A New Home!

It was almost three years ago that we were able to help Hussein and Safaa Al Essa and their children begin a new life in Canada. 

Of course, the El Essas were just one family among millions. They had lived together as refugees with Hussein’s brother Fawaz and his family had had to flee Syria too, as had their cousins the Al Ahmeds. They had shared their lives as refugees in an unwelcoming country, but Hussein was the only one who got the phone call from Canada.

So once the El Essas had begun to find their way in Canada, we began Project Re-Unite to try to bring the family together.

So it’s been another two years of planning and hard work for us. But for the El Essas and the Al Ahmeds, it’s been eight years since war and violence forced them to flee the homes and lives they had known for the precarious existence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon..

Eight years  — and now they have cleared the final checks. Their tickets have been paid for.

By the middle of June, Fawaz and Amira El Essa and their seven young children will be re-united with Fawaz’s brother Hussein and his family. And before the end of the month their cousins, the Al Ahmeds (including our young friend Hannan, who has been our interpreter from the other side of the ocean, and her brother and sisters) will be here too.

There’s still a lot of work to help them through that difficult first year and set up their new lives (and money to raise to fund it!) but we wanted to write about the good news first.

Two families (twelve children!), here in their new home.

Just in time for Canada Day.

“ … for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt”