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WR makes sure nothing is forgotten. "Our goal is to walk alongside the church and help them resettle the refugee," says Bramman. "We want to mobilize churches for service."

World Relief's Chicago office is currently working with about 50 churches. In the past 16 years, more than 11,000 refugees from Southeast Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central America, and the former Soviet Union have been resettled by this office. Nationally, WR has re settled more than 100,000 refugees over the past 15 years.

New Hope Connection is currently settling its fifth family: the Lailas from Sudan. This is a bold move, Ruppert says, because the La Grange area is only 8 percent black. He is the team leader for the Laila family, which means he coordinates all of the subcommittees. Resettling this family proved especially challenging in the beginning.

In May 1997, Ruppert and members of the group went to the airport to pick up the Lailas—the father, Gasim; the mother, Fozia; and their three children—but the family didn't arrive. So, New Hope went ahead and sponsored the Ganics from Bosnia.

Six weeks later, in the midst of helping the Ganics adjust to life in the United States, New Hope was told the Laila family was coming after all. They had three or four days to prepare.

"We were in a panic," says Ruppert, "but we accepted the challenge." Al though everyone was "stretched a little thin," members of New Hope rose to the occasion and went right to work organizing the resettlement.

The Lailas spent their first month in a small apartment in a convent. This temporary placement, which arose from necessity, turned out to have an unexpected benefit: the constant company of the nuns helped ease the Lailas' transition from the social patterns of the Sudan to the individualistic culture of the United States.

Fozia hopes that they will begin to make friends here soon—maybe at her English classes. But the family is extremely grateful. "The sponsoring churches have been so good," she says.

The Lailas' house is furnished with couches, a coffee table, lamps, a television. Someone even donated a bright red 1989 Voyager minivan.

Ruppert thinks sponsoring a ref u gee family benefits everyone involved. "It's good for the churches, the community, the families, the individuals," he says. "It's so rewarding to work one on one—you're helping them directly." He says it's a joy to see these families live when they could have been killed.

In Sudan, Gasim was accused by the Islamic regime of being antigovernment and was imprisoned once for 48 days and later for two weeks. A long-running civil war gave the government a pretext to crack down on Christians, who have suffered brutal persecution.

Leaving his family and job behind, Gasim flew to Khartoum, took a bus to the Nile River and a boat up to Egypt, using a phony passport to cross the border. He took another bus to Cairo, where he got an apartment and job and put money in the bank. A few months later he took the same complex route back to visit his family but re turned without them. Six months later, they joined him in Cairo. Ultimately, they were able to gain entrance to the United States.

At any given time, of course, the number of refugees who hope to enter the United States far exceeds the annual quota. For people who have suffered dislocation and, in many cases, severe trauma, the necessary bureaucratic process can become a prolonged nightmare.

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July 12 1999, Vol. 43, No. 8