Many of us enjoyed getting to know Claudine while she was living in Dover. This is an update on where she is now and what’s happening in her life.
Claudine is an immigrant from Cameroon who was introduced to Holy Trinity through the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition. Cameroon is in the midst of civil war, and things became so dangerous for Claudine that she had to escape, leaving behind a daughter, grandchildren, and an aging mother. She arrived in the States about four years ago, applied for asylum, and was assigned a lawyer. Finding a way to earn a living and support herself was immediate—housing, food, and legal fees. In Cameroon she’d been a paralegal, but she wouldn’t have qualified for a similar position here without advanced education. But something she could qualify for with minimal training was to become an LNA, which she did in rapid time. With the current desperate need for medical aids in the States, she’d be able to find work wherever she ended up. Things were looking positive.
But then she hit a snag, a rather large snag. Through miscommunication with her assigned attorney, she missed a court date and was immediately arrested and put in detention.
How long she spent in jail, we’re not sure, but we know that she was moved several times with the final period of incarceration in the Stratford County Detention Center. And that’s where the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC) found and rescued her. Church funds were collected throughout Dover and surrounding communities, her bail money was paid, and SISC found a room for her to rent in a member’s home. She procured a job in a Dover nursing home.
Then SISC contacted Holy Trinity and asked if, along with Portsmouth Jewish Temple, we’d like to companion Claudine; we immediately agreed. We set up the “Team Claudine” and got to work. Over the next five months we helped with grocery money and provided transportation. Most of all, we each had the blessings of friendship. Things seemed to be going well, but Claudine continued to be challenged again and again. She lost her job due to a misunderstanding. Her host family moved away, and she had to seek out new housing. But enterprising Claudine found herself a temporary job and new housing.
One day a phone call came from a medical facility near Hanover. They needed help. If Claudine could be there the next day, they’d have both job and housing available. Intrepid, brave, and more than a little desperate, she boarded the next bus and became a “traveling LNA.”
Her journey continues. Today she shares an apartment with another Cameroon woman in Las Vegas, Nevada. Things may change again soon. Back in her home country on the other side of the world, her mother suffers from dementia. Claudine wants to see her one more time, hopefully before her mother no longer remembers her. With donations collected by the church she attends in Las Vegas and from Portsmouth’s United Unitarian Church, her new attorney is helping her apply for a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) travel authorization that will allow her to leave the US for a visit to Cameroon.
As her life changes, SISC will continue accompanying her. She and I often message back and forth. Every one of her notes ends with “I pray for your blessing in God every day.” Let’s continue to do likewise. ◦