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The photo (left) of Mahdi and his mother was taken upon their arrival at the airport in Salt Lake City
The following message (and excellent update!) is from Vestry member, Tyler Knowles, given during a recent St. Sunday morning worship service at St. Francis by the Sea on Sunday, July10
from Tyler in her voice....
"I have some exciting and important news for St Francis. You may be aware of the newly created GSA Refugee Education Fund, a fund that provides a tax incentive for givers who support refugee students at GSA. What refugee students, you might ask?
It all started for us last October when Prudy Heilner talked first to Father Brent who encouraged her to tell the Vestry about a specific Afghan young man and his mother who were trapped in Kabul after the Taliban took over. Prudy knew about him because his brother Hasib had reached out to someone who had taught and mentored him when he Hasib had come to America as a student from Afghanistan a number of years ago. That brother, who served in our military and is now an American citizen, had not forgotten his old teacher and turned to him for help extricating his younger brother Mahdi and mother from a very dangerous, life-threatening situation. The teacher was now Dean of Students at GSA and GSA offered Mahdi admissions.
If he could get here. . .
This was the first challenge: extricating Mahdi and his mother. It seemed hopeless. The family was from a Muslim sect, the Hasari, despised and targeted by the Taliban and Kabul was in chaos. At that meeting, without much hope that it would do any good, I stepped forward and said I would fund his leaving Afghanistan and, if that happened and he could get a visa, their trip to America. It took time but he and his mother successfully escaped (via smugglers) to Pakistan. For seven months, they waited for medical and visa interviews. During this time Diana Page, a former diplomat and consul, stepped forward and helped Mahdi and his mother navigate the visa process. Congressman Jared Golden expedited the process.
I am thrilled to say that Mahdi and his mother landed this past Thursday in NY and on Friday reunited with his family in Utah!!!!!
The second challenge is before us: raising money to fund Mahdi’s educational expenses. We knew that anyone willing to write a check for $40 or $50 thousand dollars for Mahdi himself could not receive a tax credit (but certainly that check, even a bigger one would be welcomed!), but if GSA began a Refugee Education Fund, anyone who contributed would get a tax write off. We also learned that two Ukrainian students who have a connection to another teacher at the school also seek admission and that they too would need full financial support. Thus, the GSA Refugee Education Fund was born.
GSA and St. Francis may have begun this process, but we have been joined by many other church and community members throughout the Blue Hill Peninsula and Ellsworth:
Blue Hill Congregational,
Blue Hill Baptist,
St. Brendan’s Episcopal,
Deer Isle/Sunset Congregational,
Trinity Episcopal (Castine),
Penobscot United Methodist,
Brooksville United Methodist,
Unitarian Universalist (Ellsworth),
the Morgan Bay Zendo and
Reversing Falls Sanctuary.
This has become a genuine community effort to work to provide funding for the education of these refugee students at GSA, students who are coming from war-torn countries.
Why these students in particular? Why not others from other countries which are also in dire need? As Milissa put it: these are the ones who knocked on our door. Was this not God’s will?
On Saturday, July 30th, Noel Stookey, Paul Sullivan, and others will give a fund-raising concert at the Blue Hill Congregational Church. I hope many of you will come and will encourage others to do so. I hope that many of you will open your checkbooks and send a check to GSA’s Refugee Education Fund. And that all of you are immensely proud of St. Francis for starting this movement.
Finally, were it not for Todd Eckenfelder and Hasib, we would not have known about Mahdi and his mother’s situation; were it not for Prudy and Father Brent, we might have missed our opportunity to help. Were it not for the indefatigable work of our two wardens, Milissa and Sara, as well as the work of Lisa Durkee at the Congregational Church, we might not have gotten this far. Were it not for Diana Page and Congressman Golden, the all-important visa might not have happened. And I also want to single out for praise Kate Mulrenin who stepped forward at that first discussion at our vestry meeting to offer her services as a therapist who works with people who have suffered trauma. We at St. Francis have much to be proud of, thanks be to God or as the Muslims say “Insha’Allah.”
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