Adopting a Refugee Family

Every Wednesday night we meet at Laura and Andrew's house for our missional community. We have been going through the process of getting trained and learning about adopting refugee families. Each year so many people are relocated to Austin from other terrible countries, many who are fleeing from actual refugee camps.

Can I just admit how naive I was regarding anything and everything pertaining to what they're fleeing from?

Many of the people that come to Austin are from Burma or Iraq. Our group of 20-25 people has finally completed the training. We are now waiting on being assigned a family. By February we should know who our family is and how many family members there are. We are hoping for a large group since there are so many of us.

A few things we'll be helping them with...

• Many don't even know how to lock a door. Either they have been in refugee camps and have never had a door to lock, or lived in a country that just didn't have locks...
• We will teach them how to use the bus system. They are provided a very minimal amount of funding from the government for 8 months, but they are required to get jobs and be self-sufficient by that time.
• We will help them apply for social security numbers.
• They are given apartments, but cannot bring anything (or come from very little) to America. We will completely be furnishing their apartment.  *Insert plug here - if you have anything you need to purge that might be on your Goodwill pile, please let me know and maybe we can pass it along to the family.
• They will most likely know zero English. We will need to help them learn to communicate with Americans. They are assigned an interpreter through RTS, but that person has many families. Eventually they will need to learn to assimilate.
• We'll teach them about our money, how to save and balance a check book, and write a check. We've been told that this tends to be a large problem because they don't know much about money management. If they don't learn this, they can lose their apartment or go hungry from not knowing how to pay bills and buy groceries.
• We'll go grocery shopping with them!  Their first groceries will be provided by our group. We'll pool money and get a list of their common foods to supply them with for their first week. When they show up, they will be able to walk into a furnished apartment and have a full refrigerator.
• I'm most excited to just meet them. To greet them at the airport!  

I think this whole experience is going to be such an eye-opening experience. I've never felt overwhelmingly called to be a missionary in another country, so I'm finding great comfort in being able to help someone here who has been freed from his/her country.

I'll update on this throughout the process. I am hoping my mind will be stretched and my heart transformed. I am desperately wanting to be useful and helpful. It feels good to have a purpose.