Isa and Roshan in Afghanistan

Many of you have asked how things are going, so here is quick update…The latest…Isa and Roshan are attempting to move up their departure flight dates, but things are a bit tricky with so many people trying to get out of Kabul.  Ghani is still safe in Pakistan and working on an exit strategy. Roshan is exploring options for getting his family to India or Pakistan, but his mother and little brother don’t have passports and the Government closed the passport office. Isa is having similar challenges as well as trying to assist families from his village who fled and are in Kabul without any resources like food or shelter.   I have written a letter that I am sending to various government officials and have included it at the bottom of this email.  Feel free to take whatever you like and write your own version.   The situation is so much more terrible than I think anyone anticipated, and it is happening so much faster.   Several folks have expressed some incredulity around Isa and Roshan being in Afghanistan and not just leaving right away.  So I have come up with a way to try to convey the context in a way I hope you can relate to.  It could be fire, floods, storms, or war – any disaster outside of your control that is threatening the lives of your family and community.  This is what our boys are struggling with.  And all we can do is pray and do our best to advocate for them by contacting anyone who might be able to help. Imagine…You have been away for a really long time and you finally are visiting your family – your parents, siblings, cousins, etc.  Now, where they live, there have been some wildfires around, but nothing too close to where they are, and there have been wildfires around before, so it seems safe enough.  And some members of your family can’t fly, so you must visit them where they are.  You go and you are having a great time but the wildfires are getting worse, and closer to where you are.  You think the fire people will come and put it out and we will all be okay.  But the fire gets bigger and closer and now you think geez, I need to get my family out of here.  At the same time, friends and relatives start showing up because their homes have been consumed by the fire, so you are trying to help everyone and make sure they have food and a place to sleep and figure out how to get all these folks to someplace safe. You have a ticket to fly out, but no one else does and there are no more tickets for any flights because so many people are trying to escape.  Your parents and siblings, neighbors, friends, cousins, are all there with no way to get away from the fires.  The fires have surrounded the area except for one road, but that road is closed.  So you keep trying to find a way to keep your family safe.  You know you are going to have to leave with that ticket you have but what is going to happen to your family?  How can you help them?  You must do something.  If your family and friends and neighbors all die in this fire, how are you going to live with that?  Of course, if you are also dead, you can’t ever help anyone.  This is an impossible situation!  You need a miracle. Isa and Sima in Kabul Roshan and Shegufa in Kabul My letter:  While I appreciate President Biden’s intention to end the war in Afghanistan, the way that he is doing it is creating a horrific humanitarian crisis.  The Taliban are brutally murdering and torturing non-Taliban.  Interpreters and their families, Afghan women, and Hazara people are in grave danger.  Right now, two of my foster boys who recently got their US citizenship are in Kabul, desperately trying to find some way to get their families to safety.  Unfortunately, there are no good options.  But staying there is almost certainly a death sentence.  The USA needs to provide some safe passage for these people to escape to a refugee camp or something.  UNHCR is set up to accept refugees in Iran, but the borders are controlled by the Taliban, so that isn’t an option.  There is one potential route to Pakistan that isn’t completely controlled by the Taliban yet, but Pakistan has closed its border and is not allowing the people in.  Flying out of there is also not an option for most people as it is costly and requires passports, which most people do not have.  And if they could get a flight, where would they go?  Many have relatives around the world but going to stay with them would require all sorts of documentation to get visas, which is terribly difficult in the best of times, and definitely not feasible at this time. I don’t know what the USA can do, but it must do something.  We cannot just walk out and allow hundreds of thousands of people to be brutally slaughtered behind us.  We must do something – provide air support to the government at least so that people can get out of the country.  Do not allow the Taliban to completely take over the country, which is exactly what is happening.  My children and their families are surrounded by danger with no practical means of escape.  If there is anything you can do, please help them and all the others who are in the same predicament.    Thank you. Virginia EllenYou can contact: your US Senators:  https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm US Representative: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative the President and Vice President:  https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ UNHCR:  https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/contact-form.html the UN:  https://www.un.org/en/contact-us-0 the State Department:  https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform the DOD (scroll to the bottom of the page): https://www.defense.gov/Contact/

