The large group of people that came out to the airport to greet the Somali refugees. Photo: John Fischer
When her long journey finally brought her and her children to safety in Louisville, Ky., this past February, Somali refugee Sahra Ali expected just one or two people to meet her flight – not two dozen supporters waving a welcome sign written in her native language.
“It was so many people,” Ali recalled. “I was really happy when they came out to meet us.”
Ali and her six children, ages 10 to 15, are being resettled to Louisville by CWS and its affiliate Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Beargrass Christian Church, the family’s cosponsor, mobilized the crowd to meet Ali and her family at the airport.
The airport welcome was just one piece of that congregation’s support for the Ali family during its initial adjustment to a new culture.
Michael Puckett, a retired financial services executive, serves on the Ali family resettlement team at Beargrass Christian Church – a 1,200-member congregation affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
The congregation isn’t new to refugee co-sponsorship, Puckett noted. “The Ali family is our eighth family in about 15 years. We’ve had Bosnians, Sudanese and Meskhetian Turks, along with refugees from Burma and Iraq.
“All have integrated into the life of their new community and are self-sufficient,” he said. “The adults are employed. Their children are doing well in school, and several have completed college degrees or gotten technical training. Several have celebrated weddings and purchased houses.”
Usually the congregation can take two to three months to get ready for the next new arrivals, but for the Ali family, Kentucky Refugee Ministries needed a co-sponsor with only a month’s notice.
Puckett’s adult Sunday church school class agreed to take the lead on the Ali family resettlement, and promptly put the word out for donated furniture and other household goods. Middle- and high school-aged youth filled backpacks with school supplies for 15-year-old Sumaya; Siham, 14; Sabrin, 13; Suhar, 12; Ahmed, 11 and Omar, 10.
“Kentucky Refugee Ministries found a three-bedroom apartment for the family, and the church pays the first couple of months’ rent and utilities,” Puckett said. “The Saturday before the Alis arrived, about 20 of us from Beargrass swept in and spent seven or eight hours setting up the apartment and fully stocking the kitchen.”
On February 21, the welcoming party escorted the Ali family from the airport to its newly furnished apartment, where a hot Somali meal awaited. After an initial orientation, the weary travelers were able to get some sleep.
Beargrass Christian Church volunteers accompany Sahra Ali and her six children – Somali refugees – shopping at Target shortly following their arrival to the U.S. in February 2013. Photo: Wayne Mayes
But the agenda for their first week in the United States included only one day of rest. The other days, Beargrass volunteers took the Alis shopping for groceries and warm clothes, and to Kentucky Refugee Ministries to sign up for Medicaid, Social Security cards and food stamps; to register the children for school, and for further orientation to U.S. life.
“You are moving at kind of a dizzying pace the first couple weeks,” Puckett observed.
“I couldn’t have managed on my own,” Ali said. “It’s hard to adapt but when you have people helping you and showing you what to do, it is ok! That makes it easier to learn the new life. You learn the culture and rules of the place you’ve come to.”
Puckett says Sahra Ali is imminently adaptable. She fled the armed conflict in Somalia with her newborn daughter Sumaya and took refuge in Saudi Arabia for about a decade, then spent about four years in Egypt before being resettled to the United States. She speaks Arabic and Somali, and is just now tackling English.
Omar, with his bicycle. Photo: Wayne Mayes
Now that her children are settled in at school – the girls at Newcomer Academy, the boys at their neighborhood elementary school – Sahra is taking a job readiness course at Kentucky Refugee Ministries and will soon be job hunting. She said she is seeking financial self-sufficiency for herself and her family, and education for her children.
For its part, the Beargrass congregation has become much more intentional about its “hands on” mission work through its involvement with refugees, said the congregation’s pastor, the Rev. Leigh Bond.
“When I first came to the church 16 years ago, the people were very good about their financial support of mission and outreach efforts, but not as involved in ‘hands on’ mission work,” he said. “Now I enjoy watching the members of our church spring into action — often on short notice — and gather the resources, supplies, and volunteers to welcome each new family.
“Welcoming the refugee families has done much to expand the worldview of our church members,” Bond continued. “It has put faces and names on real people with real needs from places we may have heard of, but know very little about.
“Those who have participated consistently say something like this: ‘To hear their stories — which are often heartbreaking and painful — and to see their courage and hope has been so inspiring. We take so much for granted in our country. These people have taught me about real joy.’”