A Bridge - from the World to Our Home

“Would you like to meet and help the Gamu family, a young family comprised of a husband and wife, with three children under the age of 9 that is from Sudan?” That was the question presented to my wife Donna and I in December of 2021.
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Sami, his wife Swaiba, and their three children, Akram, Aya, Alaa and were recipients of the Bridge Refugee Services, Inc. (https://www.bridgerefugees.org/). They fled from their home in Sudan seven years previous to Egypt because of the violence of their home country.  The Gamu’s had applied for asylum in the United States in a legal and proper manner, and then waited, and waited and waited some more. They answered many questions and forms before given the call to come to the states. 
 
Sami and Swaiba packed very little personal items, and NO household items.  They left Egypt quickly and traveled here with no knowledge of what they had to do from day to day, or where they would end up. Fortunately, for all of those that volunteered to help them, including us, God had planned to put them right in the center our path, and the Clear Creek church.
 
Our task was to help gather clothes for each of them, furniture and household items for set up in their apartment that Bridge Refugee Service had acquired for them prior to their arrival.  There was, and is, a multitude of procedures and rules from Bridge Refugee Services of what is being paid for, and what they personally needed to do. There were even restrictions and rules for what any volunteers, like us, could do, and say.  All we really knew was that we were asked to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a fleeing Muslim family.
 
Oh my, the Gamu’s are the sweetest family.  What makes them so sweet is their energy, their gratitude for everything we do for them, and the desire to want us to be their “new” friends. Donna has a regular weekly English as a Second Language lesson with Sami, or Swaiba, or both. Regular doctor visits and shopping excursions have also been a part of our visit agendas. I have taken Sami shopping for bicycles and accessories, given Swaiba driving lessons. We’ve welcomed them into our homes for meals several times. We even showed up at Akram’s school cross country meet.  The Gamu’s were so surprised to see us there!  We explained that’s just what American Grandparents do!  We never fail to see them that Sami, Swaiba, and each of the children don’t reach out and given us warm and familia hugs. Everybody needs a Gamu family in their lives. We love them and never fail to mention that God loves them too!