A year as a sponsor: What it was like to assist a family seeking asylum in Canada

In 2016, after watching images on TV in horror, of Syrian refugees walking for days, and then getting into small boats to seek safety in Europe, I felt compelled to act. I shared this thought on my Facebook feed, and within a couple of days, some 35 friends, acquaintances and friends of friends and I had agreed to join our efforts to form a Blended Visa Office-Referred sponsorship group. A BVOR group shares the financial responsibility for refugees with the Canadian government for a year and works together to help the family find a home, register for school, access services and acclimatize to life in their new country. It was the most intense experience of my life and one that I'm incredibly grateful for. I have never experienced such community, witnessed so much kindness or overcome so many obstacles for such fulfilling results. After everything we've gone through together, I feel like the family we sponsored for a year have become family to me and my children, and that we have a special bond that we'll hold onto forever. Here's the story of our journey.

February 2016: Toronto Pearson Airport

We're standing in Arrivals, holding welcome signs for a Syrian family of seven that has no idea they're even being sponsored and greeted by Canadians. On our end, as sponsors, all we know is the family members' names, dates of births and medical histories, and that Dad has PTSD from having been tortured in the war.

The 14-year-old boy spots us first, points at our sign, then whispers to his nine-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister. They walk over smiling shyly, we all shake hands and we say, "Welcome to Canada," grinning broadly. A child from our sponsor group hands each Syrian child a gift bag and a pile of cards that her classmates made, all decorated with drawings of the CN Tower, hearts and welcome wishes.

Mom walks through the double doors next, with her eldest daughter, 16, and an immigration officer. She takes several steps into the Arrivals area, stops in her tracks, then begins to sob and shake, I imagine overwhelmed with mixed emotions. Diana, our only Arabic-speaking sponsor, approaches her and speaks soothing words, as the children look over at their mother anxiously. When she is feeling better, and I can introduce myself, I touch her arms and say, "You have beautiful children." Diana translates. Mom looks at me for a moment then responds, "You have beautiful eyes." We hug. And that is how our year-long sponsorship and — I hope — lifelong friendship began.

This family fled to Lebanon from their home in Syria before coming to Canada. Dad and Grandma were supposed to arrive with the family, but we learn that Dad has been missing since he left for Europe on a boat to find work. Grandma is sick and didn't want to leave Lebanon without news that her son was alive and well. All of this news is troubling, but in the meantime, we need to get this family home and fed.

We pile into cars and a van to take the family of five to the house of Dan and Rachael, a couple in our group, who'll host them short-term. Rachel is heavily pregnant, so we're hoping the apartment hunt moves quickly and that the baby takes its time. They've set up beds in three spare rooms, but the family moves all the mattresses into one room and sleeps together that first night. Deborah, a chef in our sponsor group, has prepared a lamb stew for dinner. The family radiates warmth at the table and finds creative ways to joke with us, in spite of having maybe 20 words of English between them. Merciless teasing and pranking are at the heart of their family culture.

The rest of that first month is a blur of apartment-viewing, vaccinations and medical exams, shopping sprees for prayer mats and first-day-of-school sparkle sneakers, and trips to the ROM and the AGO. We sponsors share updates in a private Facebook group and have nightly conference calls to try and rein in the chaos of 35 sets of hands on deck. It's exciting and exhausting.

March 2016: New home, new school … and news about Dad

In the middle of a blizzard, support group members Jessica and Gisele lead a small team in bringing furniture and household items to the family's new apartment. Mom cries happy tears upon seeing the new home setup, and the kids run from room to room, asking questions about everything from the first aid kit to the fluffy penguin tucked into the youngest child's bed.

The very next morning is the first day at school. The kids are both scared and excited; they've missed three years of education, and they're desperate to be learning again as they all have big career goals. Because of daily sniping and street battles back in Syria, the youngest child never even started school, so he's entering Grade 3 without literacy or numeracy skills. Deborah starts visiting weekly to help all of the kids with their homework; all four children ask questions at once about different subjects at different grade levels.