https://mailchi.mp/41c2ab660a77/quick-update-on-afghanistan

View this email in your browser If you are jumping in to this story mid-stream and would like to find out how we got here, you can read our previous installments at VirginiaEllen.com. Family Update Spring/Summer 2021 We hope that you have made it through 2020 and the first half of 2021 with your health and sanity intact. It has been a wild and sometimes surreal ride. And for those of us who are lucky, life goes on. And here is the update on our family adventure… video clip of the boys playing dominos with Aunt Jane. I couldn’t put it in the email but the link should work. It was another eventful year. I am pretty sure that is the only kind we have. Last summer we had a week at the beach and a week at Harvey’s Lake. And this winter we managed to get in some fun skiing. The last time we updated you, Arif had arrived safely from Indonesia with only a few days to spare. He got enrolled in high school and then the school shut down and the teachers scrambled to figure out how to do remote teaching. It is lousy luck, but still better than being stuck in Indonesia. Arif is a real gift. He is kind and really helpful, has a mischievous sense of humor, is a diligent student, an athlete, and an amazing musician and artist. And he is a good cook. He is a bit of a restless soul – always has to be busy doing something. We had a very polite and ongoing battle about him wanting to have a full time warehouse job while he is still a student in high school. I explained more times than I can count why that doesn’t work, but every few weeks, he would bring it up again. 🙂 I have also explained many times about how having different kinds of jobs is very valuable because of the different kinds of skills and experiences gained, and that taking a job for less money temporarily could be a wise choice. He understands what I am saying, but I think the idea of working for $13-$15 and hour when he could be making $20-22 per hour is just really hard to wrap his head around. After a rather grueling year of online schooling with daily tutoring sessions with Grandma, Arif graduated from high school in June, and is enrolled at LCCC intending to complete their pilot program and become an airplane pilot. There is a lot of pull from the more than 20 Hazara boys who are long-haul truck drivers to join them. He has no interest, but it can be hard to resist that pressure. And those boys are making quite a lot of money. But he enjoyed the discovery flight he took at Queen City Airport and seems quite keen to pursue becoming an airplane pilot. The Truck Drivers… Roshan, Isa, and Ghani are all continuing to drive trucks. Roshan has his own truck, Isa now has 2 trucks, and Ghani who is partnered with his cousin (Arif K) now owns 4 trucks. In June and July, the three of them got their citizenships and I don’t think I have ever been so fond of American flags. Between graduation, birthdays and naturalizations, we had a lot of reasons for some great parties! Then we had a whirlwind of form filling and last minute flight booking. All three of them got their passports in Detroit – the only passport office in the US that was open for appointments! And then after quite a bit of shopping, off they went to see their fiancées and families. Ghani left first and went to Dubai for a week to visit family and friends there. He was supposed to go directly to Pakistan, but the visa process was interminable, so he opted to fly to Afghanistan and then take a bus into Pakistan and that worked out. He is in Pakistan with his lovely fiancée, Sadiqa, who is looking forward to becoming a surgeon, and his sister, and niece, and a bunch of other friends and family and friends of family. Ghani and Sadiqa It is super hot there, and evidently there isn’t much electricity. They have some solar panels to charge phones and I think run the refrigerator but definitely no air conditioning. Roshan is reporting similar conditions in Kabul – it is very hot and the electricity is turned off during the day. Yikes. Ghani and his niece Ghani was talking about possibly stopping in either Australia or London on his way home so that he can visit family. He has family all over the place! But so far, we haven’t made any arrangements for his flight home, so I am not sure what we will do. He probably can’t leave the way he came because the Taliban have taken over the border that he crossed. Roshan’s family met him and Isa at the airport and Roshan has been at the family home in Kabul ever since. He says that he has not left the house because it is too dangerous. Having an American passport on top of being Hazara is pretty much like walking around with a big target I guess. Shegufa and Roshan But his fiancée, Shegufa, is there and I get the impression they are enjoying being together, even if it is in rather tight quarters with his family. After arriving in Kabul Isa made his way to their home district of Jaghori where he met his fiancée, Sima. I only heard from Isa once when he left me a very nice voicemail. He said that he had to go up into the mountain to get any phone signal and that the fruits were delicious and the mountains were beautiful and he was happy to see old friends in his village. Sima I heard from Roshan that Isa and Sima had to come to Kabul because the situation in Jaghori district is not safe. It is a heartbreaking situation. I am worried for the safety of the girls and the boys’ families in the next few weeks and months. We have applied for a visa for Shegufa and I have the paperwork ready to send for Sima, but the average processing time for fiance visas is 8-10 months. And it will be quite a while longer before Roshan can bring his family. In the meantime I am trying to figure out how we could get them to a safe place to stay while we wait for all the paperwork to go through. So far, I haven’t found any easy solutions. They could go to Turkey but a visitor visa is only good for 30 days and not renewable, so they would have to go somewhere else the next month, and the next month, etc. There are only a few places that offer up to 90 days for visitors and they are expensive to get to and to stay there. There are also programs where you can buy citizenship – in Turkey if you buy $250k in real estate, you qualify for citizenship. They have a similar program in Dominica. But of course, we don’t have the resources to do that, and the aim is to bring the families here, so we just need an interim solution. It really is a constant worry for us, and at the same time, all I have to do to shift myself out of an overwhelming feeling of dread is to think about all of my future daughters-in-law being here. All three of them are looking forward to going to college, and I am looking forward to that too. I think it will be so fun to hang out with the girls for a change! Shortly after I wrote the last update letter, we got a new foster boy from Sudan. The first few months with him were pretty rough and we requested a different placement for him with the agency. They instead provided more case management and regular therapy sessions for him, and after a while things improved. Mohamad’s teachers loved him and he got straight As. He is doing summer classes at William Allen and has a reading tutor, is taking swimming lessons and playing soccer. So he is pretty well staying busy and productive while still having ample time for video games and talking with