a story
from
colorado

ANDREA BROWN
THE GAZETTE
Fear led Sam Stephenson to Afghanistan.

“I have a gripping fear of being boring,” says the 19-year-old college student.

For two months, he helped in health clinics, tutored and painted schools in the province of Kabul, where “the homes looked like the Cliff Dwellings here.”

The church-mission venture was an awakening for the tall, red-haired kid from Briargate.

“It’s not as terrifying as people think,” he says.

“While we may stereotype Afghanistan as terrorism, hatred and violence, they stereotype us as drunk, sex-addicts. So going out there you have collisions of stereotypes … a collision of love entering where lies have been construed.”

Taliban insurgents weren’t obvious. “You wouldn’t know they were Taliban,” he says, “but sometimes our drivers would point them out. We’d say, ‘How in the world would you know that?’ and they’d say, ‘We know.’”

Sam found a nation of people “desperate for freedom. They are craving restoration. It’s a cool time; there’s a sense of revival.”

He tells of an Afghan guard learning to read at age 50. “I asked, ‘Why are you learning?’ He said, ‘My daughter is first in her class and I want to impress her.’ Any free time, he’d read anything. He’d read books about brushing your teeth or something like that.”

When the radiator blew on their driver’s battered Corolla, a brother-in-law drove two hours to offer his car. “He said, ‘I’ll just take my bike for the next week,’” Sam says.

“People are generous, kind and giving. Their definition of success is friendship, while ours may be time on the clock.”

Sam planned to spend the summer making money. That changed when some friends he knew started talking about a church group’s Kabul trip. He raised the $4,500 needed to go.

He was inspired by his dad, Louis, a bull rider.

“My dad was a blue-collar guy. He taught me the importance of being a man and being adventurous and passionate, this concept of being all in to everything you do,” Sam says.

“His cancer was diagnosed on my first birthday, so my whole life I watched my dad suffer, but at the same time he was all in. He was so driven to serve us.”

Sam, the middle child, was 8 when he died. “It gave my two brothers and me a general realization of life being too short. I want to chase every opportunity. My mom has been supportive of our adventures and dreams and attempts to not be boring.”

Sam plans to be an elementary schoolteacher.

“My dad was a professional bull rider. He got stomped on, which ended his career. He loved it, but I’ll stay away from that.”