 Welcome to today's vital conversation with our community welcoming the stranger a dialogue with leaders regarding I am's work and refugee resettlement and welcoming the stranger. Interfaith Ministries is pleased to be able to host these virtual conversations on topics with people and organizations in our community addressing crucial issues. I offer our thanks for the support of sit co petroleum corporation as the sponsor of our whole 2021 series. Before I proceed just a reminder that this event is both being recorded and live streamed to I am's Facebook page. Thank you all who are joining us here in zoom please keep yourselves muted and please use the chat box to send me any questions along the way. Again, we welcome those who are joining us via Facebook live. Final conversations emerged after the death of George Floyd, a son of Houston's Third Ward in May of 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In June we brought our three amigos Reverend William Watson Archbishop Joe Fierenza and Rabbi Sam carf into dialogue to begin the series. We the final time that the three amigos would be together in the same place as Rabbi carf died on August last August, our fall 2020 series covered a wide range of topics and highlighted incredible Houston based on profits and organizations making an impact on our communities. We began our 2021 series in July with a conversation with Ashley Johnson and Jonathan Brooks from link Houston about transportation and equity. Our August vital conversation with Eileen Morris and Rachel Hill Dixon feature the ensemble theater, and then we welcome Brandy Holmes and Rachel Schneider from Project curate on the spirit of social change. And please visit www.imgh.org to learn more about interfaith ministries work and how to donate at IMGH.org you can learn learned about our overall work in the community. You can learn more about our 2021 series as well. Today our theme is welcoming the stranger and we highlight the work of refugee services at interfaith ministries may seem odd to feature ourselves in a vital conversation. It is not our intent for the vital conversation to be an advertisement for our work though we hope it very much is because of the importance of this work. The historic situation unfolding and Houston and interfaith ministries are right in the middle of it. This is a vital issue affecting our community and I am just so happens to be a significant part of addressing welcoming refugees into our community, as we have done so for 30 years. We have done so because welcoming the stranger is a core tenant of every major religious tradition. When you examine the constants through the values the scriptures the stories and the overall witness of religious communities, the offering of refuge and hospitality is unmistakably present. Many major religions were born in times of oppression or force migration of people seeking better lives for themselves and their families. They were born in times of wandering of transience of instability. And interfaiths do not forget that they were shown hospitality in new lands. And so they call for their adherence to show that same hospitality. For my own Christian faith I'll quote just one verse from the letter to the Hebrews do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by doing so, people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. This stranger is a core practice and is one reason why I am has practiced it practiced it through the work of refugee resettlement. Let's hear then in her own words from sangha, a newly resettled refugee from Afghanistan, who was also highlighted in a recent CW 39 newscast. My name is Sangha. I'm a wife and mother of three children. I'm from Afghanistan. I have worked for USAID in Afghanistan and Jalalabad and Kabul and that's my story. Well, since the U.S. actually pulled back its support in Afghanistan and removed its troops, many Afghans were left in a life-threatening situation. And for those who could not flee, of course, they had to stay. But others who could flee came here to America, which was mainly for many their only option they had. CW 39 Sydney Simone shares this more on how now a new refugee family is finally able to resettle right here in Houston. Tell us more, Sydney. Well, good morning, Sharon. Since the beginning of July, interfaith ministries has resettled 116 refugees from eight different countries. Of those, 66 are Afghans and one family says they decided to leave before it was too late. This is Sangha. For safety concerns, she doesn't want to reveal her identity. Sangha worked for the United States in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. One day she received a notice to leave work because she and other women were working against the Taliban. After a few months, Sangha says her family was in danger. Because her family was not safe and did not have enough security, they had no choice but to leave their home country. Now she lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband Marat and their three sons. Sangha says we applied for an SIV, special immigrant visa. After two years, we were approved to come to America. Now my family is comfortable here because we feel secure. When I asked Sangha what her family is looking forward to the most, she said future and freedom. Her husband recently started a job and her two oldest sons are in school. Sangha says America can provide her family with a lifetime of opportunities. Sangha says she feels relief knowing that they are safe. But leaving her family members behind was the hardest thing she's had to face, leaving Afghanistan. They're not safe. Sangha says they're a target for the Taliban and that's what worries her. I asked Sangha if there were plans to return to her hometown. Right now the answer is no because it's too dangerous. She says if things return to normal and everyone is safe and free, she and Marat will consider going back. For now, their focus is on building a better life for their boys. Sangha and Marat's kids are two, six and eight. She says her older boys saw everything. In Sangha's words, they felt the hardships from the Taliban. They understand the situation better than us. So much that they would play fights and imitate the violent things they saw back in Afghanistan. We want to protect them from that. In the midst of the chaos, Sangha has words of encouragement for people experiencing the same thing. She says stay focused, keep trying to better yourself. It's