! Important Post !

Hi Blog Readers,

My church group is welcoming and "adopting" a refugee family to Austin. They're a family of 4 from Burma (the parents are in their late 20s and have a 5 year old daughter and 2 year old son) and they fled Burma due to ethnic/religious persecution and have been living in India for some time now. We meet them at the airport for the first time next Thursday, September 3rd and have lots of things to do before their arrival!

Our group is excited about all the preparation for their arrival and could really use some support and help if you're able and willing :). The refugee family will only have a few personal belongings when they arrive so we're collecting things for their apartment and everyday items before they arrive.

Some things we're collecting:
- bedroom furniture
- kitchen items (place settings and cookware)
- appropriately sized clothing
- HEB gift card donations
- monetary donations to fund the purchase of the above items + misc items

In addition to preparing for their arrival, we're looking forward to getting to know them, welcoming and showing them around Austin, and helping them as much as we can (i.e. applying for social security cards, scheduling health assessments, practicing english with them). Prayers and thoughts for the family as they transition are also much needed and appreciated.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Let me know if you're interested and I'm always open for suggestions/ideas on how to welcome this family well! Feel free to forward this opportunity to anyone else that might be interested.

<3 johanna and her church group

p.s. info about burmese refugees for your reading pleasure:

1) Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) - In depth 88 page publication on Burmese Refugees, with highlights on the Chin ethnic group – page 50.

http://www.cal.org/co/pdffiles/refugeesfromburma.pdf


2) Church World Service - Short news piece on plight of Burmese monks and refugee situation, 2007:

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:dWhhfZnKjz0J:www.churchworldservice.org/site/News2%3Fpage%3DNewsArticle%26id%3D6362+church+world+service+burma&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


3) Relief Web – News article on the Monk’s uprising in Burma, 2007:

http://www.reliefweb.int/rwarchive/rwb.nsf/db900sid/TBRL-78CQ3N?OpenDocument


4) Christian Today – News article on refugee situation in 2006, with reader comment at bottom from Burmese refugee persecuted for religious beliefs:

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/church.world.service.calls.on.un.to.respond.to.burma.violence/7805.htm


5) Refugees International – Short current 2009 piece on Burmese refugees, with links to other resources:

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/where-we-work/asia/burma?gclid=COCr98iDwJwCFQ8MDQod7HJbmw


6) Indo-Burma News – news piece on Chin Burmese refugees living in India (profile of the Nawl family), 2009:

http://www.indoburmanews.net/archives-1/archive06/aug_06/273/