Non-Governmental Organizations have been actively working within Afghanistan since 1973. Due to dissatisfaction with policies of the government, Afghans began to retreat to Pakistan, where they were welcomed by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and permitted to engage in guerilla offensives from Pakistani land. From 1973-1978, the number of refugees grew after Afghan President Daoud was overthrown in a military coup. After the USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, an estimate of 1.4 million Afghanis had been displaced. BY 1989, the refugees were estimated to be 3.5 million (Baitenmann, 62). NGO's such as the Salvation Army, Catholic Relief Services, and Church World Services began to provide emergency relief work in the form of providing food, shelter and health care for the refugees as early as 1979. Although their assistance was limitied in more remote villages due to logistical problems, most observers regarded their work as a vital help to avoid famine, disease, and other hardships. (Baitenmann, 65) Along with refugee relief work, virtually all-medical care is supplied by international relief agencies. In 1996, 8 of the 14 hosptials in Kabul were not operational due to lack of infrastructure, supplies, and staff. NGO's such as Medecins sans Frontieres and the International Rescue Committee responded by providing emergency assistance and development programs in health, food, relief, and education. For many reasons, it has always been extremely difficult for NGO's to work in Afghanistan. In addition to logistics, financial, and other challenges under the Taliban, relief groups with religious affiliations found resistance. two such NGO's, the International Assistance Mission and Serve were expelled by the Taliban after promoting Christianity while providing eye care to more than 400,000 blind Afghans. Followed by a 1.5 to 2.5 page description a particular organization, including its history, and why it was created (what issue or issues it is seeking to address). Faith based organizations play a very important role in international humanitarianism, and the field of global development has learned to respect their experience and expertise. By 2005, six of the 10 largest American NGO's were faith based Christian Organizations, and now religious organizations make up over 33 percent of all International Non Government Organizations. Still, scholars tend to only recognize and engage with religious organizations with limited interest regarding the nature of their religious nature. World Vision, however, shows how its religious identity is a vital tool to adapt, contest, and affirm itself through professional organizational structure and development activities (King, 2011). World Vision is one such faith based-organization that stands as an example for the integration of professional development and religious practice. Bob Pierce, the organization's founder, started encountering poverty on a global scale in Asia. Soon after returning to America, he vowed to raise money for missionaries and orphans and created World Vision in 1950 to manage this support. Currently it is the world's largest Christian humanitarian organization and the eighth largest philanthropy of any kind in the United States (King, 2011). World Vision owns offices in nearly 100 countries, including Afghanistan, and is made up of over 40,000 employees. Their annual budget exceeds a little over $2.6 billion. The organization has evolved over the years from organizing evangelic crusades and creating orphanages to undertaking emergency relief, large scale community development, justice, and advocacy efforts. Its current leaders are professionally trained development specialists as well as CEO's from Fortune 500 Companies (King, 2011). As stated above, World Vision was created initially to be a "missionary support organization , supplying emergency supplies to Korean hospitals, schools, and orphanages. In 1953, Pierce introduced the "child sponsorship  concept, where for $10 a month, Americans could support an individual Korean child. Since then, child sponsorship has become the backbone of World Visions fundraising for hundreds of missionary orphanages across the globe (King, 2011). World Vision, as a religious organization, stood in stark contrast for working with mainline Protestant in a time when religious humanitarian organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee already had close ties with the US government. World Vision experienced tension in articulating their religious identity, yet Pierce persistently promoted foreign missions. By the late 1950's missionaries were portrayed negatively as "out of touch cultural imperialists . To World Vision and its founder, however, missionaries were people who bridged the gap between the spiritual and physical needs of the people (King, 2011). By The 1960's, World Vision began pursuing a greater sense of professionalization and s