Season for Caring Charitable Campaign Kicks Off: Features Catholic Charities Family
Catholic Charities of Central Texas is participating in the Austin American-statesman’s ninth annual Season for Caring Charitable Campaign. Families who are featured in the Season for Caring Charitable Campaign have faced extraordinary adversity-medical crises, hunger, abuse, poverty and
homelessness. Look at their faces. Listen to their voices and hear their desire to just make ends meet.
Take a few minutes to get to know our family who is struggling for self-sufficiency.
The campaign, which raises money to help these families and the nonprofit agencies that nominate them, continues through mid January. Look at the family’s wish list and see if there’s something big or small you can do to make their lives better. After all, it is the Season for Caring.
For more information on donating contact:
Catholic Charities of Central Texas, Season for Caring Campaign Donation Line 512-651-6134.
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Mbaya Family Video and Pictures
Read About the Mbaya Family:
Season for Caring: Chantal Mbaya
All Chantal Mbaya wants for Christmas is to see her husband again.
For years, Mbaya, 38, thought her husband, Andre, 48, was dead.
He was captured by rebel forces at their village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. Mbaya, who was pregnant at the time, and her four children fled the country. They lived in a refugee camp and in a local church in Zimbabwe from 2002-06.
Water and food were scarce. Disease ravaged the camp, and dangerous animals, such as pythons and lions, threatened the refugees. Chantal applied to immigrate to the United States.
Miraculously, she spotted her husband in a food line at the refugee camp. "Is it him?" Mbaya asked. It was.
But their reunion was cut short when Mbaya learned that she and her now five children were able to go to the U.S. Her husband couldn't come with her because her petition was filed separately. Mbaya made the difficult decision to leave him behind in July 2006.
Now she lives in Northeast Austin in a cramped three-bedroom apartment. Because of bureaucratic delays, Mbaya's application to have her husband come to the United States has not been approved. Though happy to be here, the Mbayas struggle to pay their monthly bills and basic necessities. The children sleep on mattresses on the floor, and their donated furniture is worn. Their patio is empty.
Mbaya works full time at a day care to support her teenage sons, Ibrahim, 16, and Mohamed, 14, and her three daughters: Nene, 10, Noelle, 6 and Sera, 4. Mbaya has no car and takes public transportation to and from work. She not only works to pay her bills in Austin but also to pay for her husband's rent and medical care in Zimbabwe. Her expenses in Austin total more than $1,000 a month.
Despite these setbacks, the Mbayas are well-adjusted to life in Austin. Like most teenage boys, Ibrahim and Mohamed hole up in their room to play video games and like visiting the mall.
But Ibrahim also helps baby-sit his younger sisters after school.
Sera looks up to and copies her older sister, Noelle. When Noelle says she wants a Bratz doll, Sera says she wants one, too.
Mbaya says her children do well in school, and it's clear education is important to her. Ibrahim was commended at school for his score on the TAKS test. Noelle is excelling in her first-grade class.
Sometimes, Mbaya's girls cry because they miss their father.
"I tell them, don't cry, pray," Mbaya says.
She keeps a photo of her husband in her dresser drawer. She has a new mattress in her room, but doesn't use it.
"I don't like sleeping alone," Mbaya said. "I sleep in the girls' room."
Written by: Lilly Rockwell
Austin American Statesman
Sunday, November 25, 2007
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/
life/stories/other/11/25/1125mbaya.html
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Season for Caring Charitable Campaign - Family Story and Video