Since its very beginnings, Holy Trinity has involved itself with welcoming immigrants and studying immigration issues. Most recently, members have worked with Ascentria Care Alliance to companion the Khyber family from Afghanistan as they become familiarized with American ways. We did this through a team effort, working with multiple congregations and organizations throughout the Seacoast. The Khybers have now obtained subsidized housing in Portsmouth and are setting out on their own.
Prior to getting acquainted with the Khybers, Holy Trinity worked in collaboration with Temple Israel in Portsmouth to companion Claudine Bertille from Cambodia. Claudine arrived in the States several years ago, eventually ending up in Rockingham County and finding temporary housing with a Dover family. In her home country, Claudine worked as a para-legal, but with English as her third (!) language and with Cambodians practicing the English legal system, finding employment here in her field was impossible. Instead, she found herself various jobs working in nursing homes throughout the area as a nursing assistant.
Several in our congregation had the opportunity to meet Claudine when she worshipped with us just after COVID was under control enough for us to meet in person for services. Before that, she joined us regularly by zoom. Holy Trinity and Temple Israel both contributed monthly to a food budget for Claudine so that she could help with finances for the generous folks who gave her housing. Another thing she needed was transportation to and from her job, and to avoid her having to rely on public transportation, a dozen folks from Holy Trinity created a schedule and drove her to and from work in Dover.
When requests went out for traveling nursing assistants in the Dartmouth area, she bravely hopped on a bus and took herself to apply for a job that paid more. She found temporary accommodation near work there.
After only a couple of months in Dartmouth, a fellow Cambodian refugee who had settled in Las Vegas promised her a good job and invited her to share her apartment. The next thing we knew, our brave Claudine flew herself out to Las Vegas to start yet another new life!
Another year has gone by already. Not only is she working full time, but she’s moved herself into her own apartment and enrolled herself in a nursing school program. I spoke with her by phone several weeks ago; she told me joyfully that her daughter in France was coming for a visit. She also has a date with a judge to begin the asylum process.
We don’t know Claudine’s story before becoming an immigrant. Those of us who “companioned” her were encouraged never to ask why she made the decision to leave her home in Cambodia for a country half-way across the world to start anew, because any variances in the story might harm her chances for asylum. We know the circumstances must have been dire; she left an aging mother, an older daughter, and several grandchildren behind, fully knowing she might never see them again.
This we know: Claudine is a brave, brave woman. Those of us who are privileged to know her feel gifted. She is a woman of prayer and deep faith, and she has taught us much about what it means to be an immigrant. –Dot Kasik