Churches provide home for refugees
Refugee family from conflict-torn central Africa nation now has a home in Fredericksburg
Date published: 3/1/2008
BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE
After a two-day flight from Africa, Alex Bizimana arrived in America with a raspy cough and barely enough energy to move.
His four brothers ran around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport playing tag and climbing on chairs, but 3-year-old Alex rocked lethargically in a stranger's arms.
Just before midnight on Valentine's Day, his brothers laughed and sang songs in their native Kirundi--a Burundian dialect--but Alex was silent except for wheezing breaths.
His dark eyes--the color of Hershey bars and the shape of almonds--drifted several times but never shut.
For the first three years of his life, Alex lived in a thatch hut. He never left the Mpanda refugee camp in Tanzania where he was born. Now, the high, arching ceilings of the airport terminal caught his attention.
After a handful of church workers and the Fredericksburg Refugee Service coordinator sorted out the paperwork and lost luggage, Alex settled on the seat of a Fredericksburg Baptist Church van. He nibbled on animal crackers and trail mix for the ride to Fredericksburg, staring out the window during the hourlong journey to a house on Normandy Avenue.
Wrapped in a blanket against the cold, dark night, Alex and his family waited for the black door of the small brick rambler to be unlocked. With a small porch light illuminating his face, he smiled for the first time since arriving in Virginia.
Alex was home--at least for the next few months.
Alex and his family are the first refugees to stay in a guest house donated to Micah Ecumenical Ministries.
The coalition of city churches hopes the house will give the Burundian family a few months to acclimate to American culture before the parents settle into a more permanent place.
Since 2004 when the Catholic Diocese of Arlington began settling refugees in the Fredericksburg area, nearly 200 have come, most from central Africa.
The Rev. Larry Haun, pastor of Fredericksburg Baptist Church, one of the eight Micah churches, got involved two years ago. He recently said helping the refugees is matter of life and death because of the persecution the refugees face in their homeland and the conditions they endure in the camps.
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The Sunshine Lady Foundation, a charitable group that helps women and children, purchased the Fredericksburg house and gave it to Micah Ecumenical Ministries for refugees beginning their lives in the area.
Since 2004 when the Catholic Diocese of Arlington began settling refugees in the Fredericksburg area, nearly 200 have come, most from central Africa. The diocese allots federal money for refugee resettlement during the first three months after their arrival.
Munira Marlowe, refugee service coordinator for Fredericksburg, sought the house to serve as a transitional home--a place where a refugee family could learn how to keep a home, how to use indoor plumbing, electricity, a stove, a bed before becoming responsible for a place of their own.
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Now, most refugees settle in Olde Forge in Stafford County and Bragg Hill in Fredericksburg, because these neighborhoods have townhouses available on short notice.
At the guest house, the Rev. Larry Haun said the family will pay rent from the beginning. When the refugees leave that money will be applied to the first month's rent, a utility deposit and a security deposit on their next place.
With time and money, Haun hopes refugees will be able to settle in other locations. They need to be near jobs and grocery stores, because transportation is a problem. But within six months, they could have driving permits, Haun said, making it possible to live farther out in the counties.
The guest house also gives the refugee service coordinator and her two case managers a break. They get sometimes as little as three days' notice that a refugee family will arrive. That's not much time to find a place to house eight, nine, 10 people and get furniture, linens and food.
If the Refugee Service Center staff members don't have to worry about finding and setting up houses, they can concentrate on other refugee resettlement issues: getting Social Security cards, immunizations, jobs and food stamps; setting up English classes; and overseeing volunteers.
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The central African neighbor of Rwanda has been in turmoil since the 1970s. Burundi, a predominantly Christian nation, became independent from Belgium in 1961, but tension between two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis, plagued the country from its beginning. In 1972, the first major tribal massacre occurred in Burundi. Tutsi militia killed Hutus.
It is difficult to get an accurate count, said Alison DesForges, a senior adviser for Human Rights Watch, but the United Nations has estimated that anywhere from 90,000 to 250,000 Hutus were killed. About 150,000 Burundians fled their country in 1972, including Alex Bizimana's grandparents.
The situation there improved and in 1993, Burundians held their first ever democratic elections.
Months later, the president was assassinated and violence erupted, leading to the deaths of about 300,000 people and another wave of refugees.
In 2005, the country held another election, and the new government has signed a peace agreement, DesForges said. The Burundian situation remains "hard to characterize," she said.
The government has worked to represent the ethnic groups and and the peace agreement is working. Still. a group of 8,000 combatants has not signed the agreement. The group's spokesman said the combatants will join in new peace talks, said Barnabe Ndayikeza, a Burundian journalist. Armed thefts and scattered murders also worry Burundians, Ndayikeza said.
Also, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees plans to close Tanzanian camps this year and send Burundians back to their native country.
Most of these people have no land to return to, DesForges said. And as people have multiplied in the camps, there simply isn't enough land to go around in a country roughly the size of Maryland and with a population of nearly 8.4 million, also comparable to Maryland.
While the country is relatively peaceful now, DesForges said, fights could erupt over land and food as those two resources become scarce.
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The Rev. Larry Haun sees the guest house as the best way to acclimate a family to the area: give them time to settle, teach them English, find them jobs and then worry about finding a place to live.
But the house has not been able to alleviate the stress of the Refugee Service Center, as he'd hoped. Haun envisioned one small family using the guest house for six months, then moving on so the next family could come.
Seven refugee families arrived in Fredericksburg in late January and February, joining about 200 who arrived over the past four years.
The refugee service coordinator, Micah volunteers and two Micah interns sometimes made back-to-back late-night airport runs to pick up families.
During a 30-day period, the center had to find six homes and staff members often found themselves scrambling to find churches and organizations to furnish those homes.
In the past, the Fredericksburg officials have worried about the effect of so many refugees on the school system. The Catholic Diocese of Arlington agreed to a three-month respite, where no refugees came to the area.
The 54 refugees who've arrived so far this year have been split between Stafford County and the city of Fredericksburg. The children are scheduled to begin school next week.
Additional families are likely to arrive later this year. So far, only one more family is slated to resettle here.
To help the refugees, call the service center at 540/899-6507 or e-mail: m.marlowe@arlingtondiocese.org.
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Date published: 3/1/2008
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