June 10th, 2016

WCI’s sponsorship team has been waiting anxiously, alongside our community partner Calvary United Church, to welcome our Syrian family to Waterloo.  As the months have passed by, we have been in touch with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) regularly.

Unfortunately, in late May we received a setback in our sponsorship plan.  MCC informed Calvary and WCI that our sponsorship match with a Syrian family was not going to be granted clearance to travel at this time, and would be suspended indefinitely. As a result, the advice from MCC was to move to a new BVOR (Blended Visa Sponsorship) file, which, due to over-subscription from private sponsors for families from Syria, would have to be from another global refugee location.

After a difficult couple of days of soul searching with key student and staff leaders on the project, we decided that we would switch our BVOR file and be re-matched with a new family.  A key aspect of our decision was the information that a new BVOR file would still honour the spirit of our community’s fund-raising commitment AND most importantly that once the original Syrian family is cleared, they will have a new match IMMEDIATELY.

This decision was not easy.  As a committee, we have been overwhelmed by the financial and action-based support for refugees from our WCI families in our day to day work, and most especially in this ambitious refugee sponsorship.  We feel a strong obligation to honour the donations we have received and ensure we are doing the work you have mandated us to do.  We truly hope our decision to work with a new refugee profile will still meet the expectations of our generous community.

While we are still wrestling with the additional complications of the re-match, we are again anxiously awaiting a new match, and once that family profile has been confirmed, we should be able to integrate and support a newcomer family in the fall.

We will continue to update the WCI community via the website and our committee members.  Please do not hesitate to call Ms. Shortreed at 519-884-9590 if you have any questions regarding the re-match or our sponsorship.

Sincerely,

Ms. Jennifer Shortreed and the Refugee Support Committee