Just before Easter, Mom calls, excited to say Dad has been located, safe and well in Berlin. Everyone is overjoyed. The kids keep their dad on video chat constantly so that he can join them for meals and partake in their daily life from afar. The bad news: there's an extensive process to undertake in order for him to join the family as a refugee in Canada. In the following days, joy turns to anger, as the family aches for a faster reunion.

April 2016: Emergency surgery and unexpected grief

The eldest son ends up at SickKids hospital, with his family and several sponsors by his bedside, in agonizing pain and in need of an emergency appendectomy. From Berlin, Dad is on the line, saying he doesn't want the doctors to operate; during the war in Syria, organ harvesting during surgeries was a concern, and he is afraid it might happen here, too. Eventually, after doctors, sponsors and a translator promise that Canada is different, Dad consents, and his son's surgery goes ahead in the middle of the night. It's a really scary experience for Mom and his siblings, but thankfully the recovery is fast and with it comes faith in the Canadian medical system.

At the end of the month, another blip comes when the youngest daughter's ESL teacher gives her guppies to take home in a glass jar with no proper aquarium equipment. They die one by one, triggering her PTSD. "Team Education," as it had come to be known in our group, calls the kids' school to have the principal speak with the teacher about this fish incident — a task we never really anticipated in preparing for sponsorship — while other group members rally to comfort the little girl.

May 2016: A party… and a virtual funeral

We have a potluck celebration with the family and the whole sponsorship group at the home of JoAnne, one of our sponsors who lives in Ontario's Niagara region.

The kids take hundreds of selfies in front of the Falls, and it's exciting to see their reaction. JoAnne goes all out, renting a bouncy castle, buying a tug-of-war rope and setting up a life-size Hungry Hungry Hippos game. It feels amazing to celebrate together now that things are calming down after three intense months of settling in.

The kids are now enrolled in activities like soccer, dance and swimming lessons, and they invite us to science fairs, art exhibits and folk dance recitals at school. For sponsors like me, whose actual family lives thousands of miles away, it feels great to play the role of Auntie and see the kids take advantage of what seems like every opportunity they have here in Canada.

Meanwhile, Sandra in "Team Paperwork" is filling out stacks of forms and working with a lawyer, a translator and our local MP to try and expedite Dad's arrival in Canada. When we created her role, the group never dreamed it would expand to these proportions, but, over the course of the year, we discover it's quite common for families to be separated in exile.

Still, the honeymoon period is wearing off for the family, and everyone feels too worried about Dad to focus in school. Then, at the end of the month, we get a distraught late-night call from the youngest daughter to say, "Grandma is dead." For the next few days, everyone takes to lying down on sofas or in beds, grieving. They can only watch their grandmother's funeral via WhatsApp. We have a death doula in our group, Sandra, and she shares an article on Islamic mourning rituals to guide us in supporting the family. The eldest son is too sad to celebrate his birthday at the end of this month. We respect his wishes and don't throw a party, but some of his new friends — also Syrian refugees — show up with cake, pop, muffins and a homemade banner, and we're happy to see him smile.

June 2016: Kibbeh and Kraft Dinner

The youngest daughter begins volunteering at her school as an ambassador to welcome new refugee students, who are arriving every week. She is emerging as a natural leader. This is the type of news that keeps us motivated as a group. In honour of Ramadan, we do crafts with the kids, who are now more at peace with the fact their father will take a while to get here, even though they can't imagine celebrating the holy month without him.

Our teammate, Pay, works in media, and she gets the family's patio decked out with brand new furniture and a barbecue that was used in a TV segment. Mom is an incredible cook, and now that she's charring her eggplants on coal, her mutabal reaches new levels of deliciousness. The family is also trying out new foods they've spotted in Canada, and, one evening, Kraft Dinner and French's ketchup appear on the dining room table alongside the kibbeh, hummus and tabbouleh.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, we recruit a new team member, Kavita, a friend of a friend who helps Dad print and prepare the many forms he needs for his upcoming immigration interview. Dad invites her to break the Ramadan fast with him, and they send photos of their iftar supper to the rest of us in Canada.

