A missionary who was first recognised as one of several prisoners held by the Taliban around the time of the 9/11 attacks has decided to return to the Middle East according to Napa News. Heather Mercer was a young American missionary who was first arrested by the Taliban in August 2001 along with her former Baylor University classmate, Dayna Curry, for evangelising to Muslims in the extremist Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Christian evangelising was usually punished with death by the Taliban, sometimes in open-air amphitheatres not unlike Roman public executions.

"I wasn't surprised," Mercer said to Napa News. "We never hid the fact that we were followers of Jesus. Our purpose was to meet the practical needs of the poor of Afghanistan.” Mercer worked with Shelter Now International, an aid organisation in Germany.

These two girls were considered very dangerous by the Taliban government and were to stand trial for their “crimes” when the September 11 attacks occurred. Held in a spartan Kabul prison, they were never formally charged since the United States subsequently declared war on Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and the Taliban for harbouring them.

Mercer recently spoke to the Napa Valley Baptist Church about her experiences in Afghanistan immediately after the 9/11 attacks, and the subsequent conflicts between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. She said, however, that she would go back again to Afghanistan or the Middle East. "(The experience) radically changed my life," Mercer said. "People are hungry, and they want Jesus." Undeterred by her Muslim captors, she hopes to assist those in spiritual and physical need in the Muslim world in the near future.