a beneficial sacrifice and you can have everything here. In the organization plans to resettle about 1,000 more refugees by March of 2022. Reporting live, Sydney Simone, CW 39 Houston. So for our panel today, we welcome Martin B Kaminsky. Since summer of 2015, Martin has served as our president and CEO of Interfaith Ministries providing the leadership and vision for all of our programs and Martin will provide an overview of our work. Also welcome Elena Corbett, Community Engagement Manager for Refugee Services and she'll share more specific information about our current situation. We also welcome Rabbi Oran Hayon of Congregation Emanuel, who also serves as chair of our Refugee Services Committee. And finally Tamina Massoud, our super volunteer and community outreach liaison. Thank you all for being here. I'm going to go ahead and stop my share and we'll get right on to Martin. Martin, it's great to have you here. Oh, are you still having trouble with your, let me try to get you to unmute. There we go. You had to hold on one second, we're going to just change that. And that should not be a problem. Martin, it's good to have you with us. Thank you for being the first with us here. Martin, can you share briefly about what Interfaith Ministries is and its vision? Sure, Greg. Thank you all for being on the call today. Interfaith Ministries is a multi-faceted organization concerned and compassionate with people in need throughout the community. Our mission statement says that we bring diverse people of faith together for dialogue, collaboration and service. And today we're doing that. We're beginning with this dialogue and having the opportunity to help you understand what's going on in the community. Why the need has come to us and then to talk about how we can work together to respond to that need and ultimately to provide the service to those many Afghans who are coming to our city soon. We're expecting three to 4,000 in our larger Houston community and IM is now prepared and ready to serve a thousand of those directly through our own services. This is something that we need your help on and we'll be talking about the many ways that you can do that, the religious and philosophical beliefs behind it and what you can do directly to give assistance. IM has been around for more than 50 years. Before that, it was a group of Protestant churches who came together to give compassion to those in need. And ultimately over the years, it added the Jewish Catholic communities, became interfaith, became, I'm sorry, Houston Metropolitan Ministries and in more recent years has become interfaith ministries for greater Houston, bringing the people all faiths together and people of no particular faith. But our goal is to look at needs in the community that are unmet and look at the best way that we can solve those problems and the best way that we can do that is really through the social capital of the people on this call of the connections that you have of the compassion that you can show. And our work is very much based on a service initiative and the kind of goals that we can bring together when everyone is working the same direction, acknowledges a problem and solves it. We have four major program areas. One of course is Meals on Wheels where the largest Meals on Wheels provider in Texas, probably among the top five in the United States, serving 5000 meals a day to seniors in need. And this is all about the compassion that we have that we should not let the infirm and the seniors in our community walk alone, and that we always want to be there to help them. Meal and more is one of the best ways we can do that. And so Meals on Wheels and then caring for the pets and animals of our seniors is also an important part of the work we do. Another area that we work in is that of interfaith relations and it's calls like this, that give people a chance to talk together to understand through the different lenses of different faiths. What does our scripture say? What do our values in our own faith say about the things we need to do? And I think you'll hear from Reverend Hahn and Rabbi Hyone and others, many references to those faith responsibilities that we have in our religion or just the humanistic responsibilities that anyone in our city would want to have. We are also a volunteer Houston, which is our direct effort at service of matching people of all ages with nonprofits and public needs in the community. We come into play during a disaster when people are in special need and try to help them comfort them and restore their homes. We also come together just in routine things to help those that are in need through the matching of joining Volunteer Houston, going to VolunteerEuston.org, being able to put in what you're interested in, what time you have to give, where you can give it. And you'll be offered several recommendations of agencies that you can sign up with online to volunteer with. The latest effort is our serve Houston effort, which is really about getting young people involved in servant, servant leadership and really understanding their responsibility as they grow into adulthood to be able to learn the methods of how they can analyze needs in the community. They can support them, and they can really be leaders in our community to respond to those needs. And Houston is is a greater Houston when we all come together. And so this effort of intersection among faiths of social capital, bringing people that can bring people together and bring a solution to the community is important. And we're, we hope that we're an important part and play an important profile in that area. As I mentioned, our fourth area is essentially refugee services and refugee resettlement. And we are now on one of the longest and largest efforts to resettle refugees we've done this for more than 30 years. So we're pretty expert at it, but never have we had so many people want to come to our community so fast. We have large families at one time. And so we'll spend a lot of time in this call of how do we get here. How do we help other people get here and support our work. And how do we work together to acculturate Afghans to our community to help learn from them to experience new foods, new customs, new languages, and to come together in the greater Houston that we always are. And that's when we do find that opportunity to come together. Martin, Martin, thank you that's a wonderful overview particularly I appreciate you and