friends and family. Hedayat was treading water for a very long time. He had a dui and lost his license and the process dragged on for quite a long time. He eventually went through the mandated group therapy and counseling program and it seemed like he got a lot out of that. He even started talking at dinner on occasion. We were quite concerned though as he didn’t have a job and wasn’t in school and seemed content to just wait for however long it took to get his license back before starting to do something productive. As he had turned 20 and only has program support until his 21st birthday, we thought it urgent for him to get out on his own and support himself before that ran out. He and two friends who also came through the urm program got an apartment near Lansdale in late spring. I drove him down to the apartment when he moved in and on the way down gave him the best pep talk I could muster. I admit that I had been extremely frustrated with his behavior and lack of motivation or ambition. But I managed to approach it in a positive way and told him that he is an amazing person with so much to give and it would be such a sad thing if he wasted all of his gifts. And I certainly believe that. Hedayat has a lot of heart and he has a very kind soul. I hugged him and cried and wished him good luck and hoped that he heard me. A few weeks later, Hedayat got his license back and within a week I think he had a job. Hedayat is working Monday through Friday 8:30-5 at a factory that makes wires and he says he really likes it. Every time he comes home he seems really happy to see us and always gives me a big hug. We are so relieved and think he is going to be okay. Over the past year JC got more and more distant and uncommunicative and eventually downright disrespectful. Things finally came to a head in June and we asked him to leave. He has been back once or twice to pick up mail and was polite, so while we don’t know what was going on there, we are happy that it isn’t going on in our house any more. Abu – even though Abu was only with us for a short time, he still comes back to visit and we love to see him. Abu is amazing. He thoroughly investigates something and then does it. He researched day trading and then made enough money doing that to purchase a two unit house in Philadelphia. He is living in one unit and renting out the other and will continue pursuing his degree in nursing at the Philadelphia Community College which is only a few blocks away. At the same time, he is doing delivery driving and is starting an ebay business. He is really a go getter and a wonderful guy. So it is only 4 of us in the house now, and while it is a little quiet, it is also nice to have a bit more quality time with Arif and Mo. And they get along well. It is easier to get chores done around the house and figure out who left the dirty dishes in the sink with only the two of them and the two of us here. It won’t be for too long, I am sure. We should be getting another Hazara boy from Malaysia in the next few months, and who knows what will happen tomorrow? I am doing well. Super busy – helping the boys with the trucking business and rebranding our Interchainables jewelry line and being everyone’s travel agent and executive secretary and form filler outer… And I am still working my very part time job, which has been a lot more challenging than usual. I haven’t had much time for pottery, and while I will keep doing some of it, I won’t be trying to do as much of it. Once we get the Irish Interchainables going and the trucking and freight brokering going, well, maybe then I will have more time in the studio. But I suspect that at this point I am more motivated to advocate for refugees and try to solve some serious problems and it feels like that is what I need to focus on for a while. Maybe I could get a job advocating for refugees? Nolan is doing well too. His job is stressful and sometimes pretty thankless, but he keeps on keeping the lights on, and he is happier now that his office is moved into Hedayat’s old room where he gets plenty of natural light and a pleasant view. For a while his work hours were absolutely brutal. Nolan is a trouper though and things are better at the moment. We are planning a trip to the US Virgin Islands with Arif, Abu, and Aunt Jane for early August. The Hazara Hurricanes will be back at the Umoja soccer tournament (this year in Virginia) and were disappointed to find out that Nolan won’t be there. We will be there in spirit and will miss being with all the boys for such a fun weekend. I am sure I missed a bunch of stuff but this is already really long and at least you are now up to date on the boys’ main adventures. I will try to do this twice a year so that I don’t have to include quite as much in one letter. Puppies, I missed the puppies story… next time! Post Script A friend of mine reached out to ask how the boys and their families are doing with the situation in Afghanistan. She asked if there is anything she can do and it occurred to me that I could let you know a few things that you can do, if you are so moved. Call and write to your Members of Congress – ask them to support the Hazara people in Afghanistan and to expedite the visas for all of those who qualify for the Special Immigrant Visa program – these are folks who risked their lives to help American soldiers. Even working at a bakery that sells bread to the Americans is grounds for execution by the Taliban (It actually happened to the father of one of our boys). And the family of that person who works in the bakery is also marked for execution. Find out if your church or community association has a program to welcome refugees into the neighborhood and if so, volunteer or make a donation. Or offer to take a refugee family out for ice cream or to a park. Unaccompanied minors generally have foster homes and support from the agency until their 21st birthdays, but families and anyone over the age of 18 get a just few months of case management support and then are mostly on their own. They need help adapting to a completely new culture and language and way of life. Ask a local agency that helps refugees to give a talk or presentation to your community so people can learn more about refugees and how they can support them. In Allentown, there is The Refugee Center at the Episcopal Church of the Mediator at 1620 W Turner St. They support refugee families in the Lehigh Valley and offer ESL classes and other support for families working to start new lives here. You can also support foster parents. We understand that not everyone is up for taking on foster kids, but that doesn’t mean you can’t contribute in a meaningful way. You can still help current foster parents. You can also get certified to offer respite care for when foster families need a break or are going on a trip where they can’t take the foster kids. Respite care is usually just a few days and it can be a lifesaver for the foster parents. And while our focus is on the refugee community, the folks who foster domestic kids need support too. All kids need to be in loving and supportive communities so that they can grow up to be loving and successful members of our community. It is in all of our interests to help make that happen. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Nolan and I are happy to answer any questions you have. You can also find more information at the International Rescue Committee (IRC)

