Helping a Refugee Family

Last night, our family, together with a few others from our church congregation, had the opportunity to go to the airport to pick up a refugee family arriving in the United States and to take them to their new home which we had set up for them.

As the refugee crisis facing the world has been in the spotlight recently, I have felt sympathetic to the plight of these individuals and families.  In recent months, the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have made increased emphasis and encouragement to its members to help refugees in their communities.  With this encouragement giving us the extra push we needed to get involved, we contacted a local refugee agency to see how we could help, and one of the opportunities that was available was to prepare the home of an incoming refugee family and welcome them at the airport.

This project proved to be a lot of work: coordinating with the agency to get the training and information we needed, collecting donated furniture and home goods from the community and storing it all in our home for a week, renting a moving truck to haul it all down to the apartment, getting furniture (including two heavy couches) up to their second story apartment, putting together two sets of bunkbeds, among other things.  (Shout out to my wife for taking the lead and coordinating much of this project!)

And this project wasn't without its challenges: arriving to set up the apartment to find that the complex was not expecting our arrival and the apartment being trashed, the furniture we initially had lined up didn't all fit in the small, two-bedroom apartment, the family's flight was delayed three hours from a 7:00 pm arrival to a 10:00 pm arrival, among other things.

But, my goodness, was it all worth it!  

The family consists of a young mother and father from Congo, with four boys, ages 9, 7, 5, and 3.  (We also learned last night when we met them that the mother is also six-and-a-half months pregnant with their fifth child!)  The family has been living in Tanzania since they have fled their country.  I don't know the details of their specific story, but the Internet tells me that the Democratic Republic of Congo has faced many years of war, extreme violence, and human rights abuses.  They somehow made it from Tanzania to Ethiopia and then flew from Ethiopia to Dublin, Ireland, to Los Angeles to Texas.  They arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and three bags that were approximately 18 inches by 18 inches by 18 inches each, if that.

When we arrived at their apartment, one from our welcome group who speaks French showed the father around the apartment, explaining and demonstrating its features.  Things that I so often take for granted.  Such as a stove.  A shower.  Blinds.  Door locks.  Lamps.

The rest of us who don't speak French or Swahili did our best to express our love and welcome.  One in our group had the forethought to bring a bag of fruit to the airport so they had something to eat right away.  Another couple picked up some other food and brought it to their apartment.  (Since it was late, we had to settle on McDonald's...umm... welcome to America?  The kids didn't quite seem to know what to think of chicken nuggets and french fries, as they dipped their french fries in their apple juice, but at least they loved the Pokemon toys that came in the Happy Meals!)  The kids in our welcome group connected the most easily, as kids often do.  One of my favorite images in my mind that I keep recalling is of a nine-year-old girl in our group inviting one of the refugee boys to stand on one of those luggage carts you can rent at the airport and taking him for a ride, with a huge smile spreading across the boy's face.  

Speaking of smiling, we non-French speakers mostly communicated by smiling.  As I buckled the 3-year-old into his new car seat, I called him by his name and smiled, and he gave me a huge smile back.  As I taught him how to give high five, his mother watched on and smiled.  I showed one of the boys how the reclining chair in their apartment worked, and he smiled.    

My absolute favorite moment of the night was when our four-year-old son retrieved a simple bulldozer toy he had taken from his own collection and presented it to one of the boys.  Our son pushed one of the buttons to make the bulldozer sounds and all four of the refugee boys quickly surrounded the toy with huge grins on their faces.  Our son slowly stepped back, watching on, and I could tell by the look on his face that he felt good inside.  I have relived this moment in my mind several times today, and I get overwhelmed with emotion every time.  

As we drove home, we talked to our son about how grateful they seemed to have that toy.  I asked him how he felt when he gave the toy, and he said, "Good."  I told him that this feeling was the Holy Ghost telling him that Heavenly Father was glad he gave that toy to those boys and that Heavenly Father was happy that we helped that family.

The family was extremely grateful.  I don't speak French, but I heard the word merci over and over and over again.

Not that we wouldn't have done all this for any family of any religious background, but I was also impressed with the father's unabashed declaration of his faith in Jesus Christ.  He said very little in English, but of the little he did say, he told us, "We love Jesus.  We read the Bible.  We pray as a family."   

I am grateful we had this opportunity and the blessing it has been to our family.  I'm hopeful that this experience will remain with our son, that he will remember this view into the lives of a family who are so grateful for the basic necessities of life.  

I'm grateful to be a part of a church that encourages its members to serve others in meaningful ways.  

I pray for this family as they face new challenges of adjusting to life in America, learning English and an entirely new way of life.  There will be opportunities for us to continue to be involved in their lives as they do so, and I look forward to continuing to serve this family and others like them.