A Coquitlam church congregation is anxiously awaiting news about two refugee families it applied to help sponsor after renting an apartment and collecting furniture and funds to support them.
"The Canadian government has received our application and it's fine," said Darrell McLeod, who heads the sponsorship group for St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Parish in Coquitlam, "the big thing is trying to find out what's holding them up."
One family is from Iraq, the second from Syria and both are currently in Lebanon, and applications for both families were sent in the fall, with no problem.
The first family — two adults and their three young children — is being supported through the Blended Visa Office-Referred Program, which gets names from the United Nations Refugee Agency for families who are travel ready.
McLeod says he thought that would speed things up and he hopes to hear soon the families are on their way because he doesn't want to waste too much money on rent for an apartment the church has secured in Surrey.
Outside of not knowing when the families will arrive, McLeod says it has been a great experience getting the congregation involved in fundraising and collecting furniture and other goods for the families.
He has worked on the project since January after seeing a documentary about Carol Huynh, the daughter of Vietnamese boat people who came to Canada as refugees, who won a gold medal in wrestling in the Beijing Summer Olympics.
"I thought, 'That's what we've got to do [sponsor a refugee family]. It's not too big a job to do."
It costs $25,000 to support a family for a year and, to raise the funds, the 35 members on St. Clare's sponsorship committee sold pies and held fundraisers, including a golf tournament and a pub night.
Now, McLeod said the church might have raised enough money to possibly sponsor a third family because some government support is available for refugees under the blended visa office referred program so funds they've raised may go further.
Still, until the families arrive, it's not known exactly what they will need, McLeod said.
"If it's cost effective, we will just keep getting more families as long we can get them here," McLeod said.
In addition to financial support, the church has also found jobs for the newcomers in a window factory and will help them with their English, with everyday tasks such as shopping and filling out government forms as well as getting children settled in schools.
As for what's next, McLeod said the group can only hope and wait.
Meanwhile, the federal government has announced that a total of 11,932 applications are currently in process and funding for resettlement assistance centres has been increased by $3 million.
In response to a Tri-City News inquiry, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in an email that applications are processed in the "sequence in which they are received," with refugees requiring medical and security screening before being accepted. The spokesperson also said most privately-sponsored applications received before September 2015 are expected to be finalized this month.