This email was sent to why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences Clay Street Speakeasy · 2103 W Greenleaf St · Allentown, PA 18104-4013 · USA

{"mode":"full","isActive":false}

Catching up – October 2019 – The new guys:

Abu

Abubakar is from Ghana, has a rather long story, so I will try to keep it brief. When we met him, Abu was living with a foster family in Hellertown.  This family had one 3-year-old child and lived in a remote and rural area.  Abu went to the Saucon Valley high school, which has a reputation for being racist.  Abu was quite lonely there and didn’t have any friends.  He came to stay with us for a week when his family went out of the country, and our guys took him to the park, and to play soccer, and other fun hanging out teenage boy stuff.  Abu told his caseworker that the week was the most fun he had ever.

It turned out that our home was a much better fit for Abu, so the agency planned to place him with us temporarily and then transfer him to the group home in Bensalem.  But Abu was happy here and we wanted him to stay, so the agency eventually agreed to make it a permanent placement.

Abu is a very cheerful person, though he can also be shy about making new friends.  He is very helpful and kind.  Abu had his first interview at Walmart for a cashier position, and they offered him a job on the spot.  He often works at the self-checkout and likes it very much.  He is interested in technology and has plans to pursue a career in computer networking and cybersecurity.  He is an excellent student.  Because English is one of his first languages and he went to school in Ghana into high school, he is more academically advanced than our other boys.  He has already been accepted at Northampton Community College for Fall 2020, but he is considering also applying to some local 4-year colleges.

In August, Nolan and Hedayat went to Detroit for the Umoja soccer tournament during the same weekend that my mom and I went to the Irish festival in Dublin, Ohio.  We left Abu in charge of the house.  I posted our several pages of “house instructions” for house-sitters on the refrigerator, and Abu was horrified to see how much work it was to manage the household, with detailed descriptions of dog and cat feeding procedures, trash and recycling schedules, and so on.  I assured him that it wasn’t that difficult and that he would have help.  He said that he didn’t realize how much work went into being an adult and managing a household.  He was grateful that he didn’t have to manage all that stuff all the time.  He did a great job managing everything, though, and I wanted to do something nice for him to show our appreciation.

Abu mentioned that he would like to have a pet cat.  So we went kitten shopping and Abu picked out the kitten he wanted after meeting a bunch of them at a rescue.  Abu’s new cat is named “Happy” and she is great!  The day after she came home, I got a phone call from Abu who was upstairs in his room.  He asked me to come up right away as he was worried about Happy.  He was worried that she was sick because she was making a strange noise.  I went right upstairs to find Happy snuggled up on Abu’s lap, purring contentedly.  I explained that nothing was wrong – that is what cats do when they are happy. 🙂

Jean Claude

Jean Claude (JC) is part of a group of Hedayat’s and Ghani’s friends from high school.  JC is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and came here with his extended family through the family resettlement program.  This program offers assistance to newly arriving families for two or three months, then they are pretty much on their own.  The family that JC came with was unable to support him, so partway into his senior year of high school, JC became homeless.  A family we know who operates the “Living the Dream” and “After Dark” programs for teens knew JC from the program and offered to take him in.  They went to his soccer games and took him to tryouts and around to visit colleges and all the normal stuff that parents do.  When they went out of town, JC would stay with us.  Then in May, they had some family issues and asked if JC could stay with us until he starts college, and so now JC is part of our family too.

JC is going to Northampton Community College and is living on campus.  I went to an all-day orientation with him and was quite impressed with the school.  Unfortunately, they don’t have reciprocity with Lehigh County, so JC pays out of county rates.  But he has some scholarships and grants, so his student loans will be limited.

A More Current Update (December 29, 2019)

Ghani had moved into an apartment with several of his friends in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was working and saving money with the aim to launch a car and car part export business.  Many of the people in his very large extended family are successful in this same type of business, and several uncles and cousins have offered to help/mentor/partner with him to get it started here in the United States.  After doing some research, Ghani realized that it would be much more costly to conduct an export business from Michigan than from PA.  He talked Arif – one of the other Michigan boys (who is also his cousin) – into going into the business with him, and they both moved back to Allentown at the end of October.

So now we have four full-time kids, and JC who is part-time, and the house feels a lot less empty than it had when everyone abruptly moved away earlier in the year.  There are a few other friends of theirs who regularly join us for dinner and can often be found asleep on one of the couches in the morning.  🙂  They are great guys, and while they can get a little loud during the night, we are willing to deal with some of that in exchange for knowing that we have created a space where they feel welcome, comfortable and safe.

In October, Bethany told us about another Hazara boy (also named Arif, like Ghani’s cousin) who was living in Indonesia and approved to come to the United States, and they asked if we would take him.  I checked with Ghani and Hedayat, who both knew this boy when they lived with him in the shelter, Hedayat immediately contacted him on Facebook Messenger.  Arif was over the moon!  We have been keeping in touch with him several times a week.  He is a super guy and we were hoping he would be here for Thanksgiving, then for Christmas… but still there is no word on when he will arrive.

We initially assumed that his birthday was January 1 (most Hazara boys have this recorded as their birthday) which would mean that if he didn’t get here by Dec 31st, he would age out of the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor program and no longer be eligible for the program, and he would no longer be able to stay in the shelter in Indonesia…  It is so hard for those guys.  And this poor kid has been there in the refugee shelter since he was 12 years old!  It has been a very long five years for him.

I lost a lot of sleep worrying about this young man, who keeps asking if I have heard anything about when he is coming.  After multiple communications with our Bethany caseworker, we were informed that Arif’s official birthday is actually Feb 25th, so he is not yet in danger of aging out.  We still have two months.  Whew!  It would have been lovely to have known that before I spent a month hyperventilating about it!

We also agreed to take another Hazara boy, Aziz, who is living as a refugee in Malaysia.  He is only 16, so we aren’t as concerned about the timing of his arrival.  None of the boys we know here are familiar with him, and I couldn’t find him on Facebook, so we haven’t had any communication with him yet.

