Our experiences helping refugees resettling to America
As we pulled out of the driveway last night, I asked Marinda if we were crazy for loading our four sleeping kids into the minivan at 11:30 pm to drive to the airport and greet people who we knew very little about: their last name, that they’d had a long day of flights from the other side of the world, and maybe they had some kids. By the time we returned at nearly 2:00 am, the answer was clear – we hadn’t been crazy.
This video reminds me that the plight of these displaced people is not very different from a number of my great-great-great grandparents in the mid-1800s who were driven out of the United States (from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois) into what was then part of Mexico (now Utah). They were persecuted for their religious beliefs, just as many of the refugees we see in the news today. I wonder what my ancestors felt like and how that is similar or different from the feelings of the Kasango family.
In wondering where the Kasongo family is from, I searched the internet to find the origin 
of that surname. It seems to be most prevalent in the Democratic Republic of Congo according to one website. To aid in privacy, people mentioned in this blog will be given a pseudoname unless permission has been granted otherwise. For the family we’ll be helping, their pseudo-surname will be Kasongo, which appears to be a very common name in DRC – like Smith, Johnson, or Williams in the United States. Part of the instructions from Catholic Community Services have been to avoid posting photographs / video of the former refugee, now legal immigrant families involved for their privacy and safety. It’s certainly an understandable request. It’s also a request that makes blogging a bit more challenging as photos and videos can add great depth and interest to posts. I’ll see if we can still find some interesting ways to add media to posts.
This week Marinda and I receive an email from Alejandro, the coordinator for Refugee 
mentoring through Catholic Community Services: The Kasongo family is scheduled to arrive at 11:08 PM , Tuesday, December 20th via JetBlue flight 071. It’s exciting to have the name of a family, who were formerly refugees and will now be legal immigrants that we’ll get to meet and help. Continue reading “They Are Coming!”
Today the final steps of our applications to mentor refugees was turned into Catholic Community Services (CCS). Fingerprints and copies of driver’s licenses to help facilitate the background check process. It’s been a bit of a process to get signed up and ready to help. Continue reading “Applications To Mentor (Former) Refugees Are In!”