Welcoming a Refugee Family

ADJUSTING TO LIFE IN TORONTO

Our sponsorship journey with the Ibrahims have been full, with many ups and downs of adjusting to life in Toronto in the middle of a pandemic. While life in a city like Toronto comes with many baseline challenges, the lengthy shut downs of in-person services and gathering limits have been particularly onerous for a newcomer family trying to navigate the city and its services and re-build a sense of community. We were challenged to think creatively, more generously, and about how to move beyond our own isolation, fears and anxieties to be present and love our neighbours facing disproportionate burdens of the pandemic. Through all this, we have been amazed and encouraged by the many ‘neighbours’ who have shown up and shown love to this particular family:

• A friend’s father who spent many hours translating important messages to the family in Arabic and sat through lengthy ESL assessments and many other administrative processes.

• Speedy answers to calls for donations to purchase laptops for remote learning.

• A doctor who in the midst of her own busy hospital schedule helped the family find and visit with an Arabic-speaking family doctor available and willing to see patients in person.

• A Grace congregant who, with her work colleagues, put together a package of warm clothing and boots for the family’s first Canadian winter.

The list of thanksgiving goes on.

We are also grateful for the family’s willingness to open up their home and lives to us throughout these months, and showing us their generosity as we grow in our relationships and care for one another. Building cross-cultural relationships takes time, patience and resilience, and we hope and pray for God’s continued blessing in this regard. 

As the end of the official sponsorship period quickly approaches, we have many prayers and hopes for God’s continued provision for the Ibrahim family. Please join us in praying:

• For the parents, we pray for employment opportunities that will help build financial independence and sustain the family in the many (and rising) housing, food and other expenses of living in Toronto. Online ESL classes have proved particularly difficult for the parents — we pray for opportunities to improve their English which will help open up more job prospects.

• For the children, we pray they will continue to learn well and build good relationships with their friends and teachers at school. We pray for successful completion of their ESL classes which will allow them to take other classes they are excited about in the next school year.

• For sustainable, long term housing options.

Volunteer Opportunities

If you are interested in volunteering opportunities, please contact refugees@gracetoronto.ca

God At Work

The following is an excerpt of Hane Chung’s God at Work Testimony:

We are eagerly awaiting for the arrival of a Syrian refugee family of four whom our church is privately sponsoring. The family consists of a mother, a father and a teenage boy and a teenage girl. They are currently living in Turkey without status and without any real likelihood of obtaining any status in that country. This makes it impossible for the parents to find stable work and for the teens to obtain proper schooling. They remain in a very uncertain situation and are unable to return to Syria due to the danger it poses to their lives.

The plight of this family was brought to our attention last year by someone in our congregation. With prayer, the elders agreed to privately sponsor the family provided there would be a group of church members ready and willing to take on the task. A small group of us felt called to join this group early last year. This was all very new to all of us and we were both excited and nervous. We met, prayed together, and worked diligently to prepare and submit an application before a September due date last year.

We were initially told by other sponsorship groups that it would take two years for the sponsorship application to be approved. God’s hand has clearly been in the works as the family’s application was approved in less than 6 months and we were told to prepare for the family’s travel to Canada in March this year. 

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the family’s travel was placed on hold shortly thereafter, but we have recently been asked by the government to prepare for their arrival!

Hane Chung, Refugee Sponsorship Committee
God at Work Testimony - Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020

Special Resources

For the month of November, we will be sharing special resources and opportunities to support the Refugee Sponsorship:

For more information, contact refugees@gracetoronto.ca.