For Christmas this year, we are very happy to report that all of our boys were home!  Roshan, Isa, and Rohullio were all here for Christmas Eve and Christmas day!  Unfortunately, Isa and Rohullio had to leave right afterward and Roshan the following day.  On Friday, 12/27, Hedayat and Arif drove Roshan to Chicago, where Roshan plans to catch a ride with Isa and Habib (in their truck) to Nebraska, to meet up with his own driving partner, Ali Jan.  Hedayat and Arif — Ghani’s cousin, not the one still stuck in Indonesia 🙂 — will visit with the Michigan boys for a few days and then return home.

In preparation for the sudden population increase, we obtained two additional bunk beds, a loft bed and a bunch of twin mattresses and sheet sets, so we have sleeping accommodations for 10.  Of course, we still only have one small bathroom upstairs.  🙂

I have to tell you more about Isa and Roshan and their adventures, but I don’t want to make this too long.

Isa had quite an adventure this summer when he was involved in an accident while driving a truck and he ended up in jail in Iowa!  Rohullio (who was his driving partner at the time) had been asleep at the time, handled it brilliantly and ultimately it all ended as well as it could.  It was an expensive and stressful experience, but there were some important lessons learned and no permanent harm done to anyone, so that is great.

One of the positive outcomes was that Nolan and I demonstrated in a very powerful way that we are here for the boys no matter what.  It is one thing to say that, but another thing to prove it.  I think that for Isa, the experience broke down whatever remaining barriers he had about us, and he knows that we really love him and we really are his family.  That is a big deal for him.  I think it also made an impression on Hedayat, but I think he already pretty much got that message from us.

Most human beings suffer from some version of feeling unlovable, or unworthy.  While it is a pretty universal thing, for kids who have been sent away from their families, no matter the reason, they face many challenges and they can’t help but feel rejected by their families.  When someone else shows love, they can get angry and confused.  It is a very natural reaction for foster kids and step-children (in my experience).

Isa is the only one of our kids who was an orphan (I intentionally used the past tense there).  The others all have contact with at least some of their original family.  Roshan has both parents and several siblings, Ghani has siblings, cousins and aunts and uncles, Hedayat has a mom and siblings and some cousins, Abu has a mom and a sister. After his “Iowa adventure,” Isa ended up stranded in California, so I helped him rent a car so he could drive to Arizona and visit Grandma and Grandpa LeBlanc.  A couple of weeks ago, Nolan made it to Arizona to visit his parents and Isa was able to route himself via Phoenix and stop in for a visit again.  And Nolan’s parents are welcoming and embracing of all the boys as their own grandchildren, so Isa knows he has family here, and he appreciates and celebrates that and it is hard to explain how awesome that is.  He tells his friends that he has grandparents in Arizona, and when they ask him how that is possible, he says “that is a long story.”

On a recent visit home, Isa told me that he gets to see the whole country and there are lots of beautiful places and interesting places, and they are great to visit, but only coming back to Allentown feels like home.

I suspect that Roshan feels similarly.  Roshan, who talked about getting married the first week he was with us, went back to Afghanistan this summer and got engaged to a lovely young woman who is studying pre-med at college in Kabul.  His trip is quite a story – 550 people at the engagement party, some amazing photos, lots of scary stuff, bombs and other things that we can’t even begin to imagine, comprehend or appreciate about his family’s situation.  We were extremely relieved when he and his driving partner arrived safely back in the US.  (They were too!)  We are excited about the idea of having daughters-in-law!  And now Isa is also planning on a trip and already has a special someone with whom he communicates regularly.

But I think I have written more than enough for one email, so I will sign off for now.  For the next update we hope to have good news about Arif S and maybe Aziz!

Wishing you all a wonderful 2020!

Love,

Virginia and Nolan

Catching up to 2019
(link to text with photos)

So much has happened since our last update…

Roshan and Isa had graduated high school in 2017, attended Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC) for a time, and dropped out of school for different reasons and are now full-time long haul truck drivers.

Ghani graduated from Allen in 2018 and attended LCCC for a year, then left for Michigan where he has been living with his friends and working at a factory. Hedayat graduated from high school in 2019 and is attending LCCC and playing soccer.

All of the leaving has been heartbreaking. The boys know that this is always their home and we are always their family… and I wish we had more time. They can come home to visit, but it will not ever be quite the same. I assume that for normal families, by the time the kids leave home most parents are ready. We only had 3 years and were definitely not ready. But we have had to keep moving through our grieving. For sure it has also been hard on Hedayat, and we have to make sure that we are supporting him. And we have the new guys!

A new foster son from Ghana joined our house in May! His name is Abu-Bakar. And Hedayat’s friend, Jean Claude, from Congo, also joined us. More on these guys soon…

We skipped updates for all of 2018 – and a lot happened, but so much has happened since then, it is hard to remember. We did a lot of fun stuff in 2018 – snow skiing, bowling, and a week at the beach with 12 Hazara boys! Mostly it was life as usual… and then it wasn’t.

Last November, the Taliban attacked the boys’ home district. The kids were on their phones, getting updates, and hearing a lot of tragic news about their friends and neighbors for days which turned into weeks. Fortunately, Roshan’s family made it safely to Kabul. It was so hard for them to be here and not be able to do anything. It is hard for us to imagine what that is like.

