Exodus World Service provides welcome to refugees
By Susan Dibble
sdibble@dailyherald.com
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Hebrews 13:2
When Roselle resident Sue Horgan gets together with the Magar family, Bhutanese refugees living in Wheaton, their conversations are punctuated with laughter.
A volunteer with Itasca-based Exodus World Service, Horgan has helped the family practice their English, provided transportation to medical appointments, given driving lessons, answered questions and brought cookies to share.
Most of all, she has been their friend.
Horgan is as proud as the parents themselves that 14-year-old Khuma Magar received a red, white and blue hat at her eighth-grade graduation this spring after getting 100 percent on her U.S. Constitution test. After a semester in this country, Khuma’s sister, 17-year-old Karuna Magar, will take all advanced courses at Wheaton North High School in the fall with no more remedial English classes, Horgan added.
“It’s been great fun learning about different cultures, learning about different countries,” she said. “I’m so glad to have met the Magars. They are a light in my life.”
Dhan and Lila Magar, who arrived with their daughters and Dhan’s parents in January, agreed that Horgan has brightened their lives since they met her in February.
“She (Horgan) is a great help,” Dhan said. “If there’s no volunteer, we cry.”
Dhan and his family spent 18 years living in a refugee camp in Nepal before joining relatives in Wheaton earlier this year. Ethnic Nepalese, they had been expelled from Bhutan where the family had moved generations before.
In the United Nations-run refuge camp, they had enough to eat and their daughters were able to attend school, but living conditions were poor and there was no freedom of movement, Dhan said.
Now the proud possessor of an Illinois driver’s license, Dhan has a job he likes in a warehouse and is learning to read and write English. His wife, who had not worked outside the home before, recently landed a job and is learning to drive.
“It’s my first job,” she said. “I like it here.”
The Magars are among approximately 2,500 refugees who arrive in Illinois each year, with many of them coming to the Chicago area, said Heidi Moll Schoedel, co-founder and executive director of Exodus. As refugees, they have fled persecution or fear of persecution in their own countries and cannot return home. They settle in the United States at the invitation of our government.
“Starting over in a new country with a new language and new culture is very, very challenging,” Schoedel said. “They need friends alongside them to help them adjust.”
That’s the need Exodus has sought to fill since it was founded in 1988. It partners with resettlement agencies such as World Relief, which are assigned refugees by the U.S. government to provide additional support once the family has settled into a home. Volunteers can serve in several programs, Schoedel said.
“Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:19
Welcoming hand
Groups of volunteers from a church, school or other organizations collect and deliver Welcome to America! Packs filled with household items ranging from dishes to bathroom towels to cleaning supplies to help the families get started on their new lives.
Groups not able to put together an entire pack may collect items for one room or put together school kits for refugee children.
Volunteers like Horgan in the New Neighbor Program commit to meet weekly with a newly arrived refugee family for a minimum of three months. They get to know the family members, orient them to the community, participate with them in social activities, and explain such basics as how to make phone calls or how to use the stove.
Many New Neighbor volunteers and families form lasting relationships, said Julie Carlsen, partnership director of Exodus.
“Eighty to 90 percent of the New Neighbor volunteers continue beyond their three-month commitment,” she said.
Horgan, a volunteer with Exodus for eight years, still stays in touch with the first family she neighbored with, a woman from Liberia and her son who have since moved to Philadelphia.
Welcome to America! Packs and New Neighbor are the core programs, but Exodus offers other services as well, Schoedel said. Families invite refugees to share a holiday meal in the Expand Your Table program. Volunteers may meet with refugees to help them prepare to take a citizenship test or serve as advocates for refugee families.
Members of a volunteer education team speak to churches and other organizations to educate them about refugees. Exodus, a nonprofit agency that works largely through churches, also offers a six-week Bible study program for Christian groups wanting to gain a biblical perspective on outreach to refugees.
Horgan said she first learned about Exodus when Schoedel attended her church, Trinity Lutheran in Roselle.
“Learning about Exodus just makes you want to welcome our new neighbors. That’s what we’re supposed to do as Christians, lend a hand to those who need help and be a friend to strangers who need a friend,” she said.
Horgan said her own four children, ages 13 to 20, have helped her shop for Welcome to America! Packs and played with refugee children.
“I think it’s really opened their hearts to be welcoming to everybody, to not judge,” she said. “I really learned people are the same, no matter where we’re from. We may speak differently, dress differently, but we have the same interests.”
“The stranger who sojourns with you in your land shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.” Leviticus 19:34Neighbors unknown
The largest number of refugees now coming to the Chicago area are ethnic Nepalis from southern Bhutan, Burmese from what is now known as Myanmar, and Iraqis who belong to minority groups or cooperated with the U.S. military and had to flee to neighboring countries, Schoedel said. Refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan are expected soon, she said.
The majority of the refugees in this area are settled in Chicago#146;s Rogers Park neighborhood, Wheaton, Carol Stream and Aurora. Many residents of nearby communities may not even be aware of the new neighbors in their midst, said Sandy Cho, an Exodus volunteer in Naperville.
Cho and her husband, David, became involved with refugees through World Relief while living in Seattle. Now lay leaders in Restoration Community Church, a new congregation in Naperville that meets at the DuPage Children#146;s Museum, they have involved other church members in working with Exodus.
#147;It#146;s been really a blessing to be part of Exodus because of the staff there,#148; Cho said. #147;They#146;re down-to-earth people doing extraordinary things.#148;
Cho said she has served as a New Neighbor partner to three Burmese refugee families, and through them come to know others in the Burmese community.
#147;You end up being part of the community as a whole,#148; she said.
After becoming aware that the Burmese refugees needed warm winter clothing, members of Sandy#146;s church contacted other churches to contribute to a clothing drive.
While many refugees are not Christians, parts of the Burmese community are, Cho said. Restoration Church is partnering with Burmese founding their own churches in Wheaton and Chicago. Members of Restoration also participate in Exodus fundraisers, Cho said.
#147;It#146;s quite an eye opening experience for people #133; to recognize that there are refugee communities among us,#148; she said.
Cho knows what it feels like to live in a strange land. Her own parents were not refugees, but they were immigrants from Korea who moved to the Midwest, she said.
#147;I remember how hard it was for my parents to do the simplest things because of cultural and language barriers,#148; she said.
For those who want to become involved in helping refugees, Exodus provides training in the Chicago area and resource materials for those living elsewhere. Contact (630) 307-1400 or e-w-s.org for information on Exodus and details on volunteer training and resource materials.