Kalispell woman helping aid mission to war-torn Pakistan

Even as the Taliban's suicide bombers ripped apart police targets and killed two dozen in Lahore, Pakistan, last month, Kathy Garber witnessed centuries-old rifts being mended by something explosives never can kill - unconditional love.

Now the Kalispell woman is working to raise cash donations to water those seeds of love in the craggy reaches of Waziristan and the Swat Valley.

The $40,000 Garber is helping raise will pay to ship rice and food, tents, blankets and medical supplies that could mean the difference between life and an agonizing death.

Shipped to and distributed by an influential Muslim religious leader in Lahore, the two cargo containers of supplies will help 300,000 people make it through the two regions' harshest three months of winter as they are assaulted with relentless attacks by Taliban fighters trying to overtake the strategic areas.

The U.S. link is Norwegian-born Baptist preacher Leif Hetland who lives by a simple code: If you really love people, love will always win out in the end.

"I've traveled some, I grew up in Central America," Garber said after spending two weeks in Pakistan with Hetland and his team of nine Global Mission Awareness volunteers in Pakistan.

"But nothing has captured my heart like this."

It began with an unlikely friendship between Hetland, the Baptist preacher in Killen, Alabama, and Molana Syed Muhammad Abd-ul-Khabir Azad, the Muslim religious leader who heads Badshahi Mosque in Pakistan.

Hetland founded Global Mission Awareness in 1984 and has taken the Christian message to 75 nations on five continents. Today, the organization is active in 22 countries, including Pakistan.

He's been there 23 times and has been stopped by the Taliban, whose fighters put a gun to his head, Garber said.

But in the course of those visits, Hetland developed an authentic relationship with the molana, a man who cares for 20 orphans in his own home and reaches out from his city on Pakistan's eastern border to the besieged groups bordering Afghanistan perhaps 300 or 400 miles to the west.

"He has a true love for Pakistan … There's a connection between Islam and the West," she said. "He's all about turning the light on rather than focusing on the dark. He's seen big changes, all through his love."

Garber and her husband Nate are longtime GMA supporters. When an e-mail arrived in June announcing Hetland was headed for a Christian conference in Lahore and looking for team members, Garber applied. Hetland phoned for an interview, and she was in.

They left from Alabama Oct. 8, with Garber focused primarily on a women's conference that was part of the schedule. She said several Pakistani men attended that conference, too, and dissolved prejudices many Westerners hold regarding Muslim men's treatment of women.

"So much honor was shown to us - I can't tell you," she said, still awed by the service and respect she received.

In turn, she and the other two women were careful to show cultural respect by following protocol. They wore head coverings and tunics with loose pants, remained still so as not to draw attention to themselves, spoke freely when they were addressed by men.

The first two nights of the conference were for Christian leaders there. The third night was for women.

The fourth night was opened to the public and drew some 18,000-20,000 Muslims. In the past the molana simply did not attend, turning a blind eye to the evangelism. Preaching about Jesus in Pakistan, Garber said, can get a person killed. But this time the molana, on the day of the open session, announced he wanted to attend, essentially putting his stamp of approval on Hetland's mission.

That conference ended but Hetland had organized an annual peace conference for Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Christians the next day.

But that was the morning of the Taliban attacks on Lahore. Twenty-five people died in three coordinated attacks on Federal Investigation Agency facilities. The homes of 150 Christian families were burned.

The GMA team's attendance was out of the question, so the molana went on Hetland's behalf. That night, the molana was among eight Muslim leaders who showed up at the hotel for dinner with Hetland.

"Love certainly prevailed that night," Garber said.

The molana immediately canceled all his plans, other than prayers in the mosque, to be with Hetland's team. He came back the next day and "told Leif he just led 10,000 Muslims in prayers for his safety," she said.

The cultural and religious walls that were shattered were life-changing for her.

"When I came home I couldn't even talk to Nate coherently about it," she said. "It messed me up."

Now, the molana is gaining Hetland's unrestrained help.

"He was a wonderful man," Garber said of the molana. "He shared his heart for the pain of his people."

Two weeks before the team's arrival the molana had led a convoy of emergency-supply trucks to the Swat Valley. A similar trip to Waziristan was under way last week.

But he knows his people will need more if they are to withstand the fierce battle that the Taliban already is waging for these regions.

So Hetland is working with several organizations that will donate emergency supplies to fill two cargo containers. Global Mission Awareness will raise the $40,000 to ship packages overseas and into the care of Molana Syed Muhammad Abd-ul-Khabir Azad.

"He's a practical, effective guy," Nate Garber said. "We have no problem supporting him."

Kathy Garber has been sealed in the fight.

"You leave there and you say we've got to do something," she said. "It was a wonderful experience. I'll never be the same."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com