose of sacrifices, what Isaiah would also tell Israel hundreds of years later, of the Incarnate Christ on the cross, “He shall see the anguish of His soul, and be satisfied.” Christ was the intent and fulfillment of all the OT sacrifices, the one sacrifice that would fully satisfy the Father.
After the construction of the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, the theophanies would largely cease, for God was dwelling among them.  It would take the Incarnation, that greatest of miracle of all, to show us all that God intended us to know about his dwelling with us.
Before the birth of Jesus, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying:
“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us) (Matt 1: 20).
The incarnation of Christ demonstrates the fullness of God coming to his people to dwell with them. Jesus assures all who believe:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30).
Today God is dwelling with us by His indwelling Spirit. And one glorious day, Christ will return to earth, to raise the dead with the living, “and so we will always be [dwell] with the Lord” (I Thes 4).
Mark Kozak is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Providence Reformed PCA in Lavalette, WV.
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The Chinese government has ramped up restrictions limiting Chinese citizens’ access to the Bible overall. Physical copies of the Bible can no longer be purchased online in China, Christian businessmen have been prosecuted for selling audio Bibles online, and the Chinese Communist Party has announced that it is developing its own version of the Bible that will embrace socialist values.

Last week, it was reported that a Bible app and Quran app had been removed from Apple’s App Store in China following pressure from the Chinese government. This is hardly surprising behavior from the Chinese Communist Party. But now, an American company has been enlisted to do its dirty work.
The watchdog group Apple Censorship was the first to report that the apps, Bible App by Olive Tree and Quran Majeed, had been taken down. When Apple removed the Quran app, the app makers were told it contained content that is illegal in China. China’s restrictions on religious texts have affected those of all faiths, sometimes brutally so. In Xinjiang, Uyghur Muslims who are caught with religious content on their phones can be detained without trial in an internment camp.
Leaders at Olive Tree removed the Bible app themselves. “Olive Tree Bible Software was informed during the App Store review process that we are required to provide a permit demonstrating our authorization to distribute an app with book or magazine content in mainland China,” a spokesperson told BBC News. “Since we did not have the permit and needed to get our app update approved and out to customers, we removed our Bible app from China’s App Store.” They ultimately hope they can get the app back on the App Store.
This seems unlikely, as the Chinese government has ramped up restrictions limiting Chinese citizens’ access to the Bible overall.
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