It sounds like that should have been the end of the difficulties.  From the perspective of the two families this has been a major relief.  There are no quarrels, no ongoing relationship problems.  Fantastic!

But there is a problem with “the System,” in this case, one small part of public assistance…

Since refugees families arrive with no income we immediately apply for a food card.  This card, like older food stamps, provides the family with a credit for some of their groceries each month.  This helps keep their expenses under control while we search for employment.

(For those who read this and say, “see refugee resettlement does raise my taxes,” slow down.  Yes, we use this benefit.  Please keep in mind that within a few months, most of our refugees are off of assistance and are paying taxes like the rest of us.  They are net contributors into the system, not a burden upon the system.  Part of the reason we can achieve such great results is that some assistance is available when they first arrive.)

Anyway, back to the story… With this two-family resettlement we learned an interesting thing about food assistance.  When the question was raised, “do they eat together?” we answered yes.  After all, they shared the same house.  Well, an affirmative answer meant they would get a single food card.  Ooh, big mistake.  (In retrospect we understand they didn’t even like each other so there’s no way they were eating together.  They weren’t even sharing food.)

So a single food card for two families created some of the tension they experienced while sharing the same house.  “So and so spent too much money on that.”  “I want my own card.”  “How come he gets to carry the card and I don’t?”  Blah, blah, blah…

Nearly two months ago the families separated.  It sounds like it should be a simple task to get two food cards.  But, it is not.

Initially when the first family moved out, we took them grocery shopping to use up “their share” of the food card, stocking their shelves.  It was the middle of the October and they would not get a new card until the beginning of November. 

Then November arrived, still only a single food card, rechared for two families.  Now we had to share it.  We packed up the family living near us, drove them to the family living 25 miles away, and took them all grocery shopping.

But since it is a new month, the single vs. two card scenario could be worked out, by those state employees who work out such issues.

Fast forward to early December.  The original food card is replenished with about half the original amount.  This represents the assistance for the family that moved to Milwaukee.  At least they could just continue using the old card.  That allows one family to eat.  We just had to get the card into the hands of the right family.

The bigger problem arose with the family that stayed in Waukesha.  Apparently, though the process was slow, the notice of the new card was mailed, and then followed up shortly by the mailing of the card.  But by the end of the first week of December it had not arrived.  And there was no one to question, because all associated state employees were, apparently, out of the office.

Then early this week, voice contact was once again established!  We learned that the card had, indeed, been mailed.  BUT, since forwarding a food card to a new address is somehow illegal, the postal service returned it to sender.  (What, no one ever moves?)

The card was therefore cancelled, and no one was notified.  Nice, huh? 

So we start the process once again.  It’s now the end of the second week in December and our family does not have their food assistance yet.  Their cash is low.  Our team’s funds are gone.  We’re relying on individual donations at the moment.

We’ve learned a lot with this particular resettlement case.  After a number of very successful resettlements, this double case has been more than double effort.  At first it seemed logical to handle two related families, as if we could “kill two birds with one stone.”  We deviated from our proven model and it’s costing us extra time, extra money, and risking burnout of team members.

It’s the burnout that is the worst part of all.  It means little bumps in the road, which are a normal course of resettlement, seem much bigger.  Stress goes up and there is reluctance to continue.  A burned out team does not jump back in to take on another case.  It means our future effectiveness may also be negatively impacted.

Every resettlement brings about different issues.  Each becomes its own story.  Each varies somehow in its outcome.

Our current resettlement case is still underway.  We’re more than 3 months in at this point and we’ve reached an interesting milestone… 4 moves.  That is we’ve moved the family, or parts of the family, into 4 different living quarters.

Well, to be fair, I should state that our case really consisted of two family units.  So, maybe that’s only two each.  In that case it’s not bad.  If you’re following along, the playbook looks like this…

1. Pick up 8 family members at the airport.  There was much tiredness as the trip from Thailand to Milwaukee is arduous.
2. Same day, move them all into a close relative’s apartment in Milwaukee.  There was much joy in the reuniting.  (move 1)
3. A few weeks later, unpack the sardine-like situation, moving the recent 8 arrivals into a house in Waukesha. There were mixed emotions of separation and settling down. (move 2)
4. A couple months later, split the family in half, with the parents and siblings of the relative in Milwaukee wanting to move back to Milwaukee and away from the others.  Meanwhile the related family unit in Waukesha wanted their separation, and found reason to stay in Waukesha. This was mostly happy, though I think a couple that moved would have been better off staying and one who stayed really wanted to move. (move 3)
5. With the expense of renting a house on their own completely unaffordable at this point, the family remaining in Waukesha had to downsize.  Today we moved them into an apartment. I think they were happy about this. (move 4)

So there you have it.  Four moves – a single resettlement.  With any luck the present situation becomes stable.

