HELP THIS FAMILY BUILD A LIFE!

Story

Irene, who'll be graduating high school this June, and David, who's ready to enter senior high.When language fails, YouTube succeeds.  Baby Joyce is watching kittens chase a ball. Big brother Joshua, 15, and sister Nice, 17, are just as fascinated.Robert Nubatseho and his family are members of an African tribe that is being exterminated.  I honestly don’t understand the full story, because they speak Swahili and French (and finally a bit of English), but this is what I know from seeing documents and helping with various social services:Starting more than 20 years ago, when the family was in The Congo, Robert (father), Esther (mother) had to flee for their lives.  They lived in Rwanda for the next five years, where Fidele,  Irene, Nicé, and Joshua were born. They left Rwanda and managed to live in Burundi for 14 years, where David, Benité, Bienvenue, Merveilleux, and Joyce were born.  Throughout this period, they sought political asylum, I think from the U.N.  Ten months ago they thought their dream had come true when they were granted refugee status in the United States.  They were finally legal, documented residents!  They were flown to Durham, NC, and the eleven of them were placed in an 800 square foot, 2 bedroom apartment.  They were made to sign a year’s lease on it, even though none of them knew a word of English. They have been sleeping on mats or mattresses on the floor, wall to wall people.  A local church “helped them settle” for 90 days. The church left before any of the children were registered for school, and they were given no instruction on the complexities of electric and water bills, vaccinations, etc.  The parents enrolled in English classes within a week. Esther, who is trained as a nurse, was the first to find a job – cleaning rooms in a hotel.  It took Robert three months to find a job as an overnight stock clerk at Best Buy, even though he has a college education. Fidele, the eldest son, got work as a dishwasher in a restaurant, and soon got his sister Irene a job cleaning tables.  But that was as far as they could get on their own.  The kids wore flip-flops to school through ice and snow, and none of them own a winter coat.  I have a soft spot for people who are trying really hard to help themselves, but the deck is stacked against them.  I made sure that they knew they are being evicted when the lease runs out in May, for “excessive occupancy.”  Mother Esther has managed to find a 1,000 square foot, four bedroom apartment.  I’m really handy with designs and tools, and can fit the parents and baby in one bedroom, the boys in the second and the girls in the third, leaving the fourth as a study and storage room.  I know how to build loft beds with built-in dressers, and I can find all of this on craigslist or the Rescue Mission Thrift store here in Durham. I can get them moving boxes, a U-Haul, get everything organized.But I can’t pay for it.  I’m living on the fixed income of a social security check. I can do almost everything, but with new security depositsand leaving bug-infested bedding behind, we need some help with the costs.  $3,000 would make all their dreams come true:  $100 for a storage unit as I start gathering items on craigslist.$600 for two queen-sized beds, one double bed, a bunk-bed set for making two loft beds, and a crib for the baby. (That includes stray hardware and lumber, safety bars, etc.)$300 for six bureaus and two study desks.That’s $1,000.The next $1000 is for the loss of a security deposit, so they’ll have to cover all the unexpected costs of moving, including perhaps having to rent a truck, and if anything’s left over we’ll discuss the wonder of shoes and socks.And the last $1,000 is my biggest hope – enough to pay the first semester’s tuition at Durham Tech for Fidele and Irene, so they can work fewer hours and have time to do the homework in English, which is still a struggle for them.   As money comes in it will be apportioned just as I’ve laid it out here.  I’ve discussed it with Mother and Father, with the help of the high school kids and Google Translator, and had to keep stressing that I couldn’t promise it, because people donate out of the goodness of their hearts, or for a tax deduction, but asking for and getting are two different things.  I’m willing to put in a lot of hours on craigslist and driving around with Joshua to pick things up and put them in storage.  Please be willing to make this family’s dream be more than an illusion.