Prisoners of Hope: The Story of Our Captivity and Freedom in Afghanistan is the 2003 memoir of Christian aid workers Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer.

[1] They volunteered to work as aid workers with Shelter Now International (SNI) and were living in Afghanistan in 2001, having been motivated by a desire to serve "the poorest of the poor".

Curry and Mercer were arrested by the Taliban on August 3 after helping a local family to view the Jesus film and imprisoned for over 100 days along with several other foreign volunteers.

Curry, then 29, and Mercer, then 24, met through their shared involvement in the Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas, where they received the opportunity to serve in Kabul, Afghanistan as aid workers with Shelter Now International (SNI).

[5] Mercer's parents strongly opposed the decision, especially after her younger sister, Hannah, died from an accidental prescription drug overdose shortly before her departure at the age of 21.

[6] Despite being placed in the upscale Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in Kabul, Curry and Mercer purposely requested the "smallest, most decrepit house on the street", explaining that they had come to serve the poor and did not want to be treated as wealthy foreigners.

Curry made a point to dedicate a least two days a week to helping one named Omar, whose father had recently died and whose family was struggling financially.

[8] Subsequently, the Taliban arrested Curry, Mercer, six other foreign aid workers, and 16 Afghan SNI members on accusations of proselytizing and converting to another religion respectively.

[9] The other captives included Germans Georg Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Katrin Jelinek, and Silke Duerrkopf, and Australians Diana Thomas and Peter Bunch.

They recounted that Afghan inmates at the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice's prison were regularly and severely beaten for small infractions.

The night before their rescue, they had been forced to sleep in a steel container while being transferred to another prison, and, according to Georg Taubmann, a German captive, it was "terribly cold.... We had no blankets.

"[15] Bush acknowledged to the public that he had spent a significant amount of time worrying about the safety of the aid workers, especially for Curry and Mercer.

[17]Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer made a number of national appearances on television programs such as Larry King Live and the Today Show encouraging others to become active in foreign missions and aid work.

Mercer's mother Deb Oddy, who had opposed her daughter's decision to go to Afghanistan from the beginning, began to publicly denounce the mission in the days that followed the prisoners' release.

They responded that that was not the case and later divulged that one of their primary reasons for writing Prisoners of Hope was to allow the American public to have an accurate account of what had happened.

During the interview, she reiterated that she does not regret her decision to go to Afghanistan and stated that everyone involved in the hostage crisis continues their work in relief aid.

[19] A Publishers Weekly review stated that the book's divided perspective between Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry made it difficult to follow but that the story remained compelling.

This is not the story of larger-than-life heroines whose faith never wavers in the face of persecution; readers are allowed glimpses into Mercer's very real despair and the rift it caused in the group of prisoners.

"[20] A review from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library was similarly favorable, calling Prisoners of Hope "exciting and intense" and the authors "courageous".

[21] A 2009 documentary film entitled Kabul 24 details the imprisonment of the aid workers, the ransacking of the SNI offices, the dismal conditions of the detainees, the torture of the 16 Afghan prisoners, and the eventual rescue of the hostages.