I am writing this so that you have awareness that refugee resettlement is not always predictable…

There is a “system” in place in which we have to abide.  (Regardless of my feelings about the system at various points in time, the only way to navigate it successfully in any given moment is to go with the flow.)  There are personalities of the refugees and personalities of the resettlement team members.  Everyone involved, best as I can tell, is human.  That makes us fallible.  We do our best with the information we have and discover the consequences at future points.

This is all to say that as much as we would like to follow a simple checklist of “do this then that,” it doesn’t always work out that way.  For example, my list says, “move them into an apartment where they can live until they decide to move themselves.”  And, there is only one alternative which states, “move them into some temporary housing until the apartment is available.”  That’s it, two moves.

Some may be disappointed that we have extra work to do.  Some feel bad for those of us who have to do the same activity over again.  But neither of those is necessary.  We have chosen to help refugees get started with a new life here.  If it takes 4 moves to get it right, then so be it!  We want to get it right.

By the way, we had enough help to get everything moved out of the house into a pickup truck and several minivans, a couple trips back and forth, and we were done in 2 hours.

Now if we can stop moving, let’s get focused on employment!

Each refugee resettlement effort writes its own story.  This one started off as particularly difficult because we were helping two families simultaneously.  Then, if you’ve read along, you remember that we had some issues moving the families into a house in a community 25 miles away from some of their family members who arrived sooner.

The situation has progressed on a downhill slide such that the 25 miles has become an overwhelming emotional distance.  This is intensified by one known factor — that is, the honeymoon is over and reality is setting in.  Nearly all refugees go through this emotionally tough stage. 

And, it’s intensified by a previously unknown factor — that is, these two families came as a linked case and therefore we all made some incorrect assumptions.  We assumed they had been together, liked each other, and wanted to stay that way.  Wrong, wrong, and wrong.  It turns out that these families lived apart in the refugee camp because they don’t get along when they’re living together.  You may understand that living with the in-laws might not be a good time.  Well, that’s the other factor coming into play.

So now what?  Here are some excerpts from a couple emails that were passed through our resettlement team.

“Things do change quickly sometimes, don’t they?
 
Two weekends ago, a crisis erupted between the families and the conclusion to all that came rather fast.   During this past week, there has been open dialog and great honesty between the families, LSS, and many of us on the committee.  I am so impressed with the communication, the love and the caring demonstrated with all involved during this difficult time.

In the end, some key members of the families made it clear that they are very lonely and sad to be living away from family in Milwaukee.  The rest of the family wants to stick together even if they may not be in total agreement about moving out of our community.

The details and consequences are a bit complicated and hard to sum up but bottom-line, they are adults using their free will to make a decision that is right for them.  I truly believe we provided sound information, advice, and encouragement for an informed decision. 
 
We worked hard, doing a great job though the outcome is not what we expected.

Whether they stay or leave, succeed or fail, we have given freely and that does not change based on the outcome.  We can be proud of our efforts!

This was followed by a reply…

“As I have processed and considered everything that has happened over the course of the last couple weeks, I am reminded that there are no guarantees while serving others.  In their shoes, I probably would have made the same decision.

Imagine leaving behind all you know, most of what you own, and going to another country (you don’t speak the language or understand the cultural norms), but you know you have a loved one already established there.  Then you arrive and discover that you aren’t going to live with or even near them.

Add to that the fact that culturally, you are expecting to live with that person.  What a let down — perhaps more traumatic than we realized.  I know we made a great effort to drive the family to visit their relatives frequently.  But, without their own transportation and the ability to see their relatives as often as they wanted (daily) it wasn’t enough.  Milwaukee is very far away from that perspective.

