Here is a story from back in May which I missed at the time from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, home to more than 5000 Burmese refugees that is your usual puff-piece about how refugees are doing great in America. An engaged couple (he is Burmese and I assume she is Thai) were lucky to get to the top of the list of hundreds of lower-income applicants in the Ft. Wayne area to get a house built for them. I wondered right off, why a house didn’t go first to a whole family, but there is more to wonder about.
Here is the basic story to help make you feel warm all over:
The yard is mostly still piles of dirt and gravel, but the house is finished. Cheery flowers are planted in front, and a few items, including a Mac computer, sit on the front porch, ready to be moved in.
After being built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers, the house at 523 Douglas Ave. now officially belongs to Tha Wai, a native of Myanmar, formerly Burma, and his fiancée, Thailand native Mai Shwe.
At a dedication ceremony Saturday, the couple [when is the wedding?] moved into their new home.
The house is the 126th home Habitat for Humanity has built in Fort Wayne. It was funded mostly by proceeds from the organization’s aluminum can-recycling program.
[…..]
Pastor Jeff Keplar gave the house blessing. He and his wife, Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Carol Keplar, were Tha Wai’s family advocates. Advocates support families and help them acclimate to owning a home.
Besides being the husband of Carol Keplar, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity, who is Jeff Keplar?
The article about the Habitat house fails to tell readers that besides being a pastor, Keplar (we assume there aren’t two Jeff Keplars!) heads up the relatively new World Relief refugee resettlement office in Ft. Wayne. That is the office that I said was in a ‘cat fight’ with Catholic Charities way back in June 2008, here and again here in December. I pointed out that there were so many refugees coming to Ft. Wayne that agencies were fighting over the lucrative turf.
From Everyday Christian about Keplar’s new office:
FORT WAYNE, IND.—Jeff Keplar has lived in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, area for 30 years. As a former instructor at the Christian-based Taylor University and a well-connected [his wife is too] member of the local church community, Keplar knows the northeast Indiana city as well as anybody.
That knowledge is an asset which also gives him pause as the new director of World Relief’s office in the city.
Go read the article, you will love the discussion about how having lots of people on unemployment is good for refugee resettlement because those people are looking for useful things to do instead of sitting around home!
“Because I know the churches and know the network of people here, I anticipate we’ll be able to mobilize quickly,” Keplar said. “We already have five refugees and 30 to 35 more in the pipeline awaiting travel arrangements. We’re going to have some substantial needs pretty quick.”
That was in April when 30-35 were in the pipeline. Funny that World Relief , three months earlier in January, told the News-Sentinel this:
At the outset, World Relief is going to work with refugees already here. Whether the agency will sponsor more refugees to the area – and how many – is undetermined.
Were they afraid there would be a public outcry over more refugees arriving in an overloaded city with a second resettlement office now in town?
Well, I guess they made the determination to bring more refugees pretty quickly and just think, lucky, well-connected refugees, may get a house too!
Does anyone know if one or the other of the fortunate couple happen to work for World Relief ? Surely not, that would be way too obviously ‘keeping it in the family!’
New readers: Use our search function for Ft. Wayne. We started following the problems there way back in 2007. Most recently we posted this controversial comment.