This family reunification story was originally shared in a video that was released in 2011.
Jonathan and Christine lived peacefully with their four sons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) until war broke out in 2001, changing their lives forever. Jonathan, a pastor, was out of the country on a mission trip at the time and was denied reentry to Congo upon his return. Without Jonathan at home, Christine and the children, in search of safety, relocated to a Catholic mission where they lived for two years, but rebel attacks were frequent and safety remained elusive.
In 2003, tragedy struck the family again when their son, Jacob, never returned home from school. The family later learned that he was killed by rebels for refusing to join them during an attack at his school. Just two months later, Christine was brutally injured by rebels and abducted while she was fetching water, leaving her three sons without a parent. The boys, Philip, Jon, and Pierre, fled the village and walked over 300 miles alone through the jungle to reach safety. They were eventually relocated to Kenya with the help of The Red Cross.
Philip, John, and Pierre walked over 300 miles alone through the jungle in search of safety.
In 2004, after three years of separation, Jonathan was able to reunite with his sons in Kenya. They were then resettled to the U.S. together. The move was bittersweet, as Christine was believed to be dead—Jonathan had received official government correspondence stating this.
In December 2007, a local newspaper featured Jonathan and his sons in a story about the atrocities of the war in the DRC. Someone that Christine knew recognized Jonathan and brought the paper to a Congolese hospital, where Christine was alive and recovering, to show to her. She’d had no idea her sons and husband were alive, and now she knew how to contact them!
In 2008, Christine escaped the DRC and fled to Kenya, where she met RefugePoint. At this time, Christine also established communication with her husband and children—their first contact in years. They had regular phone conversations, and friends of Christine in Kenya recalled the joy with which she talked about her “grown up” boys. RefugePoint helped Christine reach a point of stability in Kenya and began the process of reuniting her with her family in the U.S., which took an additional two years.
In 2010, Christine arrived in the U.S. and, for the first time in almost 10 years, embraced her overjoyed husband and sons. She recalls, “When I found my husband and my children, that was like… well, I have no words to say it.”
Family unity, a fundamental human right, should be accessible to refugees no matter where they come from or where their families are located. RefugePoint works to expand solutions to reunite refugee families and make family reunification more accessible to refugees worldwide by deploying staff to multiple countries around the world to help separated family members to reunite, training other organizations, and building a global network to advance family reunion.
RefugePoint is a longtime leader in refugee family reunification, and in 2023, RefugePoint launched its Family Reunion Initiative. Through the initiative, RefugePoint will play a leadership role in helping to reunite one million separated refugee families over the next five years by:
Visit https://www.refugepoint.org/family-reunion-initiative/ to learn about the Family Reunion Initiative.