Hello, My name is Bill Paquin. I am asking on behalf of my daughter, granddaughter and son in law for financial aid. First for airfare and travels expenses to allow them to escape the grip of terror they now endure daily. Second for legal expenses for neccessary documents visas etc ( a big cost) and third to help them establish a new life here in the USA.
Due to security reasons I will not mention their exact location and only mention them by their first names. Their need for monetary help is immediate, so please read on and please if you can, donate as soon as possible.
My daughter Erin followed her dream of moving to Tunisia some three years ago. There she married her loving, Tunisian husband Kalil and within a short time they where blessed with a beautiful baby girl they named Chaima, shown here at 10-15 months old, in 2014 and 2015
In their idyllic home and rural setting they enjoyed life and each other's and family's company in peace and harmony until horror engulfed their beautiful land.
As my daughter’s story will reveal, a real terror is now upon them. Erin, Kalil and Chaima need to leave their once idyllic home in Tunisia as soon as possible and relocate to our family home in Washington State. We are without all the means to help them in their plight and need help from family, friends and well wishers who have the desire to see them safely home to the USA. Without this emmergency financial aid they will be left in limbo while the clock ticks by hour by hour and day by day, their future becoming ever more uncertain.
In giving, all will enjoy the knowledge, that they have made the lives of others better and safer and that Erin, Kalil and Chaima’s story will indeed have a happy ending.
This is Erin’s story, in her own words:
Three years ago I made a life-changing decision to move from Hawaii to the tiny North African country of Tunisia. After vacationing four times in this beautiful land, I had fallen in love with it and its charms, from the green jagged mountains in the North, to the baking sands of the Sahara, and in relaxing next to the emerald green Mediterranean Sea. This place became a part of me and when I returned to the States I missed the feeling of belonging that I had in Tunisia. During my travels there, I fell in love. After two failed, long-term relationships, I finally found someone who made me believe that love does exist.
The daughter I had at 18 was grown and independent and at twenty-one years old she was working for the business that I had started with her father. As the life I had in Hawaii began to feel more and more unfulfilled, I made a choice to go forward and follow my dream to Tunisia. I had raised my daughter well and knew that she had established a life for herself in Hawaii and she was financially and emotionally secure.
Except for one suitcase of clothes, I moved from Hawaii, leaving most material things behind. I boarded a plane and looked forward to a better life. After arriving in Tunisia, it was a struggle trying to establish my new life but worth it. I married and became part of a Tunisian family and their culture.
Crossing over cultural gaps was more challenging than I expected and the poverty here, in Tunisia, weighs deeply on you, every time you go out among the people and see it. A little over a year after I moved here, my husband and I were blessed with a beautiful, baby girl who we named Chaima, which means “little beauty mark” in Arabic. Again, the cultural gap made having a child challenging. Many old wives tales control people here and that has to do, again, with poverty. When you have no money for a doctor you turn to whatever you can.
And so we three continued our life in our tiny Tunisian home. I learned the traditional cooking and bread making and learned how to gather things from nature. We watched our daughter learn to walk in fields of wheat surrounded by free roaming sheep and cattle, whose shepherds dozed in the shade.
As with all things, the sun does not last. Dark shadows creep in faster than you know and in these shadows there can be a great danger and so it is with the dark shadows we now have destroying our country. Slowly, ever so slowly, they have crept in with their sinister ideas and violent minds. Tunisia, where the Arab Spring and its hopes for democracy first arose, is in danger and we must find a way to leave and bring our 19 month-old daughter back to the United States.
As months have passed, we have seen many attacks - on innocent tourists in the capitol city and also here, not far from where I live. Recently there have been bombs and bomb threats, beheadings and shootings, less than five miles away from us. We are afraid. We try not to be, but we are. The once sunny days of walking among the fields of wheat are gone. We cannot take our daughter to all the beautiful places we once hiked to. The government has warned foreigners to stay close to home and beware of kidnappings. My husband’s military friends have told him, “Don't let your wife wander far, she is very noticeable.”
I fear now for myself but mostly for my baby, now almost two. We made the decision with the help of family to move back home and so we have started the process. The paper work for my husband, a Tunisian citizen, takes so long and the fees are staggering, along with the price of tickets to fly home. We live a very modest life here with hardly an extra dollar at the end of the month. I truly wanted to make this my home and my husband is heartbroken to leave his aging mother and family but we must put our daughter first. Chaima deserves the right to play outside among the trees and run across the grass without fear.
I have never asked for help with anything in my life. I have worked hard - raising a daughter in Hawaii and running a successful business there. But in this instance I find myself in great need of help, any help. We fear for our lives every day. And so I ask you if you might find it in your heart to help us, so we can pay what fees we need for my husband’s visa and legal fees, travel expenses and for our one-way tickets to what will be our new home in the United States. Although we are not true refugees, I fear that soon we will be. When we make it safely back to the States, we will be starting all over again and with the help of family and friends, we know we can do this.
The unknown of our future looms before us but we will rise to the challenge if given the chance. I have always been a hard worker and my husband and I will work hard in the United States, this time with family on the West Coast.
