Walk From Syria
Steps in the Albed/Alhamad/Wahid Family Refugee Resettlement Journey
Hello everyone and welcome to the journey with our refugee family – the Albed/Alhamad/Wahid Family. We will travel with them on their ongoing journey from Syria to Saskatoon.
[In Muslim culture, a women keeps her maiden surname after marriage and children are given the surname of their father. Thus, Zahra continues to be Zahra Albed while her children use the surname of their father, Jseem Alhamad, who died in 2011. Nadia continues to be Nadia Alhamad while her husband and daughter are Ibrahim Wahid and Rahma Wahid.]
Many of you will remember the Walk to Jerusalem we did in 2010. It was so much fun! All of us kept an ongoing log of our activity and reported in. We were motivated to challenge others to increase their activity too – which helped us as a community to reach our final destination more quickly. This is actually the perfect time to do this again – not only is our refugee family enroute, but – if you are anything like me, your COVID activity routine is pretty stagnant!!
The goal is to enhance our daily exercise, and to learn individually and as a community by taking a few moments each week to read through a description of the stages in the journey and reflect on a scripture passage each week. The Albed/Alhamad/Wahid Family will teach us and share with us about what it was like in Syria, their trials and tribulations, their perspectives, the refugee application process and everything in between.
There are 9 stages in our journey with the Albed/Alhamad/Wahid Family. We as a congregation and community will join with them in heart and prayer and in any and every activity we can use to get us moving, to make our mileage/kilometers count. In accumulating distance, everything counts – as long as we are active.
Some suggestions: vacuuming, going up and down stairs, walking to get your mail, shoveling snow, doing the twist while watching TV. Extracurricular activities for all ages such as indoor or outdoor walking, kids sporting activities, or zoom exercise with a group (ie Ladies in Motion). In your senior’s complex – find a treadmill or do several loops around the inside of the building or suite/room. If you are moving – it counts!!
Instructions: Each and every 10 minutes is equivalent to 1 km. Use the daily log (back page of newsletter) or weekly log (on the Augustana website), and phone or email your weekly results into to Lorene at the church office by Friday noon. We start in Syria February 1st and over 9 weeks we will trek 9,780 km to Saskatoon!
A description of each stage in the journey, a reading and reflection is available on the Augustana website at http://augustanasaskatoon.net/walk-from-syria. We will tabulate the kilometers weekly – so we can show you virtually where we are and how much further we have to go.
So – go find a virtual buddy, neighbor, or a family member and ask them to participate – every kilometre counts!
The challenge is on! Good Luck!!
Carol – Parish Nurse
The Health Cabinet and Refugee Sponsorship Committee, Augustana Lutheran Church
Our Preparation: Making the decision to join the journey – “For we Walk by faith, not by sight” 2 Corinthians 5:7
We make decisions everyday regarding our physical, spiritual and emotional health. It is so easy to procrastinate and fill our days with everything but that which is good for us. This week as you begin on this walking journey and decide to be good stewards of the body God has given you, may you walk by faith and grow stronger spiritually and physically and build community as we spend time in reflection with your Heavenly Father and in activity learning and supporting each other. Congratulations on making the decision to come on this journey!
Introducing the Albed/ Alhamad and Wahid families.
Zahra Albed and her children Kais, Zeinab, Ammar, Ibrahim and Zamzam Alahamad reside here in Saskatoon. Nadia, the eldest daughter, was unable to move with the family at the same time as her marriage to Ibrahim while residing in Lebanon made her an independent and no longer a dependent child. Zahra has worked tirelessly to reunify the family. Nadia and her family continue to live as refugees in northern Lebanon until they are approved to come to Canada.
Before Nest could proceed with an application to sponsor Nadia and her family it had to raise the more than $26,000 needed to support the family during their first year. This was accomplished within a few months thanks to the generous support of donors from within Augustana and the wider community.
Monica Johnson worked closely with the Anglican Diocese of Saskatoon to prepare an application to Canada Immigration and Citizenship for the private sponsorship of Nadia, her husband Ibrahim and their young daughter as refugees. The application was submitted in November 2019 and Ibrahim Wahid was called for an interview on March 4, 2020. Unfortunately, the covid-19 pandemic caused the processing of refugee applications to grind to a halt before Nadia's family were approved. The area where they live is unstable so the need for them to find a safe home becomes ever more urgent but their application to CIC awaits the final steps in the process.
Both Kais and Zeinab Alhamad prepared videos for the Saskatoon Open Door Society’s digital story telling project. To view them, click the links below:
In the photos below (top) are, left to right, Zahra Albed, Zamzam Alhamad, Faith Rohrbough, Pastor Marilyn Fowlie-Neufeld and Kais Alhamad. Below are, left to right, Nadia Alhamad, Rahma Wahid and Ibrahim Wahid.
