They face many difficulties in their quest for a new home in a new, free land, but in Edmonton, Canada, a city of close to a million inhabitants, they do not face these challenges alone. New Home Immigration and Settlement Center is there to assist them.
Take, for example, José Sanchez. Sanchez, 44, a lawyer in Bogota, Colombia, who worked in the prosecutor's office charging drug criminals, fled from his home after cocaine drug trafficking cartels targeted him for death. One year ago Sanchez, his wife, and their two elementary school-age children, landed in Canada without knowing any English. Sanchez and his wife began studying English at New Home last October. In July they graduated from its language program. Sanchez now plans to start upgrading in math and computers at a university, and his wife is taking advanced English at New Home. Besides teaching them English, the center gave them advice on careers and provided them with necessary job contacts. Sanchez hopes to practice law again.
United Nations
New Home is an immigrant aid organization. It began in 1989 through the initiative and enthusiasm of Victor and Elsa Schulz. Elsa had begun five language centers in Chicago to help immigrants. Victor, an Adventist evangelist,1 noticed that immigrants were not being reached with the gospel. He was convinced of the soul-winning potential of targeting the more than 200,000 immigrants that make Canada their new home each year. He was also convinced that "sometimes the best sermons are preached with lots of soul and no words." So when Victor and Elsa moved to Canada, they combined their experience and their love for the Lord and others-and the ministry of New Home was born.
New Home is a mini-United Nations of newcomers. From Egypt and El Salvador, from Venezuela and Vietnam, from Afghanistan and Zaire-from a total of 73 different countries-more than 8,000 immigrants have come to New Home. If you visit a New Home classroom, you might see, studying side by side, a general from the former Yugoslavia, a physician from Lebanon, a priest from Serbia, a Chinese businessman, a Russian scientist, a judge, a journalist, a carpenter, or a housewife.
Sandip Bairas, 23, a Sikh woman from India, troubled by the caste system, arrived in 1998 and enrolled in New Home's nine-month English program as 800+ other students have also done each year. But, she thinks that the extracurricular support she received was equally important.
Simon Uguak, 48, agrees with Bairas's observations. After his arrival from Sudan in 1999, Uguak found that the programs at New Home helped him learn English and computers, but also gave him stability as he became oriented to North American culture. Uguak is now employed as a group counselor and social worker for Catholic Social Services in Edmonton.
Hosts of All-around Assistance
The services available to immigrants are myriad-and all free, provided by New Home in partnership with federal and provincial governments. There are full-time day and part-time evening English classes. Child care also is provided free of charge. Immigrants registered in language classes spend one hour each day in a state-of-the-art computer lab to develop their listening, speaking, reading, writing, and grammar. They can also spend a second year preparing themselves for academic training or for the job market.
Noncredit adult education courses, such as Introduction to Computers, Introduction to Internet, Citizenship for Newcomers, and First Aid, round out the "academic" offerings that New Home provides, but assistance continues. Many people not enrolled in English classes can avail themselves of the Internet job bank, the tax clinic, the "Health for Two" program for pregnant women, dental screening, clothing distribution, information and referrals to community services, or summer camps for children.
However, the "Host Program" may provide the strongest personal support for immigrant families faced with the plethora of new experiences confronting them in a new culture. Canadian volunteers, many of them Adventists, are matched with immigrants of similar ages, interests, or careers. The hosts offer friendship and share time with immigrants during the critical first months. During their time together, hosts help newcomers get used to living in Canada, accompanying them to the bank or the grocery store, mapping out important bus routes, helping their children enroll in school-sometimes even explaining popular but confusing sports, such as hockey and curling. Connections are made, friendships are formed, and meaningful conversations about life and spirituality often spring from the time spent together.
"Every day an important segment of my time is used to help people with their personal problems," says Elsa, the director of the proj-ect. "A special bond is created with each individual we help. There is no major satisfaction in my life than to know that I am an instrument in God's hands to help these people in a difficult transitional period of their lives."
