New Family Arrivals 10/25/21

https://mailchi.mp/c32cd9402d1d/new-family-arrivals

Roshan’s and Isa’s families have arrived!
It has been quite a whirlwind! Roshan’s fiancée, 3 sisters, brother, and uncle arrived last Monday and are staying at a donated air bnb in Alburtis until their new house closes at the end of November. Isa’s fiancée, uncle, and father-in-law arrived the day after and are staying with us until Isa’s house closes tomorrow.
Their flights came into ABE at 11:15pm so we had a couple of late nights and are still recovering. Everyone seems to be settling in happily and they are all having a great time. We enjoyed a breakfast that Isa and Sima prepared.
There was a lot of paperwork to get through, and a lot of shopping which will continue for a while. One of the shopping sprees was at the Moravian Church Rummage sale in Emmaus. Our friends Charlie and Margaret arranged for the kids and their families to come and take whatever they could use and they found a lot of great stuff including bicycles, a Christmas tree, dishes, home décor, a leaf blower, and a washer and dryer. Yes, that is Santa’s feet sticking out of the side of the truck! And one of the uncles picked out some artwork including paintings of flowers and a painting of Jesus. You just never know!
Thursday the boys took their families to Jim Thorpe for a train ride and Friday they went to an Afghan benefit concert in NJ and then afterwards took the ferry into NYC and walked all the way from the ferry terminal to Times Square.
Roshan’s clan at Times Square.Isa and Sima cooking together – the potato pancakes she makes are fantastic!
Shegufa (Roshan’s fiancée) has excellent English skills, and Roshan’s uncle, Nemat, also speaks English – I am not sure if he was an interpreter or worked for an American company. Isa’s fiancée, Sima, has some English and Roshan’s brother and sisters are all a bit shy but I am sure that with some classes, they will learn quickly.
Isa’s father-in-law and uncle will need a little more work with the language skills, but they are hard workers and good natured, and they have a great support system here, so they will do fine.
Here are the girls enjoying brunch at my mother and Bob’s. (The boys were all glued to their screens as some very big soccer match was on.)
The situation for Ghani is not quite as happy. His fiancée, Sadiqa, and his sister and her children are in the camp in NM. Evidently, Sadiqa got into an argument with Ghani’s niece and then told Ghani she didn’t want to live with them. When Ghani said that he couldn’t afford 2 houses, Sadiqa moved to a different tent and told Ghani that she wanted to separate from him. There is more to the story, of course, We don’t know all that transpired – her story is quite different from his story, and we don’t want to assume that this was something planned, even though it looks a lot like that. (There are other girls who got engaged and when they got to the USA, broke off the engagement.) The upshot is that it is a sad situation and Ghani is heart broken. While it is a terrible thing to endure, breaking up sooner is at least marginally better than breaking up later, and Ghani is relieved that this happened before they started a family.
Ghani is an incredibly kind and generous young man, and we are hopeful that he will find a great partner (or she will find him). In the meantime, Ghani’s sister, niece, and nephews will be coming to Allentown but we haven’t had any indication of when that will be. All their paperwork is complete, so it could be any day.
We are still waiting on good news about Arif’s family and his friends in Poland – the young SIV couple with the baby. And we have been helping to fill our more applications for humanitarian parole for family of friends. At this point, I try to not to think too often or deeply about the situation in Afghanistan as it is too heartbreaking and there isn’t anything that I can do about it. Some bits of news we get from there are quite awful. I am not denying it exists, just consciously choosing to focus on the things that I can have some impact on.
That can be a challenging line to walk, but I find it necessary for my sanity and ability to get out of bed. It is the old put-your-oxygen-mask-on-first-if-you-want-to-stay-concious-long-enough-to-help-anyone-else thing. 🙂
There will be more happy news and photos of Isa’s new house to come soon!Thank you to all of you who continue to follow our story and send good wishes and prayers and support of all kinds!