The Journey

Sitting around looking at our small children playing along side one another, a few of us from 3 Strands Sunday school class were discussing how we try to foster outward thinking in our kids. How do we help them learn to be the hands and feet of God? We had talked about co-sponsoring a family with Interfaith Ministries several times over the past year and it was joyfully on our hearts to take the next step. Creating outward thinking children starts with us. We need to be the hands and feet, lead by example.

January started the journey of becoming paired with a refugee family. Through Alice King, we contacted Lizeth Zavala with Interfaith Ministries to move forward. First a few of us met with her to understand more what it meant to be a co-sponsor. She did a wonderful job explaining that we can be as involved as we want to be. It was totally up to us to decide our comfort level. When co-sponsoring, you are assisting the IM caseworker in helping the refugee family in anything from furnishing their apartment to enrolling their children in school.  After leaving us with a list of responsibilities, Three Strands discussed and decided which responsibilities we felt comfortable taking on ourselves and the rest we would leave for the caseworker take care of.  The main responsibilities we wanted to take on were setting up the family's apartment, greeting and picking them up from the airport, helping with orientation to their new community, enrolling the family's children in school and assisting IM in the effort to help the adults find employment. As a group, we went to the IM offices where Lizeth and Geleta gave us an orientation to prepare us to be co-sponsors .

First task we took on was to gather items for their apartment. Three Strand held a housewarming shower at the church for the family in early spring.  A registry was placed on the St. Luke's website to let everyone know what the family needed and for people to reserve what they would buy. The day of the shower we were overwhelmed with the support from our faith community. Every single item on the registry was purchased for the family. At the shower Three Strands hosted we had a prayer tree that guests were encouraged to take a specific prayer for the family, a welcome poster for people to sign and a piece of art to contribute to. We were so encouraged by everyone who came to support us in our efforts to create a fully stocked home for the family.

In early May Three Strands was told by IM that we were assigned a family of three from Afghanistan. The mom and her two daughters have been living in South Asia for years waiting to start a new life. It has become very real and exciting to know we have a family and that we will soon get to meet them. It got us all wondering about what this single mom and her young daughters must be going through.

June 1st we were able to move the donated items in to their apartment in preparation for their arrival! A group of us moved all of the items we received at the shower from storage to the apartment along with a few pieces of furniture. There were so many 3 Strand members there to help that it took no time at all. It was so exciting thinking of the family coming to their new home in just days. 

The family will be arriving tomorrow evening after a very long journey. A few 3 Strands members along with their Interfaith Ministries case worker will be there to welcome them to Houston. Be on the look out for our next post about their arrival. 

with joy,

Carolyn McDonald