As soon as the elevator doors opened, Khloud Ahmad broke into a sprint.
She ran into the arms of her daughter Fedaa in the yellow glow of a credit card advertisement at Vancouver International Airport. Weeping softly, they embraced for more than 30 seconds as their family swarmed each other in joy.
It had been nearly three years since they last hugged. More than 30 months spent on opposite sides of the planet – Khloud in Canada and Fedaa in Jordan.
They had spoken almost every day over the phone and via Facebook, “but that’s not enough,” Khloud said, reflecting on the moment days later at her daughter’s basement suite in Burnaby.
Months of planning and discussion led to the reunion. Khloud knew it was coming, but she still couldn’t believe she was holding her daughter once more.
The tearful scene reunited Khloud, her husband Mamoun Shebat and their two sons, Mohammed and Fares, with Feda, her husband Taj Alsutari and their two sons – Khloud’s grandsons – three-year-old Amir and soon-to-be-one-year-old Zain.
Khloud, Mamoun, Mohammed, 19, and Fares, 21, have lived in Burnaby since February 2016. They fled Syria, their war-torn homeland, in 2012 before settling in a Jordanian refugee camp. Fedaa, unsafe in the camp and 18 at the time, married a Palestinian man, Taj, whom she’d never met before.
When the family’s refugee claim was accepted to Canada, they had to leave Fedaa, Taj and baby Amir behind. Ever since they have been forced to watch through screens as their family grew thousands of kilometres away.
Fedaa, Taj, Amir and Zain were recently accepted as privately sponsored refugees to Canada. They landed at YVR on Aug. 2, greeted by their family members and a few members of a church group that sponsored Khloud and Mamoun in their first year here, and will support them financially for their first 12 months.
That August afternoon near the baggage carousels was Zain’s first time meeting his grandparents and uncles.
The young family has some catching up to do. They need to enroll in English lessons, Taj wants a job – anything will do, as long as it pays, he says – and they want to integrate into their new community.
But Fedaa’s parents and brothers have already laid much of the groundwork and they’re keen to teach them all they’ve learned.
Fares says “it’s easy” settling here, with the support of a caring and generous sponsorship group.
Fares, his brother and parents have all progressed through several levels of English lessons in their time here. Both young men are taking high school courses at a college in Coquitlam. And all four are employed. Khloud and her two sons work together at a restaurant in Vancouver, while Mamoun drives a forklift at a large steel plant in Langley.
Mamoun loves the job and gets along with his coworkers, who hail from every corner of the world.
“I think now I have 1,000, 2,000 friends,” he says with a laugh.
In addition to his forklift duties, Mamoun has been able to help orientate new Arabic-speaking employees.
Mohammed and Fares are both eager to gain Canadian citizenship in order to begin post-secondary studies. Mamoun is confident Fares will become and doctor, and Mohammed a pilot.
The Shebats credit much of their success here to the sponsorship group that helped them every step of the way, especially in their first year.
When they first arrived in B.C., the family didn’t know they had a sponsorship group. Khloud said she was shocked to see strangers holding a sign with her name on it at YVR.
“Who are these people I don’t know?” she said. But the group’s coordinator, Marianne Van Delft, explained that they were a group of citizens ready to fully support the family for a year.
“I thank God because everything is done for me,” Khloud said.
Marianne and the church group taught them how to shop, set up a phone plan and get around town in this foreign land. Slowly, step by step, life got easier for the Shebats.
Mamoun thanked Marianne for her help finding him the job he now so enjoys.
“I have a mom in Syria and a second mom here,” he says.
Marianne says she has learned as much from the Shebats as they have taught her.
“You’re working with complete strangers, but we are strangers to them and you have to form a trust,” she says.
Strengthening that bond has been “the joy” of the experience, she says, “because when that happens, you have a family.”
The sponsorship group is shifting its focus help to Fedaa, Taj and their boys. They have a basement suite near Edmonds Community School, where much of the services they need, including English lessons, are based.
Marianne said it was a struggle to find a good home for them, but this one is perfect. It’s also less than a kilometre away from Khloud, Mamoun and their boys.
Fedaa and Taj have been through years of uncertainty and strife to get to the modest suite in suburbia. But now they can’t help but be optimistic.
Taj, a stateless Palestinian refugee born in Jordan, says his first impressions of Burnaby and Canada are positive. (Taj speaks little English and spoke to the NOW via his brother-in-law Fares.)
Taj and Fedaa both believe Amir and Zain will grow up happy, healthy and Canadian. The two will soon be attending public school.
Fares said it’s difficult to look back on the life they all left behind in Syria, but “there was no future. So we had no choice.”
Here, there is a future.
The whole family agrees they’re here for the long-haul. They’ve found a permanent home.
Surrounded by her family, Khloud watches the rambunctious Amir and Zain play in their new home.
“I hope they make a future that is very, very good,” she says.
– Kelvin Gawley, Burnaby Now
