The refugee from the Congo was the father of four and confined to a wheelchair. His family arrived in Istanbul without proper documents, looking for a way to survive. One of the children had a chronic medical condition and needed hospital help. They had no money and no way to work. The Istanbul Interparish Migrant Program (IIMP) responded to their needs for food, clothing, and medical care. Just at that point IIMP happened to hear of some used furniture that the family could use.

The problem was how to get the furniture from the donor to the family. IIMP located a delivery van that would do the job inexpensively. But the driver was a Kurdish man who knew little Turkish. Our IIMP dispatcher had great difficulty understanding him. The refugee father knew a bit of English, so our bilingual Turkish-English dispatcher could communicate to some extent with him. Fortunately the father also had access to a cell phone.

On the delivery day Istanbul was experiencing its normal semi-grid-locked traffic. Even if the traffic was light the dispatcher would have found it hard to guide the driver by phone to where the furniture was to be picked up. Not only was the driver’s Turkish barely adequate, but he also didn’t know Istanbul. At any rate, the furniture got collected. The next step was to get it to the family.

The refugee father was able to make the dispatcher understand where he lived, so the dispatcher worked the phone again with the driver to guide the truck to the correct location. Alas, the driver got lost several times. The refugee father was outside in his wheelchair, reporting that traffic couldn’t approach his house because it was the day of the weekly street market. The street was full of shoppers and fruit and vegetable stalls.

The father didn’t know which end of the street to position himself to see the truck. He was frantically wheeling up and down through the crowds, while the dispatcher was trying her best to guide the driver as close to the location as possible. She kept telling the driver to look for a guy hauling around in a wheelchair. It was a test of everyone’s nerves to work in this communication fog. There were many dropped calls and anxious moments. But finally the Kurdish driver and the Congolese refugee somehow made contact. That evening the family had some beds to sleep in.

IIMP, an ecumenical church project of Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, receives assistance from One Great Hour of Sharing to aid refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers who are stranded in Istanbul.

Ken & Betty Frank
Istanbul, Turkey

Ken & Betty Frank serve with the American Board in Istanbul, Turkey.  They share the job of General Secretary of the American Board.  They also serve on the board of the Istanbul Interparish Migrant Program (IIMP).