concluding with refugee services, because and recognizing that this is something that you all that we have done for 30 plus years, and didn't just start it six months ago we have a long track record. We're in a particular historic time here which is again why we've chosen to to focus this vital conversation on refugee resettlement. And with that I want to turn to Elena Corbett to help us walk through the specifics of our of our specific situation here. And again Elena serves as our community community engagement manager for refugee services, and she's going to help us understand what's going on right now in particular in, particularly with our Afghan allies, and what's made things so pressing. Again, I'm not going, I'm not asking her to summarize 20 years of American presence in Afghanistan but more, what's going on here in Houston. So Elena let me turn to you and just start with a direct question who are the Afghans coming to Houston and why are they coming. Thank you Greg and it's such a pleasure to to be on this call to share the most up to date information that that I have with everybody. Well Greg it's important to notice that you know the individuals that you were seeing arrive in Houston, they fled Afghanistan under very difficult circumstances I'm sure we were all aware of them and we watched you know the images on the news of planes cargo planes loaded with with these Afghan nationals. So, the population that's arriving it's a mix of APA and I'm going to make sure that they'll explain each term. So APA are the Afghanistan placement assistance program so we're referring to the APA that are coming to Houston. I do appreciate that a little bit with other populations such as SIV special immigrant visa holders, who also are coming at the same time through very similar circumstances. So, some of the individuals that we've seen arrived they had already started their process of becoming an SIV and others that have not they're given a humanitarian parole. And that's why we refer to this wave of Afghans as parolees, because they received a humanitarian parole so they're here in the US, legally, and they have been on the US military basis for over a month now, where they are undergoing a variety of background checks, medical checks, those that started the process of applying to become an SIV and an SIV is somebody who has worked with US troops either Iraqi or Afghani, we're in this case referring to Afghan SIVs. And they worked as translators or interpreters with US armed forces for several years and this in turn put their lives in danger and lives of their family members in danger. Obviously, because it was such a hectic process of withdrawing from Afghanistan, we receive very basic information about the cases that are coming in. And this is what makes it a little bit different from how we typically resettle refugees. With refugee resettlement, you know, we would typically get information about a case with a lot of details with several weeks, maybe even months in advance to where we would assure case and we would say, based on the information that's given to us, whether it's gender, age, employment, language skills, we will assure we will be responsible for selling the case. And this gives us time to, you know, prep for the survival and set up, you know, apartments and really, you know, prepare ourselves for the case that's coming in. So, you know, the Afghan parolees with APAs, you know, on some days we're just getting several hours of notice. And then, you know, clients are at the airport and our case workers are rushing to meet them and support them but we're extremely fortunate to be in the position that we are having done this work for so many years, for over 30 years, but also having really supportive community and community partners that are making this, you know, hectic and fluid situation a lot more manageable than otherwise would have been. And as Martin had mentioned, we're expecting to see, we've seen about 100 individuals so far. We are preparing ourselves for probably seeing close to 2,000. And we think that this will happen over the next several months or maybe two or three months where we'll see these waves of Afghan parolees coming to us. So what our staff, all staff case workers, you know, people that work in my sort of sub department and really everybody else, we are operating in crisis mode so we are here to support every single case that arrives where it means delivering a hot meal to a newly arrived refugee family, picking them up from, you know, the airport and showing them the apartment making sure that they understand how to use all the appliances. And so we could not do this without the support of our community partners and our volunteers and I'll put a shameless plug here for Volunteer Houston because this is where we are advertising our most pressing needs for volunteers. So we have seven positions right now. So if you are interested in helping us with whether it's airport, that's again delivering hot meals, grocery shopping, working in the office, just helping us for donations, you will be able to create a profile in the Volunteer Houston portal and then search for Interpreter Ministry's refugee service and volunteer opportunities. And we definitely need all hands on deck at this point. So, you know, the, the population that they were, they were seeing the Afghan parolees, they're also coming from, you know, such a, such anxiety and in place of stress. So what we're also doing is we are, we started a women's empowerment group in 2019 for Afghan refugee women so that that group has been running for several years and you know host workshops informational workshops, but also advocates for each refugee woman in that program. And because we knew that we needed to respond to the newly arrived Afghan refugee women or refugee parolees. We created a special program which is a very kind of deep dive into cultural orientation to make sure that we're able to answer all their questions and make them feel supported. And the women from the original Afghan group are now part are welcoming these newly arrived women from Afghanistan. So we've been very lucky to help to have their help. And then, you know, we are obviously working with volunteers and groups that are wanting to, wanting to co-sponsor faith based partners that I wanted to co-sponsor refugee families, because we know that, you know, this hectic situation will be slightly hectic for, you know, for a few