Burundian Refugees

Our church is sponsoring a refugee family from Burundi. The father and two of his daughters arrived on Friday. Another daughter will be arriving on Tuesday (actually, maybe it was today). The mother and two other children have been killed. They don’t speak English, but they do speak French, Swahili, and another language in varying degrees of competency. They seem very nice. One of the men from our church who is very involved in helping this family said that the father is very eager and motivated to learn English as quickly as possible in order to start their life here. It’s so weird not being able to communicate with them. I wish I knew French. All we can do is shake hands and smile. Thankfully, there are several people in our congregation who speak French. There’s a core group of members who are going to help the family for the next four months to settle into American life. Our family is going to help out, too.