This pushed Roshan to step up his plans. He quit LCCC and within one month had his commercial driver’s license and a trucking job driving long-haul. He left home after the holidays (on my birthday) and began driving an 18-wheeler across the country with his friend from the Indonesian refugee shelters, Ali-Jan. Roshan felt he needed to do this to make money so that he could visit his family and help provide for them. He also really wanted to get married – but I will cover that one on a different update.

Isa left LCCC, as his heart just hadn’t been into college. He started doing full-time construction for a general contractor who was very distrustful of Muslims, or anyone not from America, but Isa was able to break through some of the stereotyping. Isa learned a great deal from Mike, too and was enjoying the work.

Unfortunately, Mike also intentionally underpaid Isa, giving him various obfuscating stories. Initially, when Isa asked about his pay being lower than expected, Mike claimed to Isa that he was taking taxes out. Only after Isa repeatedly asked for his W2 did Mike say that he had NOT been taking out taxes, that he considered Isa to be a subcontractor, and Isa was supposed to have been taking out his own taxes. Since he said he was taking out taxes, of course, this was really underhanded and deceitful.

Isa understandably felt betrayed, and when we attempted to obtain a lawyer to help him recover his lost pay, it took several weeks. By the time anyone could be engaged, Isa had moved on. He didn’t want another construction job. He and our friend, Rohullah, attended the same Miami-based truck driving school as Roshan had, and started team driving across the country for a Russian/American company based out of Rochester, New York. Isa and Rohullah are enjoying driving the truck across the country and are stopping in at home every couple of weeks. We are so happy that they are visiting regularly.

Once Ghani finished his second semester at LCCC, he only had a few more months in the Bethany Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) program, which would end when he turned 21 in August. He had been keenly looking forward to visiting his family in Australia with Nolan, but those plans fell through when the Australian consulate rejected his travel visa saying that his US travel document had been stolen.
Stolen?! It was in the desk drawer in my office! When we followed up on this claim with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) they told us that the document was in good standing, they would not provide the consulate with any sort of document correcting the Australian consulate’s error. So the US says, there is nothing wrong, we just send that document and Australia says it is marked stolen, and neither side would do anything about it. He was stuck.

In disappointment, Ghani decided he would, instead, visit his best friends (from the Indonesian shelters) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. his came up really out of the blue and hit us all hard. I was leaving for a brief respite trip to visit my Aunt and Uncle in France, and Ghani was going to take me to the airport. But since he was leaving for MI, he would not be there to pick me up the following week… so I drove myself and he left for Michigan. After a few weeks, Ghani got a job as a machinist.

Having lost three of our family members in so short time period, Hedayat, Nolan and I were all feeling a lot of loss.

Hedayat spent most of the summer visiting friends and playing soccer. In early August, Nolan and Hedayat drove to Detroit, Michigan, to attend the Umoja Games, the Shia soccer tournament that they have attended for the last four years. The tournament is run by the Khoja people, a Tanzanian people who are ethnically Indian. Appropriately, “Umoja” is the word for “unity” in the Swahili language.

The (Michigan boys) team we sponsored last year, the Hazara Hurricanes, again played at Umoja. The team did well, though they did not quite make it to the semi-final games. Nolan captured video footage of the games and created a YouTube channel for the team at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4GCcqNw5eUhghET6AE8bZg.

Isa and Rohullah were able to route themselves via the tournament as they were taking a truck load to take to California. Isa managed to park the truck at Nolan’s hotel, (video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOOWqQtTEmE) and they got to stay for a while and watch the games and spend some time with the boys.

Adjusting to the boys being not here has been hard. Hedayat has also missed them and we have all been adjusting to a cultural shift in our household. He doesn’t say much to us, but we know that it is difficult for him. Nolan has also had to do a big shift in his grocery buying and cooking. The African boys have a slightly different palate I guess you could say.

The timing of Abu’s arrival was serendipitous. He came to us just as Ghani was leaving, and then Jean Claude came shortly after that. So while we were grieving the loss of our original family, we also had to celebrate the new members of our family, and that helped to fill the space for us. It was also fortunate that JC was here for the summer, as Hedayat was mostly away, and Abu was happy for JCs company.

And Abu is delightful. He is quiet and has a lovely accent. His first language is English and while he plays soccer, he seems a bit more intellectual and tech-savvy and plans to study computer networking and cybersecurity. He is very helpful around the house, which is super awesome. He is rather devout and goes to the Mosque whenever he is off on a Friday afternoon. When we ask him if he is up for going somewhere or doing something, his response is often, “yes, after I pray I can go”. When Abu smiles, (which he does quite a lot) his whole face crinkles up and he starts giggling. It is very sweet.

This more or less gets us caught up to the Summer of 2019… more updates are coming – there is a lot to tell you!

——–

So much has happened since our last update…

Roshan and Isa had graduated high school in 2017, attended Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC) for a time, and dropped out of school for different reasons and are now full-time long haul truck drivers.
Ghani graduated from Allen in 2018 and attended LCCC for a year, then left for Michigan where he has been living with his friends and working at a factory.  Hedayat graduated from high school in 2019 and is attending LCCC and playing soccer.