more months. And we know that our clients need all the support that they can get because, you know, there's very little time to make them self sufficient where they will be able to get jobs and start working right away and support themselves. So we're trying to cover all of our bases and really relying on our volunteers and our staff to prep for every single arrival, no matter how, you know, how many hours of events we have. We are also, as I mentioned, preparing for a very large number of arrivals and are on standby literally, you know, every day, awaiting the information. And we've been really lucky to have volunteers that have welcomed these families at the airport and have helped with, you know, things like transporting their luggage. In most cases, people arriving without luggage, so they're starting from scratch, and they need absolutely everything. They need new appliances, they need furniture in the apartments that we're supplying them with. And, you know, as we know the housing costs, unfortunately, you can have risen and partially during COVID and the prices continue to climb. So we're fundraising around the clock to support our clients the best way we can. And we're also working with the refugee consortium, which, you know, there are four other refugee resettlement agencies in Houston. So we're in daily communications, trying to troubleshoot and problem solve and really work on this together as we always historically have done. Let me let me just let me follow up on a couple. So who would you be able to again, respecting confidentiality just maybe give a couple of concrete examples of who they are what why why is it that they had to flee Afghanistan and we've welcomed them to America and into the Houston area. What what what were they doing in Afghanistan. Right, so they were associated with with us in one capacity or another. So some of them may have worked for an NGO that had operations in Kabul or the surrounding areas, or they are. They haven't completed their special immigrant visa folder process, but they have translated and interpreted for us army forces for many years, and their family, and, and their relatives lives were put in danger because of their relations with the US. You know, we are seeing a little bit of everything you know some of these cases are individual cases so perhaps it's a spouse of an SID that's already here in Houston and they have been reunited. We've had several cases like that which was very touching to see especially in the airport. We're we're also seeing, you know, entire families who had a family of 10 that we started last week so there were a lot of needs to support, you know, children. We've seen some very young children, most recently, one of our clients actually gave birth here in the US and then in the military base so you know her baby was four years old by the time that they got to us to Houston. So it's, you know, we're seeing a variety of cases but all of them have fled for, you know, for fear or persecution and their connection to, to either use army or the US. Super. And I think the last question and I see questions starting to come into the chat box and thank you and we'll be getting to those at some point whether now or right at the end. We have been coming to the Houston area through various agencies including Interfaith Ministries, you know, for for many, many years. How historic is the situation now when we look back 10 years from now, what will we say about this particular moment. And what we will say that this was an unprecedented situation in which we reacted very swiftly, and you know really came together and you know this is obviously thanks to our experience in the refugee women's sector for over 30 years. And, you know, I think that looking back at it will will will just realize how much we have done under, you know, the strain under the pressure of, you know, making sure that this is done in a timely manner. While we're also trying to run all of our existing programs like the women's empowerment groups for Arabic women and African women but you know I think that we will be able to look back at this event. You know, it will be something for for the history, right, because you know I have been in the sector for for many years and I, you know, have seen the Syrian refugee crisis but nothing has really compared to the situation on the scale of how many people are in the country in a very short period of time. And I feel very confident that we will handle this as well as we have been handling. And, you know, will continue to to operate. And in the recital, you know, regular refugees, but also sell this very large wave of Afghan parolees. Super. Thank you. Thank you, Elena. Again, thank you for offering the questions I see them in the chat box, as well as I think and with follow up emails if you have registered will send again some vocabulary the API s ID parole, hopefully we can kind of come back to some other areas as well. Elena, thank you so much. At this time, I, but before we transition over to hear from Rabbi Oran Hyon, and to me in a suit I'd like to show another brief video, kind of adding a continued face to, to what we're experiencing right now. Just give me one second, and I will get there. Let's take a look. I applied for HIV from two years ago. After one year I got my approval and then I process my another step of the case. Around two months I'm in Houston, Texas. I came direct to, from Afghanistan to Qatar, then from Qatar to Washington, and from Washington to Texas, Houston city. Security is very important for us. I'm happy because of, in Houston, we feel secure, and there is many Afghan people, and we not feel alone, ourself, and there is a lot of opportunity for women, and I can work here, and there is opportunity for improvement of my education. So that is, I'm very, very happy for these things. When we come here, they give us home, and they give us opportunity for work, for education, and we can do everything we want here. I like my home because that same is that I wish to have a home like that. Let me turn then to, actually, she was part of the interview, Tamina Masoud. Thank you for being with us, Tamina, our super volunteer, and much more when it comes to refugee services. Tamina, your dedication to helping refugees and working with IM is admirable. Again, I'm not asking you to be a religious scholar with this question, but how does your faith as being Muslim inform your efforts to welcome