Adri, centre, and her two daughters relocated to Lewiston, Maine, from South Africa in March.
On a recent weekday afternoon, a 41-year-old single mother from South Africa who had arrived in the United States this spring as a refugee pulled into a coffee shop in central Maine.
Her life in America was off to a quick start. That day, she had bought a car, a 2014 Nissan, from fellow newly-arrived South Africans. She was about to begin a cleaning job that paid better than the one she initially had at Dunkin’. Her two daughters were settling into the local public schools; one had joined the softball team.
Adri, who spoke on the condition that only her first name be used out of concern that she would be targeted for sharing her story, had tried to leave South Africa for years, exploring ways to immigrate to Canada or Europe, without success. Then she learned that the United States would accept Afrikaners like her as refugees. She saw it as her last chance to go.
“I was walking in faith every day,” said Adri, a tall woman with dark, spiky hair. “And God’s not doing anything small.”
