The moment is surreal.
After seven months of organization, a few members of our parish refugee sponsorship
committee and I huddle in the arrivals area of the airport.
When I spy our family at the top of the escalator, I want to shout out,
Welcome! Instead, I smile and
wave, and my heart swells with the gift of a vision realized. I also think of
the contrast between all the goodwill and effort that have made this event
happen, and the darkness of the Trump acceptance speech the night before.
On January 31, 2016, our committee
informed our congregation that the
refugee project was a go. We
expressed to them that we needed money and that, should they care to help, we had placed envelopes in the vestibule
of the church.
Three months later, our congregation had given almost twenty thousand
dollars. In April, two hundred
people, many from the larger community, attended a steak night that added
almost three thousand dollars more.
Imagine. We asked for
donations, and we were overwhelmed.
At the same time, we requested help with
household furniture and items.
Once again, the parishioners responded. Items poured in—a sectional, linens, a desk, stereo systems,
TVs and stands, area rugs, whatever we needed. Our purchases were limited to incidentals and pillows. One day, I found a bag of new towels destined
for our refugee family by our front door.
Our furnishings coordinator was inundated with phone calls. Could you use a vanity? What about a sofa bed? A committee member moving away donated many
of her furnishings. One Sunday, we
informed the congregation that the home we had rented for our family was
completely furnished. Although it
wasn’t necessary, we added, we could use a lawn mower, a small deep freeze, and
two youth bicycles. Within
twenty-four hours, we had all those items. People just kept giving!
At the end of May, we received news that
our family was on its way. Time to
rent a home. The landlord, a
member of our parish, cut the committee a deal on the rent. When he heard that one of the members
was a young adult, he decided to dry-wall the basement and build an extra
bedroom. He installed a new water
heater, replaced the eaves troughs, changed two basement windows, painted the main
floor and the basement, recaulked
the bathtub, and changed the faucet and shower pull. What a transformation!
Calls to the committee for cleaning and installation went
out. A cleaning crew was already
in full swing when I arrived at the appointed time on day one. Some cleaned windows, others freshened
up kitchen cabinets, revived the wood floors, and dug into the heating grates
with toothbrushes. A week
later, for day 2, more than fifteen people with three trucks among them
transformed the house into a home.
Some loaded and unloaded furniture. Others configured the rooms, installed curtains, organized
the kitchen and the laundry room, made beds, and supplied the linen
closet. When we were finished,
there was a recycle bin by the fridge, a small white board and bulletin board
on the fridge door, with pins and magnets, and a fruit bowl on the table
waiting for news of the official arrival.
Still, though, people weren’t
satisfied. They added more area
rugs to the downstairs bedroom, and a clothes rod and shelving to a
downstairs closet, and simply made things pretty. The house looked like someone was already living there. Indeed, a family was living there—they
just had not arrived yet.
On Friday, they did. After twenty-five years in a refugee
camp, our family can really begin to live. They are grateful.
They will help us build our city, our province, our country. They enrich us; they don’t threaten
us. Our parishioners represent the
antithesis of the dark message Trump and his cronies inflicted on the world on
Thursday evening a week or so ago.
Rather than just talk about family values and Christianity, our
parishioners live it out in their actions. They look outward, not inward. They are generous. They show the world what’s possible when a group galvanizes
to make a difference. They affirm
what is best in the human spirit. As
our family walked toward us, I thought how Donald Trump and his supporters
cannot be more wrong.
