Goodbye Felikis... And Hello to New Refugees!

If you've been reading my blog over the past year you may remember my introducing our precious friends from Burundi, the Feliki family. Jeanetti, Feliki & their beautiful 7 children became very close friends during their 1 1/2 years in Chicago, just blocks away from us. We got to know them through Exodus World Service's "New Neighbor" program, that connects willing volunteers with nearby refugee families, just arrived in the U.S. from refugee camps. As you can imagine, their learning curves are steep and physical needs can be overwhelming at times (especially in light of Chicago's harsh winters!). Chicago accepts an overwhelming number of refugees yearly, and there are not near enough social agencies to tend to them all sufficiently.

Thus began our relationship with the Felikis, who we visited along with friends Nick & Jenna Bott. We shared meals, a church, language-learning, new cultural activities and much laughter together! After searching for work for Feliki for quite some time, he became very depressed & frustrated with city life. With so many immigrants in Chicago, finding work as a non-English speaker is competitive!! They moved this past summer to Memphis, and we have missed them terribly. It was hard to say goodbye--not only for us, but for the many friends of ours who became close with the family as well. Their farewell party at the church hosted a meetinghouse full of people--from children to adults--all in tears before the night was through.

Feliki, having lost his parents & siblings to genocidal war in Burundi, made it clear that we were the first people to step up and take care of him as a parent would have. He is now in Memphis working his first successful job, but boy do we miss them! Here, Feliki shares about how we taught him what having a parent to help you along is like through a translator, our friend Leonce:


Frank (the 4th grade son) had my camera at the move & got shots of us all helping. This is one of the few non-blurry photos he captured. Thanks, Dave et al., for all your hard work! It was a hot night if I remember correctly.


We are now getting to know another refugee family, this time from Cuba, in addition to continuing relationships with other Burundians we got to know through the Feliki fam. Our church has progressively filled with refugees--from the Congo, Burundi, Burma and, now, Cuba. Services are becoming increasingly international, though we're all in agreement that there's much room to grow as we learn how to incorporate individuals from various cultures into leadership roles and foster non-segregated community. Regarding the Cubans, it's refreshing to be able to speak the language of our new friends--it certainly makes understanding their needs easier!! And boy has my Spanish been needing a workout. We'll introduce you to our new friends more thoroughly in a later post, but for now I can tell you: our tummies have been happily full of tostones, frijoles & lovely Cuban seasonings lately! As they know we have little time to cook ourselves, they've been blessing us with incredible meals whenever time permits.