Billings Welcomed Him and the Welcome Continues
Billings welcomed him in June of 2022. After days of gathering housewares, cleaning a rental, and filling a pantry, we prepared an aromatic meal and set out for the airport. Sign in hand, our group of employers, veterans, and those contributing as an outpouring of their faith waited impatiently for Sayed (a pseudonym) to walk down the airport stairs. Though I had seen him in video calls during previous weeks, I couldn’t pick him out at arrival. Coming down the stairs, he was the one fully engaged in an animated conversation with another passenger.
Sayed arrived in Billings after helping to evacuate US assets from Kabul on August 15, 2021, and spending eight and a half long months in two temporary locations. His wife and four children were forced to remain in Afghanistan, unaware they were beginning a more than three-year separation.
It is challenging to learn the ins and outs of a new culture: job skills and expectations, language, the processes and systems for everything. Even more challenging is the emotional roller coaster of trying to get the attention of the right person in the right agency with the right legal document for reunification. It’s all hard, even with the help of attorneys and good friends.
Later this week in central Asia, Sayed’s family will undergo an interview that should serve as the final legal step for their family reunification. If all goes as anticipated, his wife and four children will arrive in Billings in December. Once again, we will prepare a household and a welcome meal. This time, we will collect winter jackets and make connections with the school his children will attend. If he allows, we will accompany him to the airport for his joyful reunion, providing evidence of the community that has embraced him and cares for him deeply.
What have we been up to since June?
After resettling two Afghan families and two Afghan gentlemen awaiting their families, Billings began welcoming refugees last summer. Forty-six newcomers have made Billings home since the end of June. We anticipate a similar number to arrive in Billings before mid-January. Here, they find safety and a future after fleeing war or persecution. Our highlights since June:
An 8-week Summer Program for refugee children, supported by incredible volunteers and community partners;
Functional language tutoring with refugee women in a weekly Tea, Learning, and Conversation (TLC) time;
A fall afterschool program for refugee children three afternoons a week, made possible by a crew of volunteers and community partners;
A youth mentorship program with bilingual mentors, targeting skills acquisition and a deeper community integration;
(Kicking off) a Refugee Peer-Parent Program to promote opportunities for refugee parents to participate in their children’s education; and
A bike program to ensure all refugee wage earners have a supplement to public transportation.
-Nancy Van Maren, Executive Director