Two Christian missionaries held for 105 days in an Afghanistan prison told a Houston audience Thursday they love the country and planned to return.
"There's still a job to be done. God is asking us to be bold," said Heather Mercer, who along with Dayna Curry spoke to a few hundred people at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in northeast Houston.
Mercer and Curry, co-workers with Shelter Now International, were imprisoned in August on charges of spreading Christianity -- a crime under the Taliban. They were freed by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in November.
"I love Afghanistan," Curry said. "I was so free. I felt more alive there than I ever felt here."
Mercer said being imprisoned in Afghanistan was "one of the greatest privileges of my life. It is so much easier to talk about (religion) over there than in America because they are so hungry. They have so many needs."
Curry, 30, and Mercer, 24, are graduates of Baylor University in Waco and members of a church there.
"God sovereignly led me to Baylor University," Curry said.
It was there that she first learned 2.5 billion people have never heard of Jesus, she said. And that led her to Afghanistan.
"I want(ed) to go to the place where no one else is going. For the first time I saw needs larger than life," Curry said.
Curry was a social worker for Waco schools before going to Afghanistan. Mercer was a leader with their church's college ministry before going overseas in March.
They expect to spend the next year doing speaking appearances, hoping to encourage others to go into missionary work. They also have a book due out in June.