Born to middle-class American families , Curry and Mercer met at Antioch Community Church in Waco , Texas.They volunteered to work as aid workers with Shelter Now International ( SNI ) in Afghanistan in 2001 , having been motivated by a desire to serve " the poorest of the poor " . While there , they provided humanitarian aid to hospitals , street children , and impoverished communities in Kabul . Curry and Mercer were arrested by the Taliban on August 3 for evangelizing to a local family and imprisoned for over 100 days along with several other foreign volunteers . During their internment , they were threatened with execution and a number of inmates developed physical maladies , including head lice , asthma , and intestinal worms . Though the experience was " devastatingly hard " , they wrote songs of praise and attempted to encourage the other prisoners . All of the SNI members were eventually freed by United States forces during operations in Kabul following the September 11 attacks of 2001
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Prisoners of Hope