Just a little over 12 months ago our church along with Harrow Mennonite cosponsored a family of 5 from Ethiopia. It was a huge commitment and the sponsorship is now drawing to a close. The joint committee  from both churches worked closely together to prepare the Abdo family for a successful life in Canada. We’ve often heard that it takes a whole village to educate a child but we’ve learned that it also takes a whole church community to make a refugee sponsorship successful.

When the Abdo family arrived last August, Mohammed and Hindi brought their 3 children - Senna and Soranii both under the age of 4 and Chaya, 17  who was enrolled in the ESL program at Leamington High School.

In the months before their arrival it was our responsibility to obtain adequate housing, furniture, clothing and funding that would allow for all financial commitments for a year. The refugee program through the federal government provided funding for about 6 months and our churches did the rest.

And the rest was huge. Many members from both churches provided funding, others provided household goods, clothing and linens and still many others provided daily transportation to school, medical appointments, grocery shopping trips to the mosque. We quickly discovered that many of the foods available in Harrow did not conform to their halal diet mandated by their faith.

So a year has passed. Two months ago the family moved to Windsor. Mohammed left a job he had with Delta Wire in Harrow and is starting a new job at a plastics firm in Windsor tomorrow.

Hindi can now go shopping in Windsor with other women from Ethiopia and Senna has just begun kindergarten at Dougall Avenue School. They live on Victoria Avenue in a very nice apartment and are learning to use the bus system.

And Chaya...... now 18 years old has decided to remain in Leamington attending school and working and appears to be quite self sufficient.

So the family is doing quite well.

I am so proud of our committee who each brought expertise in different areas -  Beth Kinnaird Iler for setting up medical appointments, follow ups and counseling. Greg who kept the financial records and provided Mohammed with ongoing counseling, particularly with managing his finances.  Liz Chittle who has a wealth of knowledge in working with the social services in Windsor and Essex County, Liz knows who to contact for services that I didn’t even know existed. And finally, Elsie Ring who was sometimes limited because she didn’t have a car worked closely with all of us and was always very supportive.

And to all who volunteered to drive the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours. This project would not have been successful without your willingness to share your time and vehicles. We did not realize how much of our time would be spent outside of our community doing what needed to be done.

Thank you....Thank you for a job well done.

Dennis Graham - Chair of the Refugee Committee for Harrow United Church

Presentation given to the congregation at Harrow United on September 16, 2018