Ann Ferro: A different connection at the airport

Syracuse Hancock airport is a cavernous, almost spooky place at 11 p.m. Your footsteps echo over the travertine, adding to the sense of being alone. But I wasn’t alone. There I was, standing at the arrival gate, eight months pregnant and weary, the leader of a small group of volunteers, waiting for a family of Vietnamese refugees to arrive.
This late evening sojourn was part of my job as the “Director of Refugee Resettlement” for the western region of the Diocese of Syracuse. The title sounds important, and I suppose, for those who depended on what I did, it was.
I was the final connection between the boat people fleeing the persecution of the Viet Cong and the dream of a new life in the U.S. A matchmaker of sorts. On this particular day, I wasn’t impressed with any of this. I was simply tired and feeling a bit sorry for myself. A sad commentary.
We were expecting a family of 10, parents and children. A church in Liverpool had agreed to sponsor the family and had spent a good amount of time learning how to become a sponsor and how to implement sponsorship. They had learned about the culture of the people with whom they would be working, found an apartment, raised the money to cover the rent, etc. for six months, stocked the pantry with appropriate foodstuffs, filled the closets with clothing, arranged for regular transportation, started a job search… the list was long and they were up to it.
The incoming family had fled Vietnam in one of the thousands of boats of all kinds to find an interim status in a neighboring country. This family had been in a camp in the Philippines for almost three years.
Which refugees came was under the direction of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and one of the many NGO organizations such as the Church World Service or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. At this particular time, the arrival of refugees was rather haphazard. Sometimes we had a lead time to prepare, other times we did not.
Our little band waited, a little less patiently than we should have, but remember, it was late and, on that early October night, the weather was less than welcoming. It was blustery and cold.
I often think of what it must have been like for the family with children ages 14 to 6 months to anticipate this arrival. This was a family from a rural area in Vietnam. Their daily life was far from that of those who lived in more modern, urban areas. The father was a school teacher who had served as an interpreter for the U.S armed forces and, as such, was marked, as was his family, by the Viet Cong.
And there they were, dressed in flip flops and summer attire, sleepy eyed and anxious. I mean, who wouldn’t be? The volunteers were ready with coats and hats but they weren’t prepared for the grateful tears of the parents.
I accompanied the group back to the apartment that had been prepared for the family.
And, though it was now very late – almost the next day, another part of the resettlement group had prepared food for the family, producing a kitchen table laden with Vietnamese dishes. Food is truly the international way of connecting. I watched the children’s eyes sweep over the more familiar foodstuffs and then land on a plate full of Oreo cookies. Little hands grabbed the sweet snack and their joyful chatter and smiles lifted the spirits of all of us, infusing much-needed energy. And so it began…
This family excelled at becoming acclimated to life in the U.S. The father got a job in the housekeeping department at St. Joe’s. The children were enrolled in their local school district and, as children do, became fluent in English in record time, soaking up the education that was available. The church made a small plot of land available for planting and the family, adults and children, worked the land to the point that they had enough produce to sell. In warmer weather they fished in the Seneca River, fully utilizing, the freezer in their refrigerator, something amazing to them. They become self sufficient quickly and helped my office resettle other families.
I did little compared with the efforts of the church volunteers nor could I compare my job to the energy and courage of the refugees themselves …but I was there, doing that job, tired but happy that my soon-to-arrive child would be born into a community that will make a meal to replicate the culture of the refugee but add its own Oreo cookies. I couldn’t help but remind myself of the admonition to be kind to strangers, lest they be angels unawares.