Parish to support Afghan families

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

WORCESTER – When Paula Bushey learned that Blessed Sacrament Church was exploring sponsoring and resettling a family from Afghanistan, she wanted to get her confirmation students involved.
So she, fellow confirmation teacher Frank Kartheiser, and most of the nine confirmation students were among the 50 or so people who attended an introductory meeting at the church on Nov. 21.
“These are the kinds of things we like to do to make them aware of others in the world,” Ms. Bushey said. “They were very excited about it. Kids like to do stuff like this. They don’t really want to just sit with a Bible at class. Those things are important, but they need to take the Bible message into reality.”
Ms. Bushey said most members of the confirmation class come from stable homes so she believes it’s important for them to realize that not everyone is as fortunate. The students have already visited The Mustard Seed, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality which provides food and clothing for the hungry and homeless. Mr. Kartheiser was among the founders of The Mustard Seed.
“Not everyone goes home to a nice, warm house every night,” Ms. Bushey said, “and people are sleeping outside.” This project may help them be grateful for what they have and understand their responsibility to others in the world, she explained.
Blessed Sacrament and Trinity Lutheran Church have formed a partnership and are working with Ascentria Care Alliance and WelcomeNST (Neighborhood Support Teams) to resettle Afghan refugees. The agencies are working with three faith-based groups. The Blessed Sacrament and Trinity Lutheran group is called Blessed Trinity.
“We all feel badly about what’s happened to the families in Afghanistan,” Ms. Bushey said, “and the people left behind who are left with the Taliban. We have concern for their safety so having those families come to the United States – most people agree – it’s a wonderful thing. So we want to help get them settled.”
Ms. Bushey already has undergone a background check and, once her students do, she hopes they can play volleyball and ping pong at the church with the Afghan youths, go out for pizza with them, and babysit and read to younger children.
Barbara Petrocelli believed so strongly in helping others that she left her software marketing position in April to volunteer and serve as marketing manager for WelcomeNST. She helped organize the meeting at Blessed Sacrament and was impressed when a confirmation student offered help afterward.
“It’s an accident of fate,” she told the student, “that you were born here and they were born there, but when this family comes and you greet this family, especially if they have teenagers or children, simply treat them like you would any other kid. Talk to them about your music or your video games or whatever interests you.”
In the past, Blessed Sacrament helped a Burmese family settle in the area.
About 60,000 Afghan refugees are staying on U.S. military bases since the U.S. left Afghanistan and the Taliban took control of the country. Those people need more permanent housing as well as food, education, jobs and healthcare. They also need to establish citizenship.
Ascentria (formerly Lutheran Social Services of New England) has resettled 200 Afghan refugees and set the goal of taking care of 500 people throughout Massachusetts and 150 in southern New Hampshire, or about 130 families, but needs help from volunteers to do so.
Ms. Petrocelli said social service agencies such as Ascentria have been downsized and no longer have the capacity to provide homes and financial assistance to as many refugees.
“Because of the political climate and also because of COVID, we have received almost no refugees in America in the last six or seven years,” she said. “So organizations like Ascentria don’t have the capacity to accommodate all these people.”
Ms. Petrocelli said once the Blessed Trinity group is ready to accommodate a family, it could take anywhere from two days to two months for the U.S. State Department to move such a family from a military base. She said most likely Blessed Trinity could receive a family in January or February.
Blessed Sacrament and Trinity Lutheran need to raise $8,000 to $12,000 to support each refugee family, according to Ms. Petrocelli.
“Fundraising really hasn’t been the hardest part,” she said. “It’s a significant amount of money, but there’s such a broad desire to do right by these people who helped us, who supported the U.S. military, so most people are willing to contribute.”
Living in America will be a huge adjustment for the refugees.
“When they get here,” Ms. Petrocelli said , “they need to figure out how to use the U.S. healthcare system and how to find a primary care doctor. They need to understand how to use a bank and do budgeting, how to use public transportation, how to get the kids involved in school, how to get a job.”
Claire Schaeffer-Duffy offered a room for an individual refugee at the SS. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker house where she lives with her husband, Scott.
For more than 30 years, the couple has taken in single men and women in their home in the Main South section of Worcester where they raised their four children. Their guests have included refugees from such places as Kosovo, Bosnia, El Salvador, Honduras and Nigeria.
Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy visited Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2002, six months after the U.S.-led coalition bombing of that country, and her husband visited about 10 years ago.
Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy was overjoyed with the turnout for the meeting at Blessed Sacrament.
“The outpouring was quite heartening,” she said. “We read so much about division and suspicion and negative reactions that Americans are having toward each other, but you sat in that room and you realized that here are a bunch of people who are seeing a need and responding.”
Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy was especially touched to see a young refugee couple from Myanmar attend the meeting to offer their help.
After the Nov. 21 meeting, a woman asked Ms. Petrocelli if her brother-in-law’s family, who speak Farsi, could provide translation services.
A member of Blessed Sacrament’s St. Vincent de Paul Society offered to help supply and furnish an apartment once one is found.
Ms. Petrocelli said the refugees on the U.S. military bases have been vetted to ensure they won’t present any danger to the communities to which they will relocate. They have also been fully vaccinated against COVID, measles and mumps.
“So when they come to a community, they’re neither a threat nor a healthcare concern,” Ms. Petrocelli said.
Ms. Bushey credited Father Richard F. Trainor, Blessed Sacrament’s pastor, with inspiring the youth to get involved.
“Father Trainor is a really wonderful pastor,” Ms. Bushey said, “who wants the church to be out in the community. That’s always been his stance and he’s just wonderful with the kids.”
“It’s an essential expression of our Christian faith,” Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy said. “Every parish needs to do this.”