RRO Advent Appeal 2023

Meet Kendi, a 31-year-old refugee from the Congo. At age 17, with the death of his mother, Kendi was alone. He was unable to walk without crutches, a result of his having contracted polio as a young child. His father had died much earlier, and his remaining family members rejected him harshly because of his physical disabilities. Physical difference has been a repeated occasion for mistreatment in Kendi’s life. He tells the story of accepting a ride on a motorcycle

Meet Abdul, who arrived in the United States two years ago at age 16. He was the sole member of his family who managed to escape from the Kabul airport in the chaotic days after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Since resettlement in the Seattle area, Abdul has made remarkable progress in spite of severe challenges. Separated from family for the first time in his life, with no relatives or friends in Washington, he felt powerless and alone in the

Meet Zahra, an Afghan refugee and sole support for her family. In 2021, she and her husband arrived in the United States with their four children and were successfully resettled by the Refugee Resettlement Office (RRO). However, after only a year in the United States, Zahra’s husband, only 39 years old, suffered a stroke and died. To complicate life further, Zahra was pregnant at the time of his death. The RRO was able to raise enough funds from individual and