From a Refugee Camp to a Pancake Supper at the Cathedral: Life has been transformed for a Bhutanese refugee family.

Forced to flee their home in Bhutan, the Dhital family arrived at a refugee camp in Nepal in 1992. At that time the couple had a one-year old son. They lived in the refugee camp for seventeen years and had two more sons. Realizing that there was no hope of returning to Bhutan and no future for them or their children in the camp, they applied for resettlement and arrived in the United States in January of 2010. Their life is being transformed. Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest Refugee and Immigration Services of Phoenix provided a case manager, an apartment and has taken them to get all their needed services. LSS recruited a church to co-sponsor the family which adds additional level of care and teaching, helping the family integrate into the community and learn more about American culture. The church, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, recruited a resettlement team who was trained by LSS.

The Trinity team helped the case manager to receive the family at the airport and took them to the apartment that the church had furnished. Now they are enjoying developing a relationship with this family and other Bhutanese as well. Here is a report from the resettlement team.

“We had about 16 refugees in our group. The Dhital family plus other Bhutanese residents from the apartment complex, including a few who spoke English and helped translate. Trinity bought 20 roundtrip bus/train tickets, so we handed them out to everyone (and gave the extras to the Dhital family at the end). We walked to the nearest bus, rode to the train and rode the rails together to Trinity Cathedral for our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper and race. Just as we arrived we saw the Bishop compete on a short race with the Dean, both wearing aprons and flipping pancakes on a plate out and back across the labyrinth. It was both unusual and fun, then we went into the line for the food, and everyone ate pretty well. We gave them a tour of the church, and then walked around the neighborhood for a few blocks.

One highlight for the mother was seeing an exercise studio with people pumping away on the machines. She laughed and said she’d seen this on TV but never in person.

Then we headed back by train and bus. My son, a high school junior, drove some back in the van so the younger kids could get back sooner. Everyone seemed happy to get out and do something. The person I spoke to most, because he had the best English, said any activities around the community would be good to do.

I talked to the head of the Phoenix Zoo, told him what we’re doing, and he sent me 8 free admissions and 8 tram rides for the Zoo, so that’s our next outing with the family. Meanwhile, another member of the team is taking some of them to the library today. It’s fun, rewarding and obviously much needed. We learned that other families at the apartment complex without a church sponsor have a much rougher start and the apartments, because of financial constraints, don’t have nearly the nice furnishings and amenities that we provided our family.

Also..we hear that there is a need for shoes among many at the apartments, so I’m working with one of our priests who gets donated shoes to see how we can help.”

The church, in partnership with Lutheran Social Services Refugee program, is making a difference in the lives of these newly arrived refugees and living out the Biblical mandates to “welcome the stranger, practice hospitality and care for those in need.”

(Original article by Rob Smith, Chair Trinity Outreach Ministry)