The Sharron Valley is as majestic, harsh, and remote as any in Afghanistan. In the summer, snowmelt feeds a silver ribbon of river, and the valley floor is strewn with stones and boulders. On each side, mountain walls rise steeply away to the crests of the Hindu Kush. As far as the eye can see, there is hardly any sign of human settlement. Not by chance is it home to the elusive snow leopard, ibex, and Marco Polo sheep.

On the silent valley floor, on a summer day in 2010, sits a caravan of three white Land Rovers. Closer examination suggests a desperate story. On small grassy mounds around the vehicles, bodies lie prostrate under a cobalt sky. Others are strewn in and under the vehicles where the victims took cover. All of them taken out execution-style. Ten in all.

The sketchiest outline of what happened there along the river emerges from the testimony of a passing shepherd who witnessed the events from the surrounding hills, and from the sole survivor, a young Afghan driver.

Making Friends Book Trailer

In Making Friends among the Taliban, childhood friend Jonathan Larson retraces Dan's nearly forty years in Afghanistan and, through interviews and eye witness accounts, relays Dan's incredible way of daily living. Facing famine, poverty, prison, and rifle muzzles--and across three decades of kings, the Red Army, warlords, the Taliban, and the American-led coalition--Dan found improbable friendships across the front lines of conflict and inspired small Afghan communities to find a better way of life. This inspirational narrative of Dan's life and friendships offers a model for living authentically wherever we are.

Read a sample chapter here.

Free downloadable study guide available here.

Jonathan Larson and others share more captivating stories from Dan Terry's life, in the complementary documentary, Weaving Life: The Life and Death of Peacemaker Dan Terry, available here.

Though born in Minnesota, Jonathan Larson's early home was the Brahmaputra River Valley of northeast India, amid the rice fields, bamboo groves and tea gardens where Burma, Tibet and India meet. The oldest of eight children, he studied at Woodstock School in the Himalayan foothills where he was classmate and trekking partner of Daniel Terry. Having completed studies in history at the University of Minnesota in 1970, he and his childhood sweetheart, Mary Kay Burkhalter, volunteered to teach school in the Congo, where two daughters were born and where they first encountered Africa's beauty, burdens, and promise. Following graduate studies, in 1981, the family returned to Africa under the auspices of the Mennonites to Botswana, on the doorstep of apartheid South Africa and on the eve of what became the harrowing AIDS pandemic. Known for his grasp of Tswana language and lore, he served as a leadership trainer in African communities and churches. A third daughter was born to them in those years. Since 1994 Jonathan has been based in Atlanta as he writes, mentors, and travels to visit conferences, campuses, and churches as storyteller and world citizen.