All of the leaving has been heartbreaking.  The boys know that this is always their home and we are always their family…  and I wish we had more time.  They can come home to visit, but it will not ever be quite the same.  I assume that for normal families, by the time the kids leave home most parents are ready.  We only had 3 years and were definitely not ready.  But we have had to keep moving through our grieving.  For sure it has also been hard on Hedayat, and we have to make sure that we are supporting him.  And we have the new guys!

A new foster son from Ghana joined our house in May!  His name is Abu-Bakar. And Hedayat’s friend, Jean Claude, from Congo, also joined us. More on these guys soon…

We skipped updates for all of 2018 – and a lot happened, but so much has happened since then, it is hard to remember.  We did a lot of fun stuff in 2018 – snow skiing, bowling, and a week at the beach with 12 Hazara boys!  Mostly it was life as usual…  and then it wasn’t.

Last November, the Taliban attacked the boys’ home district.  The kids were on their phones, getting updates, and hearing a lot of tragic news about their friends and neighbors for days which turned into weeks.  Fortunately, Roshan’s family made it safely to Kabul.  It was so hard for them to be here and not be able to do anything. It is hard for us to imagine what that is like.

This pushed Roshan to step up his plans.  He quit LCCC and within one month had his commercial driver’s license and a trucking job driving long-haul. He left home after the holidays (on my birthday) and began driving an 18-wheeler across the country with his friend from the Indonesian refugee shelters, Ali-Jan.  Roshan felt he needed to do this to make money so that he could visit his family and help provide for them.  He also really wanted to get married – but I will cover that one on a different update.

Isa left LCCC, as his heart just hadn’t been into college.  He started doing full-time construction for a general contractor who was very distrustful of Muslims, or anyone not from America, but Isa was able to break through some of the stereotyping.  Isa learned a great deal from Mike, too and was enjoying the work.

Unfortunately, Mike also intentionally underpaid Isa, giving him various obfuscating stories.  Initially, when Isa asked about his pay being lower than expected, Mike claimed to Isa that he was taking taxes out. Only after Isa repeatedly asked for his W2 did Mike say that he had NOT been taking out taxes, that he considered Isa to be a subcontractor, and Isa was supposed to have been taking out his own taxes. Since he said he was taking out taxes, of course, this was really underhanded and deceitful.

Isa understandably felt betrayed, and when we attempted to obtain a lawyer to help him recover his lost pay, it took several weeks.  By the time anyone could be engaged, Isa had moved on.  He didn’t want another construction job.  He and our friend, Rohullah, attended the same Miami-based truck driving school as Roshan had, and started team driving across the country for a Russian/American company based out of Rochester, New York. Isa and Rohullah are enjoying driving the truck across the country and are stopping in at home every couple of weeks.  We are so happy that they are visiting regularly.

Once Ghani finished his second semester at LCCC, he only had a few more months in the Bethany Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) program, which would end when he turned 21 in August.  He had been keenly looking forward to visiting his family in Australia with Nolan, but those plans fell through when the Australian consulate rejected his travel visa saying that his US travel document had been stolen.
Stolen?!  It was in the desk drawer in my office!  When we followed up on this claim with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) they told us that the document was in good standing, they would not provide the consulate with any sort of document correcting the Australian consulate’s error. So the US says, there is nothing wrong, we just send that document and Australia says it is marked stolen, and neither side would do anything about it.  He was stuck.

In disappointment, Ghani decided he would, instead, visit his best friends (from the Indonesian shelters) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  his came up really out of the blue and hit us all hard.  I was leaving for a brief respite trip to visit my Aunt and Uncle in France, and Ghani was going to take me to the airport.  But since he was leaving for MI, he would not be there to pick me up the following week…  so I drove myself and he left for Michigan.  After a few weeks, Ghani got a job as a machinist.

Having lost three of our family members in so short time period, Hedayat, Nolan and I were all feeling a lot of loss.

Hedayat spent most of the summer visiting friends and playing soccer.  In early August, Nolan and Hedayat drove to Detroit, Michigan, to attend the Umoja Games, the Shia soccer tournament that they have attended for the last four years.  The tournament is run by the Khoja people, a Tanzanian people who are ethnically Indian.  Appropriately, “Umoja” is the word for “unity” in the Swahili language.

The (Michigan boys) team we sponsored last year, the Hazara Hurricanes, again played at Umoja.  The team did well, though they did not quite make it to the semi-final games. Nolan captured video footage of the games and created a YouTube channel for the team at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4GCcqNw5eUhghET6AE8bZg.

Isa and Rohullah were able to route themselves via the tournament as they were taking a truck load to take to California.  Isa managed to park the truck at Nolan’s hotel,  (video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOOWqQtTEmE) and they got to stay for a while and watch the games and spend some time with the boys.

Adjusting to the boys being not here has been hard.  Hedayat has also missed them and we have all been adjusting to a cultural shift in our household.  He doesn’t say much to us, but we know that it is difficult for him.  Nolan has also had to do a big shift in his grocery buying and cooking.  The African boys have a slightly different palate I guess you could say.

The timing of Abu’s arrival was serendipitous.  He came to us just as Ghani was leaving, and then Jean Claude came shortly after that.  So while we were grieving the loss of our original family, we also had to celebrate the new members of our family, and that helped to fill the space for us.   It was also fortunate that JC was here for the summer, as Hedayat was mostly away, and Abu was happy for JCs company.

