Waukesha Man Helps Refugee Families, Writes Book for Others

Jeffrey Kirk’s journey to writing a book started with the journey a refugee family made 10 years ago, fleeing a war zone in Bosnia and landing in the United States amid the upheaval of Sept. 11, 2001.

“They thought the war followed them from Bosnia. We had to show them a map. Look, New York is there and we are here. We had to reassure them and tell them, ‘You’re safe here,’” Kirk said, his hands laying out the imaginary map, showing the distance and making reassuring motions, re-enacting the moment.

Kirk demonstrates his ability to get the message across without words, a trait that has helped him over the past 10 years in working with refugees. But he used words to share what he’s learned over the years by writing a book about it.

Kirk’s book, 10 Million To 1: Refugee Resettlement - A How-To Guide, published this summer, was launched online this week, debuting on Amazon.com in second place in books about emigration and immigration and in third place on Amazon in books about international current events. Kirk also has a website about refugee resettlement.

The book, a mix of stories from refugees, pertinent information about refugee resettlement and how-to advice and checklists for resettlement teams, is eliciting positive feedback from readers and those who work in refugee resettlement.

A book wasn’t in the plans at the beginning, though.

Kirk, who lives in Waukesha with his wife and two children, had mulled the idea of volunteering with refugee resettlement for two to three years after first hearing about the need from a volunteer with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS).  The man spoke at a local business networking breakfast and Kirk, with an interest in international travel and cultures, listened as the man described the need for volunteers to help resettle refugee families in the area.

Their paths crossed over the next year or so and the issue kept nudging at Kirk. Finally, Kirk invited the man to speak at the social concerns committee at his church, in Waukesha. The social concerns committee was involved in other projects but Kirk decided it was a project he could lead, not knowing that he was making a commitment that would span years and help so many.

“First time I heard of it, I thought that there was something I could do to help,” he said. “A year or year and a half later, I could see that there was a real need.”

A refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” − The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention

“For most of them, their goal isn’t to come to the United States,” Kirk said. “They’re fleeing to save their lives. They only choose to come here when their options have run out and they can’t go home anymore.”

A former refugee relates her experience in the book:

“A bomb exploded in our kitchen. My husband and son were killed. I was injured. Suddenly I was a single mom with four daughters. It’s not safe for women without husbands there, especially a pregnant woman with young girls. So we fled to a neighboring country. My new son was born in the refugee camp where we then lived for four years before coming to the United States.”

And another:

I was enjoying the afternoon with some of my friends. Suddenly a bomb exploded in our midst. I was, quite literally, blown up. We were all taken away as dead.

In the morgue they discovered that I was still alive. With repeated surgeries, and over a year in the hospital, I was put back together and I was able to walk out. But then I was taken away from my family and held as a prisoner in my homeland. Eventually, with the help of my family, I was able to escape. We fled, becoming refugees. We were separated from friends and family, but at least we were together. We were admitted to the U.S. to start our lives again. With five and a half years in our new home, I became a citizen, thankful for the opportunity for myself, my wife and my children.

There are 11 agencies across the United States that refugees funnel through, like LIRS, Catholic Charities and others, according to Kirk.

The national agency decides where a family is going to live based on the support available in the area and the refugee family’s ability to connect with others from their country of origin. Settling the family – helping them find housing, support services, food, jobs, clothing and teaching them to be self-sufficient in American culture – is often the responsibility of a few volunteers with service organizations or local churches.

“The main challenge is too few people doing it all,” he said. “Sometimes churches don’t take on the challenge because they don’t know what to do.”

Kirk and his newfound team of about 10 volunteers from the church, including his wife, worked to settle that first family in the area.

“Back then, we were just guessing what to do,” he said. The family of five, a mom, a dad and three children, lived in the Kirk’s finished lower level until suitable housing could be found. More work lay ahead, though.

“Our goal is to get them to self-sufficiency in six months. Most of the time, we’re successful,” he said. “The only thing that takes longer is finding jobs.”

In this case, it was more than a year before the father could find a job. Fortunately, the mother and a teen child had better luck.

And then, after the first family was self-sufficient, the decision to help another family …

“We planned to help this one Bosnian family start a new life in southeastern Wisconsin. Then we would pat ourselves on the back having done a good job and hope someone else came along for the next family. Reality didn’t work out that way. We were hooked. How can you ignore the satisfaction of truly making a difference in the world? Of being a difference in the world? ” Kirk writes in his book.

The second family was from Afghanistan, and that was a completely different experience for the team.

“After a while, we started to hear how good of a job we were doing,” Kirk said. “That’s when I started thinking about and writing down what we did that really worked this time.”

As Kirk and the volunteers helped one family after another, he realized that his notes and record of the work had become something.

“It started evolving with every family until I realized that it had become a guide for what to do,” he said.

No one has written a book like this before, Kirk was told, filling a niche in the industry but, more importantly, providing support to people who work in refugee resettlement. He’s been asked to speak at a national conference about the topic and hopes to help other resettlement teams with his advice.

For the future, he would like to focus his work on helping resettlement teams become more efficient, being an advisor for a lot of teams, helping them become more efficient and preventing burn-out, rather than the team leader of one team. It’s simple math.

“I would rather help 800 families in eight years, than only 10 families,” he said.

Of the 10 million estimated refugees in the world, a small fraction of that amount, determined by Congress and the President, come to the Unites States. Kirk writes in his book that the refugee problem is staggering, but not impossible to fix.

“Working together, in small groups, we can focus on one family at a time. Your group, my group, and other groups around the world can each focus on helping a single family. Then we do it again with another family. With more groups, more action is taken. Repeat the process until all 10 million refugees can either go home or have a new home,” Kirk writes in his book.

Kirk’s team is not working to resettle a family currently, and it’s been a while since they have. One of the reasons is the down economy, resulting in fewer jobs available, but there are also fewer refugees coming into the United States.

He ran into a former refugee family at the post office recently and exchanged pleasantries, as you would expect among a neighbor or friend going about everyday business.

“We went into refugee resettlement thinking we might be able to help someone. In the end, we were part of a flow of blessings, giving and receiving, participating and feeling, involved and absorbing. What could be better?” Kirk writes in the book.