New Home currently begins assisting immigrants when they reach Edmonton; however, thanks to an agreement signed between New Home and the former federal minister of foreign relations, Barbara McDougall, the organization was also instrumental in bringing 89 people, imperiled by life-threatening situations, to Canada.2
Team Effort
Obviously, all this work is not accomplished single-handedly. Since July 17, 1991, when New Home was officially incorporated as a nonprofit agency, the organization has grown to 41 employees and between 90 and 120 volunteers per year. Its yearly budget, more than $750,000, is totally funded by the federal and provincial government.
New Home began in the basement of an Edmonton church, with 45 students taking English classes three nights a week. It soon outgrew that facility and moved to a school, and then to a high school. What started as a dream kept growing, and New Home is currently operating in modern facilities occupying two floors of the Hermitage Road Shopping Center in Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta.
As the Schulzes planned their work for Canadian immigrants, they read and acted upon the advice given by Ellen White: "There is a work to be done in foreign fields, but there is a work to be done in [North] America that is just as important. In the cities… there are people of almost every language. These need the light that God has given to His Church."3
The Schulzes know that all immigrants are searching for a new life in a new land, but they also have helped many to set their sights on an even better land. "We don't have statistics on the number of New Home graduates or contacts who have been baptized into the Adventist Church," states Schulz, "but we know of many families who have joined the family of God and indicated that they want to become citizens of heaven. It's thrilling to walk into an Adventist church and see, for example, a New Home graduate as the Sabbath school superintendent."
On July 19, 2001, amid celebration and ceremony, many dignitaries and members of the media helped observe New Home's tenth anniversary. The main speaker, the Honorable David Kilgour, secretary of state for Canada, noted that the founders and staff at New Home have spent 10 years "helping others through friendship and understanding." The Canadian minister of human resources and employment spoke about the "outstanding work that this unusual organization is doing."
Jean Chretien, the prime minister of Canada, sent congratulations and commented on the important role that New Home has played in Canadian life, "not only . . . ensuring that newcomers to Canada feel welcome in their adopted home, but also . . . preserving vital cultural links from generation to generation." The governor general of Canada, the Honorable Adrienne Clarkson, added to the joyous celebration by writing that "newcomers often come to our shores to fulfill their dreams but they end up feeling like 'a stranger in a strange land.' But New Home has helped thousands of people to unravel the complexities of a new culture." Anne McLellan, the minister of health, referred to the "vision" that had founded New Home, and continued by saying, "I applaud you for showing the best in human spirit-its strength, its warmth, and its generosity."
Strength, warmth, and generosity characterize New Home-its programs, its staff, and its reason for existence. Its classes, clinics, and services give immigrants the skills they need to become strong in a new culture. Its staff and volunteers, with their willingness to help, explain, and facilitate, warm the hearts of newcomers in a new-and sometimes cold-country. New Home was founded with the vision of helping others adjust to life in a new land and anticipate eternal life. This goal reflects God's generous desire for all His children.
For more information about New Home, please check the Web Page: newhome@newhomecentre.org. Or you may contact executive director Elsa Schulz at elsa@newhomecentre.org.
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1 Schulz conducted 62 major crusades in the U.S.A., Canada, and overseas countries, with more than 8,000 baptisms. Recently he was the speaker of a 'Net satellite crusade targeting the Hispanics. Carried by five different satellites, the crusade covered 70 percent of the planet and an estimated 12,000-15,000 were baptized around the world as a result.
2 The danger to these people's lives is very real: in three unrelated cases, while papers were hurriedly processed, the potential immigrants were killed.
3 Christian Service, p. 199.
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Denise Dick Herr is a professor at Canadian University College in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada, and head of the English Department.
Secure in the knowledge that your passport is safe with the tour leader and that your luggage is in the care of the bellhop of a five-star hotel, you relax during your vacation abroad. You are cocooned from cold weather by a heated bus or cooled from tropical heat and humidity by air-conditioning. All your expenses have been taken care of before you left home. Your every need is anticipated, and, in your own language, a guide tells you of the history of the places you have come to visit. When your three-week tour is over, you repack your travel clothes, souvenirs, and film, board the plane, and return to your secure job and comfortable home.