the stranger? And then I'm going to ask you to just highlight one thing or else we could be here for many hours, but one thing that you have done to help. Tamina, I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you, Greg, and Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakat, with the name of Allah, the most merciful and most compassionate. Peace and blessings upon all my friends that are joining us today. Islamic history teaches us about two great migrations, the first being that led by Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, and the second, which was termed as the Hijrah, where Prophet Muhammad was instructed to leave the city of Makkah where a prosecution had become to the point where his life was endangered. And he was commanded to, with himself and the followers, go to the city of Medina. That particular migration was going to be known in history as the relationship of establishment of the relationship between the Mahajir, the Mahajir meaning those that were leaving the migrants, and the Ansar, the ones, the helpers. That is the background that I learned growing up in Pakistan. And coupled with that, I developed two role models for myself. One was the role model that I did not see and hear directly but learn about in the books, that being the Prophet, peace be upon him. And the second, my mother, who was in the house with me, my mother spent her entire life, either in hospitals, orphanages or mental institutions, because she believed that life was about giving back and helping those that need help. The Quran talks about giving as well. And it guides us, it encourages us to help the less fortunate. And we can do that in two terms. One, we can give in terms of kind donations, and the other we could do in terms of our own self. So it was not a strange thing to me that when I moved to Houston, 25 years ago, and I was introduced to Interfaith Ministry's dinner dialogue. Elliot at that time who was the president and CEO told me to come and have a look at the refugee services. And that was when I knew that I had found my calling. And the teachings that I learned in the Quran to give to those who are requiring love and affection, not to make any judgmental thoughts about where the person is coming from. To also respect the dignity of each individual that all the Quran had taught me before I came here. So I found myself in a great ideal situation to practice what I had learned. And I'm very grateful to Interfaith Ministries for allowing me to not only follow my desires but actually practice my religion also. The refugee services has become a part of my life. It's a second nature to me. And how that works is that once the family is received by the Interfaith Ministry's refugee services, I go and visit them I'm very strong on human contact and interaction. And I go I sit with them, and I try to identify what else can I do that has not been already taken care of by the official quorum at the IM. What that allows me to do is get to know them and they get to see a person who can sit down and offers a friendship along with the way with offering them to help as well. I will say that I am very fortunate to be living in a generous community like Houston, where it is only a matter of one text, or one phone call that I make, and people come up with whatever is required to do. In case of this Afghanistan issue I do agree the magnitude is something that I have not myself seen in the past 15 years of my volunteer work at the scope that the size of the family coming in the the large numbers that are coming in it is overwhelming by all means. So we've had to mobilize resources that we've never done in such a short period of time, but I will be very honest to tell you that I'm amazed, and I'm just amazed at how much people are coming forward in helping, not only in terms of taking the donations but in terms of taking the families to go shopping, because this is a new land for them, they don't necessarily know the language, they don't necessarily know the law of the land. So volunteer work is gone to a new level where we don't have to only teach them, maybe how to do something we have to offer love and affection and friendship while doing that, because they're scared. So I keep reminding myself that every time I go and meet these families, I am doing volunteer work but believe it or not, I'm practicing my religion as well. The Quran has told me that God has given intrinsic dignity to each child of Adam. God also tells me that I should do what I believe in, and I feel that my work is actually allowing me to do that every single day. My team workers at IM often ask me, why don't you get tired or when do you sleep. And I tell them that you know what honestly in the morning when I get up, my whole aim is to sit in front of the computer and find out how many families, can I help, because I feel that I'm reporting to my duty, my job, and that is service to my Lord. So it is just a very humbling experience that I that I actually do every day. And I have had to increase the amount of time that I'm spending now, but it's not that I, I feel that I'm compromising my own self. It's just that I feel that I'm being able to get to more people now, and I'm being able to make a difference with the support of the community. And one thing I will like to mention in case of this Afghanistan issue. I was actually out of the country when this started happening. But to the strength of our community, we I started calling up the members here, and I was with the generosity that exist in Houston, able to raise funds to get six cars for six families. To tell you, my dear friends, a car goes a long way here. It car a car does not only signify drive to the employment. It can allow a family to get access to resources they would not be able to do otherwise. I have met families who have not had transportation, who've had to actually walk half an hour to just go and get their kids from school. I've met families who've had to go in the rain to go buy groceries. So I have seen the value of transportation. And I honestly salute you all for continuing to be there to continue to support in the resettlement of these families. It goes a long way. The youngsters, the young kids that I see for them, this is, it is all new and scary. They need to see human beings come forward and offer friendship. They would need a lot of help in schools, they will need a lot of support to get used to the new culture. So I as a