We thank you for whatever help you can give us, and know that we will break away from these dark shadows and walk in the sun again...
Erin, Kalil and Chaima
Due to security reasons I will not mention their exact location and only mention them by their first names. Their need for monetary help is immediate, so please read on and please if you can, donate as soon as possible.
My daughter Erin followed her dream of moving to Tunisia some three years ago. There she married her loving, Tunisian husband Kalil and within a short time they where blessed with a beautiful baby girl they named Chaima, shown here at 10-15 months old, in 2014 and 2015
In their idyllic home and rural setting they enjoyed life and each other's and family's company in peace and harmony until horror engulfed their beautiful land.
As my daughter’s story will reveal, a real terror is now upon them. Erin, Kalil and Chaima need to leave their once idyllic home in Tunisia as soon as possible and relocate to our family home in Washington State. We are without all the means to help them in their plight and need help from family, friends and well wishers who have the desire to see them safely home to the USA. Without this emmergency financial aid they will be left in limbo while the clock ticks by hour by hour and day by day, their future becoming ever more uncertain.
In giving, all will enjoy the knowledge, that they have made the lives of others better and safer and that Erin, Kalil and Chaima’s story will indeed have a happy ending.
This is Erin’s story, in her own words:
Three years ago I made a life-changing decision to move from Hawaii to the tiny North African country of Tunisia. After vacationing four times in this beautiful land, I had fallen in love with it and its charms, from the green jagged mountains in the North, to the baking sands of the Sahara, and in relaxing next to the emerald green Mediterranean Sea. This place became a part of me and when I returned to the States I missed the feeling of belonging that I had in Tunisia. During my travels there, I fell in love. After two failed, long-term relationships, I finally found someone who made me believe that love does exist.
The daughter I had at 18 was grown and independent and at twenty-one years old she was working for the business that I had started with her father. As the life I had in Hawaii began to feel more and more unfulfilled, I made a choice to go forward and follow my dream to Tunisia. I had raised my daughter well and knew that she had established a life for herself in Hawaii and she was financially and emotionally secure.
Except for one suitcase of clothes, I moved from Hawaii, leaving most material things behind. I boarded a plane and looked forward to a better life. After arriving in Tunisia, it was a struggle trying to establish my new life but worth it. I married and became part of a Tunisian family and their culture.
Crossing over cultural gaps was more challenging than I expected and the poverty here, in Tunisia, weighs deeply on you, every time you go out among the people and see it. A little over a year after I moved here, my husband and I were blessed with a beautiful, baby girl who we named Chaima, which means “little beauty mark” in Arabic. Again, the cultural gap made having a child challenging. Many old wives tales control people here and that has to do, again, with poverty. When you have no money for a doctor you turn to whatever you can.
And so we three continued our life in our tiny Tunisian home. I learned the traditional cooking and bread making and learned how to gather things from nature. We watched our daughter learn to walk in fields of wheat surrounded by free roaming sheep and cattle, whose shepherds dozed in the shade.
As with all things, the sun does not last. Dark shadows creep in faster than you know and in these shadows there can be a great danger and so it is with the dark shadows we now have destroying our country. Slowly, ever so slowly, they have crept in with their sinister ideas and violent minds. Tunisia, where the Arab Spring and its hopes for democracy first arose, is in danger and we must find a way to leave and bring our 19 month-old daughter back to the United States.
As months have passed, we have seen many attacks - on innocent tourists in the capitol city and also here, not far from where I live. Recently there have been bombs and bomb threats, beheadings and shootings, less than five miles away from us. We are afraid. We try not to be, but we are. The once sunny days of walking among the fields of wheat are gone. We cannot take our daughter to all the beautiful places we once hiked to. The government has warned foreigners to stay close to home and beware of kidnappings. My husband’s military friends have told him, “Don't let your wife wander far, she is very noticeable.”
I fear now for myself but mostly for my baby, now almost two. We made the decision with the help of family to move back home and so we have started the process. The paper work for my husband, a Tunisian citizen, takes so long and the fees are staggering, along with the price of tickets to fly home. We live a very modest life here with hardly an extra dollar at the end of the month. I truly wanted to make this my home and my husband is heartbroken to leave his aging mother and family but we must put our daughter first. Chaima deserves the right to play outside among the trees and run across the grass without fear.
I have never asked for help with anything in my life. I have worked hard - raising a daughter in Hawaii and running a successful business there. But in this instance I find myself in great need of help, any help. We fear for our lives every day. And so I ask you if you might find it in your heart to help us, so we can pay what fees we need for my husband’s visa and legal fees, travel expenses and for our one-way tickets to what will be our new home in the United States. Although we are not true refugees, I fear that soon we will be. When we make it safely back to the States, we will be starting all over again and with the help of family and friends, we know we can do this.
The unknown of our future looms before us but we will rise to the challenge if given the chance. I have always been a hard worker and my husband and I will work hard in the United States, this time with family on the West Coast.
We thank you for whatever help you can give us, and know that we will break away from these dark shadows and walk in the sun again...
Erin, Kalil and Chaima