wfn.org | KENTUCKY DELI CONNECTION FINDS REFUGEE FAMILY A HOM

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TITLE:KENTUCKY DELI CONNECTION FINDS REFU
June 26, 1996
Episcopal News Service
James Solheim, Director
(212) 922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

96-1510
KENTUCKY DELI CONNECTION FINDS REFUGEE FAMILY A HOME

BY JAMES H. THRALL
           (ENS) When Donna Straus, director of Kentucky Refugee Ministries in
Louisville, went to the airport on an April afternoon, she
expected to pick up one family of Bosnian refugees.
           She found two.
           The second family--Zijad Hadzihaskic, his wife, Melva, their
daughter, Zemira, 16, and son, Zemir, 12--were being resettled by
Episcopal Migration Ministries, the national refugee service of the Episcopal
Church. Information about the family, including their arrival
date, had been sent to Kentucky, Strauss said, but the date had been
overlooked. 
           No local connections had been made with a sponsoring parish. No
apartment was waiting for them. No system of support was in
place.
           When she saw the family standing in the airport "looking extremely
worried because they quickly realized that they weren't
expected," Straus said she was particularly struck by the look in Zemir's
eyes. "He's my son's age. He was afraid, shy, confused. I just
melted."
           The Hadzihaskics were reassured that "it didn't matter whether they
were expected, they were going to be welcomed," she said.

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER              
           While taking the family to a hotel where they could stay while she
figured out what to do with them, Straus stopped at a
delicatessen to get them something to eat. "As we approached the deli's
entrance, a `closed' sign was going up, and the floors were being
mopped," she recalled, but "I tapped on the glass and we were allowed in."
           While their sandwiches were being made, another man came in as
well.
           "We struck up a conversation and I told him that the Hadzihaskic
family was straight off the plane from Croatia as Bosnian
refugees," Straus said. "As we ate lunch, this gentleman came over to me with
a $100 bill, which he asked me to use to help this family."
           When Straus asked him why he was being so generous, he told her
that he was Bill Chandler, the outreach/mission coordinator
for St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Louisville.      "Here I was in a closed
delicatessen with an unexpected EMM family, and the only
other person in the restaurant was the mission chair of an Episcopal parish,"
Straus said. In addition, she said, it was a parish she had been
hoping to interest in sponsoring a family. For weeks, however, she had been
unable to reach the parish rector, the Rev. John Hines, by
telephone.
           "Bill suggested I call him right then. It was after 5 p.m. so I
knew he wouldn't be at the church, but I tried anyway," Straus
said. "Of course he answered the phone. It was one of those moments when `I
think I'm not doing this for nothing.'"

A CONGREGATION ADOPTS A FAMILY
           The following Sunday, Hines made "the most eloquent appeal" during
the morning service, she said. "After that, the church just
inhaled this family." 
           As the family's new-found sponsors, the congregation has assisted
with rent and other financial help, provided furniture,
organized potluck suppers, and taken them shopping, she reported. Both Zijad
and Melva have found jobs.
           "It was a fairy tale," Straus said, that has continued to work its
magic. "When we get so busy that we despair that there are not
enough hours to do this work, we are reminded by some unusual incident--at
some critical time--that we are not doing this work alone," she
said.

--JAMES H. THRALL IS DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE EPISCOPAL
CHURCH.