volunteer request you out there. If you have the time, even if an hour a week, please don't hesitate to come forward. Your money is going a long way. The in kind donations as going a long way. But I tell you what you can do with your presence. It cannot replicate any other thing. And I first can see the impact regularly on a daily basis. And what great thing that you can practice your human faith and your religious faith at the same time, as Martin said, I don't don't think you can get an opportunity better than this. Thank you, Tamina. So, so, so very much. I think maybe to segue I'm going to add in Rabbi Oran Hyon and ask him also to chime in. You've been chair of our refugee services committee and involved with refugee resettlement through your work leading the nation Emmanuel. How does your Jewish faith inform your efforts and I think we heard from Tamina about an individual effort but perhaps you can talk about what a community can do to support this need as well. Rabbi Hyon it's great to see you. Thanks Greg great to be with you great to be with all these inspiring leaders and volunteers and folks who are doing this extraordinary work for our community and really for our country. So the things that Tamina said really resonated with my own spiritual experience as a Jew as a leader of the Jewish community. We also have a history that tells stories about rootlessness and exile homelessness and need feeling not at home in the places where we live and just feeling a real deep seated yearning to get to a place where we feel welcomed and and at home. It's a spiritual tradition, which is probably the earliest place we can look for the reasons why the Jewish community feels moved to do this work. The commandment to to welcome the stranger which after all is the, the convening phrase under which we're gathered today that commandment is repeated, literally dozens of times. If you go through and read your Hebrew Bible, you'll go through and find that commandment repeated more often than just about any other commandment you could imagine being associated with Jewish life. We, we hear that commandment offered to the ancient Israelites more often than the commandment to to avoid eating pork, or to to avoid robbery or theft. I mean, all of these things that we understand to be the major moral underpinnings of Jewish religious life, the most common and the most frequently emphasized as a commandment to to welcome the stranger. And in most of those cases, the scripture says you are obligated to welcome the stranger because you know what it feels like. You know what it feels like to be in a place where you're not at home where you're not welcomed when you need to rely on the kindness and the hospitality and the resources of strangers to protect your family and to come to a place where you can be safe and secure. So that that that spiritual objective is long standing and very prominent in the construction of a Jewish ethical response to refugees. I think from a more modern perspective, the vast majority of North American Jews have a story in their histories, most of us not more removed than a couple of generations. Feelings of gratitude and indebtedness to this country that welcomed us in and made us feel at home to this place that offered us liberty and opportunity. In many cases when we were escaping other settings where we didn't have those opportunities and those protections. So for many North American Jews, those those experiences are very personal and bring us to this work out of a sense of wanting to give back to the country that helped our own families. And on a on a sadder and more difficult note, we also have tragic memories like the experience for example during the Second World War of the SS St. Louis, which if you don't know the story is a story about a German ocean liner filled with nearly 1000 refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, trying to make their way from Europe to the United States and the ship made it all the way to the coast of the United States so close, according to the accounts so close that the passengers could see the lights of Miami on the coastline. They got that close to the United States and our country turned the ship away, sent the ship and all of its passengers back to Europe. And when they got back to Europe hundreds of those passengers were murdered in the Holocaust. So we have examples in our own community in our own nation's history about what the stakes are of our decisions about hospitality and welcome and taking care of people who are fleeing some of the most heartbreaking and unthinkable and brutal situations in other parts of the world. The stakes are are infinitely high. And we just like Tamina said in the Muslim tradition we have a very central Jewish ethical obligation to look out for those who depend on us for their care and hospitality. So to your question, Greg about what can a congregation do what can individual members of a spiritual community do I would underscore everything that Tamina said. There are of course limits about what regular sort of civilian people on the street can do a lot of these decisions are made on the national level and are with by our lawmakers in Congress. A lot of these decisions are made by policy set at the Department of State, not every Houstonian on the street has access to those decision making levers about what our national refugee policy will be. But all of us have the opportunity to do something for some of us, we are able to write a check to help defray the monumental costs of welcoming and resettling these new Americans. Some of us have the opportunity to provide goods, services, furniture, cars, clothing, toys, some of that, some of us have that sort of work within our reach. And I would say honestly for those of us that don't have the the possibility that the capacity to to give generously in material ways. Greg, I'd go back to the beautiful teaching you opened with this afternoon that I would love to see every Houstonian work on continuing to cultivate a spirit of hospitality and welcome. Every single one of us have had an experience when we walked into a room and we were new there. And we didn't feel at home and we, for many of us, if we were lucky we had the experience of finding someone there who helped us feel welcome and be at home. All of us can do that with our neighbors with these new Houstonians. In many cases with these Afghan refugees who have put extraordinarily things