Our guest speaker is Executive Director at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Springfield. The You Tube video, Sarzamine Man (My Homeland), was used in this service. The ballad was written in 1998 by Dawood Sarkhosh, who had to leave Afghanistan in the civil war following the Soviet withdrawal. This past fall, My Homeland was sung by people waiting to board evacuation flights at the Kabul airport.  The song has come to evoke a sense of loss felt by many Afghans for a country they may never see again.