Our Refugee Family has a New Home!

The Mojadady family, mom, dad, and two boys, 5 and 8 will be moving into a clean, comfortably furnished apartment with a well-stocked pantry and a hot meal awaiting them any time now. 

I cannot thank you all enough for your support of this project that Outreach took on last year. Your donations of household items, cleaning supplies, toiletries, money, time, and the love behind it have made it all possible. 

Below is a summary of our day yesterday, submitted by Ailsa Tessier. We have also included pictures from Mari Borstelmann.

Hooray for our team!! A masterful effort was made today to get the apartment ready for our Afghan family. What would the day have been without a bit of drama?! It needed MAJOR cleaning to start with – good thing the furniture wasn’t there at 9 am. But oh wait, there’s no water. Reported it to headquarters, and onward we cleaned. Sounds of scrubbing and vacuuming and the smell of Clorox filled the air, and things began to sparkle. Dave Waechter and Dave Kerr came to the rescue for safety measures for the screen-less windows; smoke detector batteries checked; aircon filter checked. Still no furniture. Cleaning, cleaning, items sorted. Jersey Mike’s sandwiches and chips for lunch welcomed. Still no furniture, no water.

   12:30 – Green Chair arrives with the furniture! Two guys, a truck, boxes of beds, assorted stuff – and things began to take shape. The sofa was a very exciting part of the day – it would not go around the corners of the stairs. After much engineering discussion, eventually it was hoisted up over the third floor railing with Dave Kerr and Ailsa assisting – finally made it in. Yikes – kitchen crew soon find water gushing out from under the sink onto the floor…friendly plumber Allison Martin dives under the sink, turns the shut-off valves, stanching the flood. Dave steps in to help Lillis mop up gallons of the stuff. Another call to HQ – property management plumber explains that the pipes are disconnected and the City turned off the water BECAUSE the pipes were disconnected – or something like that. When the water came on, well, you see what happened! So. Finally, all is now mopped up, and apartment arranging continues. In case you’re wondering, beds in boxes are very cool, and easy to move around. Finally it seems that things have taken shape, as clean as we can make it, and a list of any remaining problems recorded. and recycling and trash taken out.

  As it turns out, the family MAY not be able to move in on Thursday, as they cannot legally move into a place without water. So we will wait to hear an update on when it’s fixed, and when they can move in. Pam Blackwood is working on the first night’s dinner, and it may have to be put in the freezer, depending on when the family can move in.

There will be pictures on Facebook soon. This was a heroic effort on everyone’s part – and that’s what we do at Nativity when someone is in need. Thanks to all for your cheerful and willing spirits!