We get all the kids registered in summer camps. The youngest daughter is offered a place in a sleepaway camp, but her parents are too nervous to let her go. The group is sad she'll miss out on a chance to experience the "great Canadian outdoors," but it's one of those times we have to check ourselves and stand back as the family makes their own decisions about their own lives.

This month, the fighting intensifies in the family's Syrian hometown, and as they speak with relatives on WhatsApp, they always hear planes dropping bombs. Mom used to share cellphone pics of family meals with her sisters, but she has stopped now, because some of their loved ones are going hungry and dealing with long stretches of time without running water and electricity. The family starts experiencing intense survivors' guilt, and Mom drops out of school, feeling overwhelmed. I start having war dreams and waking up in the middle of the night, too, as the constant anxiety becomes contagious.

July 2016: Finally, an interview with immigration

Dad has his Canadian immigration interview in Germany; it happens to fall on my birthday, which we take as an auspicious sign. We await news anxiously, as the children ask us again and again how long it will be until he comes.

August 2016: A plane arrives… in Edmonton

We learn that the children's 21-year-old cousin will arrive at the end of the month as a government-sponsored refugee. We make welcome signs in both languages. But then we get the surprise after he touches down in Canada: he has been put on a plane to Edmonton. The cousin speaks no English, and ends up alone, staying in a shelter and at a loss for what to do. He is also vision-impaired, which adds an extra layer of vulnerability. Team Paperwork contacts a helpful Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada agent who has his file transferred, and the group raises funds to pay for the cousin's airfare back to Toronto. Within just over a week, we're back at Toronto Pearson for a hug-filled reunion.

September 2016: Delicate matters and a victory

Tensions brew as the sponsors and family discuss sensitive and personal topics like employment and finances. An Arabic-speaking social worker facilitates a conversation and helps us understand the different cultural perspectives at play.

More challenges ensue as the eldest son is feeling torn between wanting to assume adult responsibilities within his family and wanting to just be a kid, enjoying the freedom to go out and have fun — something he hadn't experienced for years. A bright moment of togetherness comes at the end of the month, when his soccer team wins the neighbourhood league cup.

October 2016: Fall colours and a first Halloween

We take the family hiking with other Syrians and Canadians on an excursion organized by the Together Project to see the fall colours. The Canadians are impressed by the newcomers' knowledge of wild edibles and we learn a lot that day. 

The youngest kids experience their first Halloween and can scarcely believe such a celebration of gluttony exists. They dash from house to house with Frances, a sponsor, and her two kids, in their neighbourhood which is known for going all-out in the candy department. At the end, they sort the candy into halal and non-halal piles and share their spoils with their new Canadian friends.

November 2016: Remembering

I attend a Remembrance Day assembly at the elementary school to see the youngest daughter dance. It's poignant and sobering to hear the principal talk about how many of the kids in this school are there because wars have forced them to leave their home countries.

December 2016: An eventful end to the year...

One of our group members, Chip, is a cartoonist. When he visits the family, the kids describe the pet cat they had to leave behind in Lebanon. Chip draws it for them in cartoon version, much to their delight.

Later in the month, I go to Berlin to visit a friend, and I have the chance to meet with Dad. We FaceTime Mom from the Brandenburg Gate, and she tells him to buy me coffee and put honey in it, just how I like it. It is wonderful to meet Dad, but he seems very tired and just desperate to see his kids. It's heartbreaking.

The children's aunt and uncle have joined their son in Toronto as government-sponsored refugees now. But a few days before Christmas, Uncle has a heart attack. He is released from the hospital on December 24 with a prescription that should be free, but the government office that needs to approve the drugs is shut down for the holiday season, so he doesn't get his meds. On Christmas Day, when we learn about this, Sandra and I go to see a pharmacist, who says Uncle could die without these drugs. He releases enough pills to tide him over until the government approval comes through, and tells us that this kind of dangerous situation arises for cash-strapped refugees around this time every year.

