Anna, Michael, and Charlene. I just discovered this discussion line today. I discovered Michael when first joining Weavers and being involved in his circle last year. Michael's story about an encounter with a little girl made me think of an encounter that my wife and I had 10 years ago that was life-changing. We were both recently retired and looking for something worthwhile to do in this next faze of our lives. We were bored with our new life of reading and taking walks. One Sunday, a friend of ours in church told us of meeting a young woman at a neighbor's backyard BBQ the night before. She had come from Syria to our local university's summer program, Global Village. She had no money, coming from a poor family, and over on a short 2 month scholarship. And the US government had just issued an order including people from Syria in the Temporary Protected Status program. She had heard about "hosts" and was wondering if that was a possibility for her.
One of her summer program leaders brought her over to our home the next day. We were easily and totally persuaded to have her live with us for a year. My wife, a retired administrator, talked to her friends, one of whom knew about a never used scholarship, set up by an Iranian ambassador to the US, limited to students from the Middle East. Wafaa enrolled in an intensive English program for the year, intending to then enter graduate school. She did well, and moved to and completed 2 graduate programs at Brandeis U in Boston. We are still her American mom and dad after these 10 years.
But during her year with us, we met quite a few graduate international students who we discovered were very isolated in their lab or office in their single department, with significant loneliness. The university had previously had a program with 3 employees that worked hard to get these students out into the community, but the program had been axed due to cost-cutting in 2008. With several friends, we started International Friends to create opportunities for the students to get out into homes and make connections. It has been a struggle, all with volunteer help, but recently making connections with our community's refugee and immigrant office and community, with Athletics United, a running and soccer program for families and kids that can't afford the expensive sports programs, and now the university's new office of DEI, interested in fostering an international community of professors and staff on campus.
To bring us full circle, we now have a new professor in the music department from Syria, by way of Cedar City, Iowa. He came to the US 10 years ago, at the same time as our daughter Wafaa. And he is the new conductor of our local symphony orchestra where I met him. He and his family are fully Syrian and fully American, a part of the weaving that is going on in our country and in much of the world right now. I am constantly reminded that we all have a common set of ancestral parents, Adam and Eve. And many wonderful sons and daughters. Thanks, Anna, Michael, and Charlene, for being part of my world as fellow weavers.