on the line to serve our country overseas. Lauren, thank you so so very much and thank you for your leadership and thank you as well for congregation Emmanuel support of interfaith ministries. Let me turn to some question, there's some Q&A, and, and then I think Martin will, I think have a be able to address some things that you can do. Let me actually turn to Elena there were some questions in the chat box there was one, who should I contact about in kind donations furniture for example and then another question. Is there a need for a church to sponsor a family, where will the family be located. I think Elena, I think you can briefly, I think you're the right person to address those two questions. Yes, and I will I've been trying to respond individually as well as these questions are popping up in the chat box. So, please feel free to reach out to me I posted my email address in the chat box just now a Corbett at imgh.org. I will have to say that we're being cautious about furniture donations because we were overwhelmed it's a big problem to have by the generosity of the Houstonians so what we're trying to do as we prepare. To find out, you know, which arrivals will take place this week or next week is to ask people to, you know, first of all, they can send us pictures they can send pictures to me of their furniture so we can decide whether this will be a good fit for the apartment that we're trying to furnish, but also if you're able to hold on to some of the furniture just a little while longer, because we would love to to move the furniture directly from from your place to the apartment where refugee clients will live. We do, we do have an Amazon wish list that was posted on our website and I'll post here in the chat than just a second. We are prioritizing, you know, gift cards because it's very important to give sort of the ownership of the process to the family right so they can buy things that we haven't thought about maybe a small things that we missed that they need for for themselves for their kids for their family members. And then we are absolutely looking for co sponsors from faith based community and those questions can also come to me. You know we asked for a six month commitment and we do ask to fundraise to cover several months of rent and you know potentially other bills to help this family just get on their feet and become you know independent in a very short amount of time. And it's extremely helpful to me one of the most and to me that spoke about the so well today. It's less connection right because when you are when you arrive in the US under these very stressful conditions. It may take you some time to connect to somebody from the local community, and we're doing this through our sponsor we're doing this through our individual volunteers. And it's such a difference for somebody that that just survived this, you know, tragic and impressing or deal to have the support of the volunteers. And I always say do not worry about the language barrier. Some of our Afghan refugees there, they may speak some English, some I don't speak any English at all, but it also forces you to communicate and therefore makes our refugee families also a little bit faster through the difficulty through the overcoming the obstacle. I did see questions here also about refugee benefits. Elena I'm going to ask that I'm going to ask Ali to address that one as though the other so super I'd like to recognize Ali also Donnie our chief programs officer and ask him to address two questions that were asked what will be I am's role in the refugee service recently approved by Congress and then there was a question about can refugees get, I guess, and this the question specifically about, I guess getting money out of Afghanistan, but maybe just larger can they get anything out of Afghanistan. Ali, let me go ahead and ask you to unmute, and I think we'll be able to hear from you. Thank you for this opportunity and good afternoon everyone thank you for being on the call. When it comes to the role of Interfaith Ministry of Refugee Services in processing the benefits of refugees that the Congress recently approved. We will be helping the Afghan parolies in competing their applications for food stamp medicaid and other refugee cash assistance program but we know already that there is a delay. Sometimes actually it takes two months for a food stamp application to be approved from the time we submit the application until the time they are approved for this so what we are very grateful that the parolies were granted this these benefits and they can access these benefits but we also very mindful of the delay in getting these benefits due to COVID and the status of the Afghan parolies and in all of these things. The other question is that can the Afghans take their money out of Afghanistan. In general, I mean we have throughout the years, all the refugee families that we have been serving from more than 20 or 30 different countries, they come here with zero to minimal savings with them. Some of refugee families they are, you know, they have the luxury of taking some clothes with them and some personal items, but the ones who are coming here, they don't have any cash and they don't have any money with them. That's, you know, why we help them in their beginning and start building their lives here. Thanks Ali. Just maybe if while we have you here as well there was a question that came through where our families being housed suburb city I think especially faith communities have that in mind if they're really looking as like a faith community to be able to sponsor a family. So, like the vast majority of refugees in general they are in the southwest area of Houston. Gulfton, Sharp Sound, Fondren, Bracewood, West Chase, and historically this area has been, you know, you can find ethnic stores. You can find communities from different backgrounds. It's accessible by the public transportation and all of this thing so historically in the southwest area has been the area in the city where we place most of our refugees. Greg, can I chime in something about the family adoption here. Actually, let me let me actually just ask Ali that just respond quickly to there was one additional question and then to me now we'll have time for you just real fast. Is there how much is totally neat how much total money is needed for six months of rent. Maybe this goes also into the sponsorship question for Ali. Right, so in general, Greg, the