Have a very Merry Muslim Christmas!

That's what I wished the young lady who cut my hair this morning as I left.  She is a Muslim, but celebrates Christmas with gusto.  "Everyone loves Christmas," she said.  "In our family nine of us have birthdays in December, so we go all out."

I suddenly felt ridiculous for thinking the three in my family in December were a chore.  This young lady was born in, and emigrated from, Afghanistan and knows a thing or two about how women are treated there.  Very badly.  "Before we left, I had to hide in my house because I refused to cover myself when I went out.  So, I just didn't go anywhere.  I was a prisoner.  This was when the Taliban was in charge and the one time I ventured out, I had to wear the full burka and I was tripping over my feet and sweating, blind and it felt like I had bugs in my hair.  It was so terrible and I only had to walk a couple of blocks to my aunt's house," she added.

She also told me that she refused to cover herself in any way after puberty and that her family supported her.  "Everyone knows I will not do that and I will stick to my principles," she added.  I told her I was proud of her stand.  "These are dirty men who want to cover women.  Dirty," she volunteered.  I agreed.  "The minute I crossed the border to start the journey to come to Canada I tore off the burka and threw it in a heap into the river.  I was free of that intolerance."

She also agree with me that young women wearing the hijab, yet covered in thick makeup with nails painted, was completely ridiculous.  "It's not logical," she said.  "It's stupid."  Bravely, she told some members of the Taliban that in Canada, we can go to a mosque, we can worship freely.  Why, she asked them, can that not happen here?  They simply told her that Christians should not be free to worship in Afghanistan.  "That's the uneducated in that country, that's how they think."

Christians are routinely persecuted worldwide, just as Christ was.