A New Start Can Be a Messy [Adventure]

 

[Adventure 320]

Getting a new start in a new country can be cause for joy and celebration, but also is filled with feelings of loss and separation. 

I volunteer with an organization that resettles refugee families, and we're currently working with an evacuee family from Afghanistan. They arrived with extended family members, who have also been resettled in Connecticut, but not in the same town as our family. Our family is deeply grateful for all we have done and are doing for them, but are struggling to wrap their minds around the fact they are not with the rest of their extended family. 

They have lost their home country, their livelihoods, their culture. They are worlds away from the family members they left behind. They have gone through traumatic events and just want some sense of normalcy and close connection with their family. But housing and resources are scarce. Co-sponsor groups can only do so much. It just wasn't possible to resettle them all in the same place. 

It breaks their hearts and it breaks ours, too. It's difficult to explain to them that after the first few weeks of meetings and evaluations and paperwork and medical appointments and getting settled, they'll still be busy learning English and applying for jobs and all the things that come with raising children, but they'll also get to visit with their extended family who is just a half hour drive away. That, although they can't live together right now, they can work toward that goal. 

It is my hope that they'll give themselves some time to settle in and be open to what their neighborhood and community have to offer ... and to realize we have their best interests in mind and will do everything we can to support their journey toward independence and the ability to once again be as geographically close to their family as they yearn to be.