This past Saturday, I delivered to three refugee families with the Welcome to America Project. As part of the delivery, I worked with a team of about twenty other volunteers to set out dishes, nail up paintings, organize the bathrooms, set up furniture, and listen to the refugees talk about themselves and their time in the United States.
The second family we visited was from the Democratic Republic of Congo and had four kids who were ages 11-15. I had put together one of my music kits, which had handheld jingle bells, a jingle bell wrist band, tambourines, egg shakers, and a sheet of stickers, all inside a drawstring bag to give to the kids in this family. For part of the time we were at the house, I stayed with two of the girls in their bedroom, showing them what was in the bag and helping to velcro the jingle bell bracelet on their wrist. We shook the tambourines together for a couple of minutes, and they went searching through the bag to see what other instruments there were. The older girl even took the handheld jingle bells and enthusiastically showed her mom, shaking it for her to see! They soon moved on to some of the other items that were delivered, because the deliveries are always so exciting, and then we all gathered in the family's living room to hear their story. Both of the girls still had their jingle bells on, so when they shook hands goodbye with everyone, you could hear the jingle. The kids all thought that was pretty funny, and I was glad to see them having a lot of fun. Even though we only spent an hour together, we were able to connect over the joy the music brought and that was what I loved the most.