sponsorship for six months of rent family offer two bedroom apartment with the housing prices right now, we are lucky if we get an apartment for 1200. So, this is back 7200 for six months of the sponsorship congregation or any faith community that would like to sponsor refugee families. We have, there are other funding sources public benefits can cover some of it. The sponsorship congregation will cover some of it. So it's a, it's a guidance of what would, and how much takes to sponsor a refugee family. And the reality is you can spend. You want to go deep into services. They need many things. The way we look at it is that special with Afghan refugees, Afghan parolings. It's an emergency land. It's not a typical refugee resettlement where we have luxury and time to provide all the items that they need all the cultural rugs and cookware that they need. The reality is we are expecting three to 5000 in Houston, and this is a large number. Houston has that. And we've done this before, just a matter of how the timeframe that they will be coming. Thank you. Tamina, let me turn to you. I just want to be mindful of our time as well. So we'd love just your, your, your strongest fastest plug regarding sponsorship. Thank you. So I just wanted to share my own experiences from the past couple of weeks that I'm being involved with these families, Greg. As Ali has mentioned, the Paroli families need much more of the support. I'm also seeing that they are challenged with the language much more than the SIV families. And what I've seen, there are a few friends who have gone ahead and sponsored a few families. And what I've seen is they are taking them not only to the regular stores but ethnically they're the culturally sensitive grocery shopping they're being able to do as well. So that allows them to do is teach them the process of shopping itself and interaction at the same time. So I would definitely recommend people who are wanting to maybe do groceries for them. But once the background check is done at I am, they can go and take the family for shopping, where it is they can, they can introduce them to the system of how to do this. And of course they get what they actually are going to be using, because I am looking at things we have a lot of stuff here at I am, and we need volunteers maybe to deliver the stuff that we already have to these families and maybe focus on other things that the family needs. So definitely, even the past two days there were two families that were taken by volunteers, and they had a great experience just going out of the house with them. And that is what I just wanted to let the audience know that it is making a difference as we speak. Thank you, Tamina. Thank you all to all of our panelists, Martin Kaminski, Elena Corbett, Tamina Massoud, Orin Hayon, I just want to thank all of you for being on. I'd like to give Martin the closing word, as well as to make our final kind of plug on the things that can be helpful in this time. Martin. Thank you all for being on the call and to my fellow panelists who are doing so much to support our work. As they say it takes a village to bring an Afghan village to Houston, and we're so fortunate. One of the things that we realized is that this is a big job and one that not just interfaith ministries can do alone. There are several other partners in the community that are involved in the resettlement of Afghans. And we're very fortunate that we all decided to come together and build a collaborative to be able to assist in supporting the needs of the whole Houston community. So I just wanted to mention how grateful I am to our partners, the Alliance, the YMCA, and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston Houston. We're all working together, sharing in resources, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge three foundations who've done an amazing generously job of supporting our work. And that's the Houston Endowment, also the Kinder Foundation, and the Ting Song and Wei Fong Chow Foundation. Those three foundations along with individuals have come together to give us $3.3 million to prepare us to support the Afghans in our community. And it's only through these kinds of collaborations and bringing together the community that we can get big jobs like this done for new people coming to Houston. You can help. Don't forget, if you want to share dollars, you can go to our website and do that. The Amazon Wishlist, I believe, is in the chat room. It has some specific items that we need. I'm always reminding people that federal funds can't be used to buy televisions and radios, because that's considered entertainment. But it's one of the most important things that a new immigrant can have when they're learning about our culture and want to hear the news. If you'd like to buy a TV or any appliance on the Wishlist, that's great. Volunteer Houston is the place you can volunteer your time, or be in touch directly with Elena, who's put her email in the box. We need people to do all sorts of things, and it is so fulfilling to meet a family as they come to America, see the richness that they're able to take advantage of right away. We have a new home, a new place to live with food, furniture, and everything they need. So be a part of that. If you can consider the family sponsorship that Tamina mentioned, we welcome families or congregations of faith, or any group that could come together and provide some direct support and friendship to these new Afghans will be helpful. To Greg, I thank you for moderating today, and I think that completes my remarks. Martin, thank you so much. And also thank you to our impulse young professionals and empower women's group here at Interfaith Ministries that are also been helpful. Let me just share a quick 30 second video from Sangha to close our time. First of all, I'm very thankful and say thank you to people of Houston and the U.S. that give us an opportunity to live here. I want to reach my wish and my hope that I have to improve my education. I wish my children have a nice future here. So that's my story and that is our hopes and wish. So let me just say thank you all for being here today. You can learn more about our work at IMGH.org where you can especially learn about our refugee resettlement work and how to support us. Thank you again to Citgo Petroleum Corporation for sponsoring this episode and this series. Thanks for being with us. Have a wonderful rest of your day.