And Abu is delightful.  He is quiet and has a lovely accent.  His first language is English and while he plays soccer, he seems a bit more intellectual and tech-savvy and plans to study computer networking and cybersecurity.  He is very helpful around the house, which is super awesome.  He is rather devout and goes to the Mosque whenever he is off on a Friday afternoon.  When we ask him if he is up for going somewhere or doing something, his response is often, “yes, after I pray I can go”.   When Abu smiles, (which he does quite a lot) his whole face crinkles up and he starts giggling.  It is very sweet.

This more or less gets us caught up to the Summer of 2019…  more updates are coming – there is a lot to tell you!

——–

Umoja Speech – Given at the Umoja Gala dinner in Schaumberg, IL  on July 1, 2017

August 25, 2017

As usual, I don’t know where to start.  Did I write about graduation?  That seems like ages ago already.

Roshan and Isa graduated from William Allen High School in June.  It was pretty awesome!

Shortly after that Ghani, Hedayat, Nolan and I headed to Chicago area for the big Umoja soccer tournament.  This is an annual soccer tournament that is put on to bring together Shia people from around the US, Canada and Europe.  The trip was quite an adventure for all of us.

We stayed about 15 minutes from where Nolan grew up in Elgin and got to see some old family friends.  (We had amazing deep dish pizza and Nolan’s oldest childhood friend took 16 of us out for a super fantastic Afghan dinner.)

Our boys had three friends from Michigan join us, and then two more joined us (so yes, seven boys in a hotel room!).  they were all so happy to be together and they had a great time playing soccer.  Four of the five boys who joined us in IL were new to Nolan and me – and they were just as delightful as the other boys we have met.
Nolan and I took four of the Michigan boys on a sightseeing trip to Chicago.  We went to Navy Pier and took a boat tour.  One of the boys had never been on a boat, and the others had only been on the very scary boat ride that got them from Malaysia to Indonesia – so this was a really great experience for all of them.  We all had so much fun.

It was a fabulous trip, and we were very sad to say goodbye.  So it was a very happy surprise when, the morning after we got home, four of the five Michigan boys showed up at our house in PA at 7 AM.  They were not quite ready for the visit to be over and had a few days more of vacation time from work, so they came for a visit to PA.

It is funny how when we had two boys, and they asked us to take 2 more, we weren’t sure how we could handle it and now we can have seven or eight, and when we are back down to only four, it feels very quiet and lonely.

The eight boys went to the park and played volleyball and soccer – they had a picnic and wanted to camp out at the mountain – something they did a lot growing up in Afghanistan.  They pitched their tent at my parents’ house but eventually decided to sleep at home.   And on the last day of their visit, I took the four Michigan boys on a day trip to NYC and we had a super time.

The program works differently in Michigan.  These guys all come in and spend a year in a group home and then they either go to a host/foster family or into an apartment.  But they don’t have an experience of being part of a family.  Their host/foster families go on vacations without them, they don’t plan their vacations around them.  The boys are more independent when they get to the foster home, so it is a different and more distant kind of relationship.  They don’t have what we have.

So this experience had me feeling a bit like Wendy Darling from Peter Pan – with all the lost boys.  And it feels to me like such a gift to be able to play that part, even a little bit, with these amazing boys.

We were still riding the high from that amazing adventure when a weird and troubling thing happened with our neighbors.  It is a long and weird story – I will try to make it brief.  We were woken at 3:30 in the morning by a police officer who said that our neighbor was outside in the alley screaming for Nolan to come out.  So our behind the alley neighbor was ranting and raving accusing our boys of having thrown a dead opossum at his head at around 8 pm, the previous evening (none of our boys was home at that time and none of them had ever even seen this neighbor, nor had they seen a dead opossum).  The story just got weirder from there with laser pointers and opossums stuck in blinds and us buying the Hess mansion…  The neighbor was obviously having mental health issues and the xenophobia and anti-immigrant  – I am not sure what to call it –  the ugliness that is passing for politics these days combined with the mental illness led to this bizarre encounter.  The police were very nice and were very clear that the neighbor was having mental health issues.  The whole thing was bizarre and unsettling and since then we have not seen our neighbors at all but it is sad that we have to be afraid for our boys’ safety from our neighbors.

Right after this, we were off to the beach at Ocean City, MD.  This year we went with my mom and the Shackelfords, and the Laudens – so there were the four Lauden children, three of our teens and seven adults.  We had a great time and had a really lovely spacious house.  The kids and our boys had so much fun together and I got to go jet skiing for the first time.  I never thought much about it, but I told the boys we would go, so I went and oh-my-gosh-I-had-so-much-fun!  (They are really fast!!!)   We played Uno and dominoes and tried to keep the kids from zoning out on their phones.  We went mini-golfing and sailing and the boys hung out at the boardwalk and my mom and Margaret went grocery shopping every day.  It went too fast.

We had barely unpacked from the beach when Mom and I were off to Dublin, Ohio for the Irish Festival.  The weather was great and it was a good show.  We came back, exhausted, but with not much time to recover.  Things picked up with four gigs in the seven days we have been back and lots of orders to fill and inventory to make.

In the midst of all that it wasn’t too surprising that Nolan and I both forgot our anniversary… thanks to my mom for remembering or we probably wouldn’t have thought of it until next year!  So it was our 9th anniversary and anyone who has known me for a long time will know how amazing that is.  Next year we are planning a big party to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  And no, I don’t really believe it has been that long because I am definitely not that old!

So this email is a bit newsier because I am trying to cover such a long time and so many different things and I apologize for that.