DES MOINES, IOWA - Sam and Tricia Gabriel got off work on a dark January evening in Iowa. The temperature outside was -13 degrees Celsius (8 degrees Fahrenheit).
Instead of settling into their cozy suburban townhome with their children, ages 9 and 2, the Gabriels quickly returned to the roads, slick with ice. Tricia drove her car in one direction while Sam drove a 15-passenger van in another, and for the next 1½ hours they picked up 30 children of mostly African refugees from across the Des Moines, Iowa, metropolitan area.
The children, ages 4 to 14, were taken to a local elementary school, where they practiced schoolwork, soccer and dance. Two hours later, Sam and Tricia drove them all back home, returning to their townhome after 10 p.m.
They said they do this every weeknight to help the children adjust to America. They don’t consider it heroic. Not compared to what they endured.
“I see myself in them,” said Sam, 36.
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As a young boy, he walked all night through the Liberia countryside with his parents, afraid that rebels would kill them. One man was plucked from the crowd and shot before his eyes.
“It was the first time I saw a dead person,” he said. “If they took my father, I would have to pretend not to know him and keep walking.”
Meanwhile, Tricia and her family were of a tribe targeted by rebels and fled to a government military base.
Sam and Tricia’s lives unknowingly ran a parallel course.
Both had lived in Monrovia, Liberia, as young children while civil war raged. Both ended up in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast before coming to Des Moines. Both attended high schools there, until one day they met by accident in the most American of venues — Walmart.
Tricia said she could tell he was a Liberian, even in the crowded aisles of a huge superstore. They talked, fell in love and married in 2011. They had two children while finishing their education at Mercy College of Health Sciences in Des Moines.
But they say they didn’t escape death to settle for the comfort of the American dream. In 2014, the couple launched the , a nonprofit that mentors refugee children, who often don’t have the money to participate in youth programs.
The Gabriels use donations or their own money for gas to travel, snacks or soccer uniforms for the children. It’s a tiring mission the couple performs every day, after Sam finishes his work as an Uber driver and Tricia as a nurse at a local retirement community.
But it fills a vital need, said Nicholas Wuertz, director of refugee services at , because “most of the federally funded resources for resettled refugees are for employable adults.”
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Iowa, a mostly rural Midwestern state, is more than 1,600 kilometers from either of the heavily populated U.S. coasts. With a population of more than 3 million people, it ranks 30th among the 50 U.S. states. The state’s economy is rooted in agriculture and manufacturing, but also has diversified to include the insurance and financial industries.
In 2017, there were 18,782 Iowans who had been born in Africa, six times the number from 2000, according to the Migration Policy Institute. In fiscal 2018, 99 of the 110 refugee arrivals to Iowa were from African countries, according to the U.S. Department of State.
They live amid a recent U.S. political climate of suspicion toward immigrants or refugees and confusion over acclimating to America.
Just as the Gabriels said they once did, the children try to adjust to a new country while their parents work long hours.
Sam’s mom worked as hotel housekeeper, his father as a janitor. Sam said he tried to fit in, joining the soccer team in school. But his parents didn’t have the money for travel or uniforms, or even transportation to practices.
Tricia wore clothes that suited her well in Liberia, but not so much in America. She said she was bullied and mocked in school.
Sam said refugee children feel torn, trying to conform to more American ways at school to avoid being bullied, yet facing pressure at home to carry on their traditions. They are often left feeling they don’t belong anywhere, he adds.
Sam wanted to help. At one point in his childhood in Ivory Coast, he said he ran away from his parents and was wandering homeless when a man he encountered helped him by giving him a place to stay and offering encouragement.
“Because of that man, every time I see young boys going through struggles, I know they need someone like me to help them through the struggle,” he said.