January 2017: Birthdays, but also bad news

The youngest son celebrates his birthday on New Year's Day, and we have a party. Renee, a food writer in our group, makes him a soccer field cake replete with a device to flick a little ball into the goal. She plays crowd sound effects on her phone as he scores, and we all cheer.

The celebrations end with a spontaneous dance party for our Syrian friends, and even Uncle, who is still recovering from heart surgery, joins in, sparking joy and fear in equal measure.

The very next day, Mom gets news that her sister in Syria, who is nine months pregnant, needs urgent heart surgery. There seem to be no cardiologists left in the city to do it. With the onslaught of bad news from home, it's hard for the family to feel engaged in their new lives in Canada.

At the end of the month we have a bowling party for the youngest daughter's 12th birthday. She has lots of girlfriends now at school, and they show up full of giggles and inside jokes. It's a beautiful thing. On another happy note, Dad's file is finally approved, and we can expect his travel documents to be issued soon. Deborah shows up at the apartment, just as Dad calls to break the news, and she reports that there is joyful laughing, crying and twirling on toes when they hear.

February 2017: Back to where it all began

The final rollercoaster month of our official sponsorship comes with report card grades in the 90s for the eldest daughter, and the purchase of plane tickets for Dad. Sandra has friends at a hair salon, and they colour and cut Mom's hair for the big reunion.

There's an eleventh-hour glitch with the travel documents being sent from the Canadian embassy in Vienna to Dad in Berlin, and we're not sure if they'll arrive in time for Dad to get on the flights we've booked. Sandra stays up for several nights, trying to get through to people who can help in Europe on the phone. Our MP's office helps us out once again. By some miracle, Dad's visa is couriered hours before his planned departure. I sleep on the sofa at the family's apartment the night he travels, worried about him making the connections and … just worried in general, after all the hoops we've had to jump through to make this happen. Dad sends pictures all night long from his cellphone, from the steps of the plane, from his aisle seat, from his connecting airport.

On February 16, a whole gang of us sponsors head back to Toronto Pearson with the family. The kids put on their best clothes and clutch single roses for their dad. They are shaking with excitement; the eldest daughter says, "My heart is going crazy."

When their father finally walks through the double doors, the older kids leap across the barriers and throw themselves into his arms. The youngest boy is so overwhelmed, he crouches down on the floor, whimpering, until his mother beckons him over. Then the whole family stands in a huddle, holding each other tight for the longest time. The rest of us? We wipe tears, hug and shake our heads in disbelief at the sight of the family finally reunited.

Just two days later, our official sponsorship period is up. The friendship doesn't end there, but the rhythm of our visits changes as the family transitions into full independence.

Since then...

Since then, the family has become more and more settled in Canada, and has continued to take advantage of every opportunity they have here. Baby Salsabil was born to her proud parents in September 2018, at a First Nations midwives clinic with her siblings and two sponsors waiting in the wings to greet her. She has brought tremendous joy to the family, who say she is a symbol of hope and of new beginnings in Canada.

We switch from sponsors to friends — friends who are family — after one of the most intense and life-changing experiences of our lives. We plan to be there for graduations, citizenship ceremonies, weddings and babies. Above all, we hope one day to be able to join them to quietly celebrate an end to the war in Syria that for now remains in their thoughts, every waking moment of their lives in Canada.

Valerie Howes lives in Toronto with her two children and three dogs. She is a senior editor for locallove.ca, where she writes and edits stories about social justice and inclusive communities. Her writing has also appeared in the Guardian UK, Globe and Mail, enRoute, Today's Parent, Chatelaine, Toronto Life, Reader's Digest and THIS magazine, among other publications. She co-authored the Gourmand World Cookbook Award-winning book Lure, with sustainable seafood champion Ned Bell.