We mustn’t view this as a failure.  First, our role as sponsors is intended to be temporary.  And we have already met the timeline established by LSS for our involvement.  Also, the purpose we serve is to help re-establish independence and security while becoming part of our society.  We’ve done that — the fact that they trusted us enough to be honest about their situation and needs is an example of this. 

Also, that we honor their decision after providing them with the pros and cons from our perspective/experience, is evidence of that.  They could have chosen never to come. Perhaps that would have been better in terms of their emotional well being.  But, having come to Waukesha they blessed us with another experience to serve and witness our calling as Christians and as Refugee Sponsors.  We also gave them the best we could to help get started in this new life in the United States. 

Moving to Milwaukee doesn’t change that.  We helped them get started, now they will take what they’ve learned here and move to a new place, closer to their loved ones, and continue their journey.  It may not be what we hoped for, but it will be what they chose.  They have people who care about them and their welfare who will help them adjust.

I wanted to present this information to help out anyone considering refugee resettlement.  Your goal is to help any refugees become contributing members of society in the shortest period of time.  You may picture the desired outcome in your mind, and it’s great to strive for that, but in the end you must accept the reality of the situation. 

In this case we helped start their new life, but we will not finish their transition.  Our role ends sooner than intended.  The good news is that we can regroup and help another family, probably sooner than otherwise possible!

The plan and reality did not quite mesh today.  There is a great lesson in this.  Every refugee family is led by at least one adult.  Adults are allowed to make their own decisions.

What happened, you ask?  The intention for today was to get the family out to sign a lease for their housing.  Normally this is not a choice as we generally procure housing before they arrive.  We look for low cost housing so that they will be able to afford it on their own as soon as possible.

But this was not a usual situation.  The family arrived too soon relative to our commitment to resettle.  We had no opportunity to find housing in advance.  In previous situations we have had families stay in our own house until we solved the problem.

This time, our refugee family had relatives in Milwaukee.  So they moved in with their relatives.  The risk, which we understood, was that they might want to continue to live nearby and not move out to Waukesha.  Though not real far apart, the 25 miles one way, is a difficult distance to handle for sponsors.  Plus, in this case, they are living in Milwaukee County while we are in, and familiar with, Waukesha County.

Today that risk was made real.  We had two drivers on the way to pick up the eight family members and bring them out to see their home and sign the lease.  While they were driving in one of our team co-chairs spoke to the LSS caseworker who met with the family at the covert :) orientation meeting yesterday.  Apparently the family was adamant that they would stay in Milwaukee.

Since the drivers were already en route we decided to continue on course to bring them to Waukesha to see the place we had picked out for them.  We were also able to get an interpreter to have some discussion about their future.

Our minds were made up.  If they chose to stay in Milwaukee, we would cancel our resettlement commitment with LSS and take on a new family.  Families are arriving in the area every few days so it would not be a problem to get another family.  It would just be tough for the current family to continue without a sponsor.  It’s not something we would like to do, but carrying on the resettlement with a 50-mile roundtrip per visit, and often a need for 2 drivers, would burn our team out too quickly.  That would not benefit anyone.

The drivers arrived with the family and came into our church.  The family saw their own picture on the wall along with the sign-up sheet for furniture and other donations.  Perhaps that had an impression.  After that we walked to the house they would be living in.

In contrast to the 13 people stuffed into a two-bedroom apartment in Milwaukee they will be living with 8 people in a three-bedroom house in Waukesha.  I think when they saw how much space they would have, along with a nice bathroom, excellent kitchen, various appliances in the house, and a large backyard for the children, they were swayed.  (At least with my cultural bias these are things that would sway my opinion.  Whether these are things they found important, I do not really know at this point.)

In just a few minutes of light conversation one of the family members spoke up that they would move out to Waukesha.  We offered to give them the night to think about it further and talk about it with their relatives.  We did not want to push them to a decision.  We do not want them to make a decision they might regret later.

They confirmed their decision.  We walked back to a park that is next to church and let the children play while we chatted a little bit more.  After that they signed the lease. 

It was clearly valuable that the family be exposed to all of the available information, not just the emotion of the original conversation.  Once they could see, in a tangible reality, where they would live, and that 25 miles from their relatives is not across the country, and that they will probably get a car someday, and that their relatives can visit, and that there is a Burmese community just a few blocks from their place, it’s not all that bad.  In fact, it’s pretty darn good.

Whew!  In the end nothing changed or everything changed, twice.