Sun Days on Orcas | Laurel Wrye’s cards for Afghanistan

||| SUN DAYS ON ORCAS by EDEE KULPER |||

You may know Ken and Laurel Wrye as acquaintances or neighbors, but did you know that they worked in Afghanistan for five years from 1966-1968 and 1971-1974? Their first daughter was born there. They were teachers and then Ken became the director of Ahlman Academy, a K-8 school started in the mid-50s for children of Christian doctors and other Christians assisting the needs of Afghan people. As assistance from many countries began to reach out to Afghanistan, the school grew in numbers but retained its Christian outreach to the children. Proselytizing was forbidden in the country, so Afghan children were not allowed to attend.

The head of the school board and the Wryes’ dear friend, Dr. Herb Friesen, was also the head of the only eye hospital in Afghanistan, which was built in the late ‘60s with funds from churches worldwide. While Christian doctors had to obey and respect the law of the land by not talking about Jesus, they radiated love in their work and lives.

After five years in Afghanistan, Ken was hired as one of the administrators at Anatolia College in northern Greece, a school started in the late 1800s by Christian missionaries from Park Street Church in Boston to provide a high school and early college education for Armenian students living in Turkey. Everything was going well until just after World War I when the Turkish government attacked the Armenians living in Turkey. Some 250,000 Armenians were killed by the Turkish army, including some staff and students at Anatolia College. The college moved to northern Greece in 1919 and has remained there ever since and offers grades 9-12 as well as the first two years of college.

Laurel taught 3rd and 4th grade at the American International School where their daughters went to school – both girls had their mom as their teacher.

After four years, the Wryes returned to California and continued in administration and teaching in the public school system.

In 1979, the situation in Afghanistan began deteriorating with the invasion of the Soviet Union. Once ousted, the seven strongest Afghan tribes began to fight for control of the country. The vicious Taliban tribe got control during the ‘90s and began their reign of terror, especially affecting women, foreigners, and foreigners’ contributions, namely to the hospitals and clinics that were largely begun by Christians.

After 9/11, when the US sent troops into Afghanistan to eradicate the base set up there by Osama bin Laden in the southern part of the country, the Afghans were freed to find a new and better way to move forward. The decision was made to begin a presidential leadership in the country, giving every adult, including women, the right to vote. In 2004, Hamid Karzai became the first president ever elected in the country. President Karzai saw a need to replace the medical facilities that were destroyed by the Taliban, so he sent out a note to Christian doctors, nurses, medics, etc. to return to Afghanistan and rebuild the wonderful facilities that were desperately needed by the Afghan people.

The Wryes’ dear friend, Dr. Herb Friesen, sent out an email sharing President Karzai’s request for Christian doctors to return and rebuild. This email motivated Laurel to develop paintings she had done while in Afghanistan with ideas from Ken’s many photographs to produce cards with the message of the need for rebuilding and restaffing hospitals and clinics. She has continued to share these cards over the years to draw awareness to and raise money for the medical needs in Afghanistan.

To order Laurel’s cards, email klwrye@gmail.com. Proceeds from her cards will be sent to the NOOR Eye Project (National Organization for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation), which continues to re-establish eye centers and eye camps throughout Afghanistan. Also, feel free to give direct assistance by sending financial gifts to InterServe: NOOR Operational Account, Afghanistan, PO Box 418, Upper Darby, PA, 19082.

If you purchase her cards, Laurel asks that you would please join her and others in praying for the peace and protection of the Afghan people, and a change of heart for those in the vicious Taliban leadership.