Explosion three years ago caused the Kaspars to escape to Lebanon and eventually to Canada
The B.C. Catholic
MAPLE RIDGE
Syrian refugee Maha Kaspar still remembers the worst five minutes of her life.
Three years ago a mortar shell suddenly exploded outside her Aleppo home, kicking up debris and sending clouds of smoke high into the air.
Her teenage daughters Sally and Natalie screamed as they watched the smoke rise from where they stood on the balcony. Her son, who had stepped out of the door seconds after the blast, disappeared.
“We started crying and shouting. We are in the house. We think that Sammy died. It was crazy. We were shouting, Sammy, Sammy!”
After minutes that felt like an eternity, Sammy reappeared. “It was five minutes, but very horrible, until he came back and we saw him,” Maha recalled.
The refugees retold the story as they sat around a table during a welcome dinner with sponsors at St. Patrick’s Parish in Maple Ridge Feb. 27. They had landed at Vancouver International Airport just over a week earlier.
Sammy remembers bolting at that blast just days before Easter in 2013.
“I didn’t know what had happened,” he explained. “I felt a shake and I looked and I saw the smoke. At first, I didn’t know what had happened. Then I realized an explosion had happened here. I ran away.”
One of Maha’s neighbours wasn’t so fortunate; he died in the blast. For Maha, the war in Syria had just hit too close to home. She and her husband Antoin and their three children packed up and left Aleppo April 16, 2013.
The Kaspar family then spent two years uncertain of their future. Antoin and Maha had left their jobs. Sammy had been in his third year of a five-year electrical engineering degree, while Sally had started post-secondary studies in economics. Natalie had been on the verge of completing Grade 12.
They fled to a safe coastal town near Tartus, Syria, then crossed the border into Lebanon, where they tried to catch a flight to another country.
“In Lebanon they don’t allow Syrians to work. Living there is very expensive, and we came from a war, and not money enough to live there,” Maha explained.
She said the Lebanese government didn’t allow them to stay for more than 10 days, so the family kept moving back and forth across the border, trying to catch a flight out of Lebanon, being unable to afford living there, and going back to the Tartus area.
Finally St. Patrick’s Parish learned about the family and decided to sponsor them.
Gloria Tam, a member of the parish sponsorship committee, said she decided to get involved in sponsorship after hearing Christians in Syria were being persecuted.
“I felt it was not right. We have so many Christians here and we live as if nothing had happened. I opened my mouth and it became my work,” she said.
A committee of about 20 was formed and began hosting fundraisers and collecting furniture to fill the two-bedroom home in Port Coquitlam they chose for the family.
“There are a lot of good people out there.” One potluck that was advertised as admission by donation brought in $9,000. The Catholic Women’s League sold homemade soups and hosted dinners to raise funds for the cause. A group of girls and their mothers made a Christmas cookie mix that raised $1,000.
After a local newspaper featured the parish’s efforts, Tam said community members also jumped on board, donating clothing and furniture.
So much furniture came in that the parish didn’t have the space to store it. They gave a truckload away to St. Matthew’s Parish in Surrey, which was scrambling after a Syrian family they were sponsoring suddenly announced they had the green light to fly to Canada sooner than anticipated.
The effort “is very rewarding,” Tam said.
The Kaspar family arrived in February on two separate flights. Sammy and Sally landed Feb. 17; Antoin, Maha, and Natalie joined them Feb. 21.
“We love the Canadian people and Canada,” Antoin said, his words translated into English by his children. “The Canadian people are so nice and kind and welcoming. We were very happy when we saw all of the committee welcoming us at the airport. We are relieved to be here.”
The family lives in Port Coquitlam, a fair drive away from the Maple Ridge parish, but thanks to divine providence, only eight minutes’ drive away from Maha’s nephew and his family, who happened to be sponsored by nearby Our Lady of the Assumption Parish.
“We couldn’t come to here without these people who helped us to finish our suffering and come here and start a new life,” Maha said. She and Antoin will look for work soon.
“I’m hoping to get into software engineering or computer engineering,” added Sammy. Natalie hopes to go back to high school and graduate.
“It’s a dream to be here,” said Sally, who plans to continue her studies in economics. “When we were in Syria, we dreamed of something like this.”
