by Adela Hasic
In the early 90s, as the Bosnian civil war erupted, my entire life was flipped upside down. At 6 years of age, I became a refugee. An estimated 100,000 people were killed in the war, including my father, three uncles, grandfather and many other friends and relatives. My mother, sister and I managed to seek refuge in Germany, along with the thousands of other refugees, fleeing the war from persecution and ethnic cleansing. We built a life in Germany, living there for seven years on a temporary refugee status until the war ended and the German government informed us that we had to leave. Bosnia was still economically and politically unstable; the area where we once lived was mainly inhabited by the group of people that forced us out. Seeking a better future for all of us, my mother made the decision to immigrate to the United States because the U.S. was still accepting Bosnian refugees at that time. After several interviews at a U.S. consulate in Frankfurt and numerous health screenings, we were finally allowed to travel to America. Since we didn’t have any relatives in the United States, the International Organization for Migration found us a sponsor in Greenwood, South Carolina: the First Presbyterian Church.
We arrived in the U.S. in November of 1999 and were welcomed by a group of people that held a “welcome home” sign with our names on them. As happy as I was to have finally arrived in the States, I could not help but realize that at the age of 14, I became a refugee all over again for the second time in my life, in a new country, and it terrified me.
The people from the First Presbyterian Church in Greenwood were some of the kindest people we had ever encountered. They were all so happy to see us that they immediately put as at ease. These people genuinely cared about our well-being and did their best to help us adjust to life in America. When we arrived in Greenwood, a nice, furnished three-bedroom house was prepared for us; the fridge was stocked with food and church members rotated on a weekly basis to drive us to the grocery store or anywhere else we needed to go. They helped my mother obtain her driver’s license, assisted her with finding a job and donated money to help us purchase our first car. I will be forever grateful to everyone who has been there along the way. I don’t know what we would have done without their help, support and kindness. I was given the chance to live the American life. I graduated from high school with honors, obtained my bachelor’s degree from Converse College in 2008 and became a U.S. citizen. The road has not been easy, but I thank God every day for blessing me with good fortune. I am grateful to have finally found a home I truly belong to here in America.
Adela Hasic is married and lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where she works as a dental hygienist.
