COEUR d’ALENE — David Warnick waited at Spokane International Airport, his mind in a whirl. It was April 28, and he’d had a long day. He was trying to remember if everything was ready. His wife, Nikki, was making dinner at home, his friend was staying the night and David was picking up three Syrian refugees to live with him and his family.

As the Coeur d’Alene man waited, two people from World Relief — an organization helping refugees settle in the U.S. — and a translator joined him.

David knew little about his new guests. He knew their names, ages, that they were from Syria and that they have a 6-year-old child with autism.

When the family of three arrived, the translator and people from World Relief greeted them and introduced them to David. They had brought more luggage than David would have expected — three large duffles and some other smaller bags. They had their clothes, some photos and lots of official papers.

They all loaded into the car and David brought them home to North Idaho.

He said the car ride wasn’t awkward. There was a connection between them, but not a verbal one. He tried explaining to them that he and Nikki lived in a different state, but it didn’t really get across.

They got home around 10 p.m. and ate dinner. Everyone was talking and very happy to be there. At one point, Hassan Al Dandashi, the father, exclaimed, “I love America!”

They spoke about the geography of the U.S. and the Middle East and they even got into some politics.

Nikki was surprised at how much Hassan knew about American leaders and foreign policy.

As the late night slowed down, everyone went to their rooms to go to bed. David and Nikki were tired, but excited for the new experience.

•••

David, a pastor at New Life Church, learned about World Relief during a pastors meeting at Candlelight Christian Fellowship. The director of World Relief, Mark Kadel, gave a talk about the organization and its goals — to help refugees settle, find a place to live, teach them English so they can get jobs and to ease their transition into the U.S.

World Relief Spokane is a faith-based organization and calls upon churches for volunteers.

“My heart was captured,” David said. “I wanted to get involved with the humanitarian crisis somehow, and here’s a way to do it.”

The Warnicks talked to their daughter and another girl who was living with them about what they thought of the idea. Nikki said the girls were excited about it and told them the family should “go for it.”

In December 2015, David and Nikki went through training and background checks so they could be approved to host refugees. It was February by the time they completed everything.

They started getting emails about different families that were coming in and decided to offer to host one of them.

David and Nikki were a little hesitant at first to tell people they were taking in Syrian refugees.

“We told David’s boss and he said ‘Go for it, but you might ruffle a few feathers.’ We didn’t announce it, but we told people we were close to,” Nikki said. “It would have been different if they had been from elsewhere. There is more of a fear of Syrian refugees, but I think if they thought it through, they’d realize these people have lost more than they are a threat. They’re just trying to find normalcy.”

Nikki and David got an email from World Relief with instructions on where and when they would meet their new guests. The flight information changed a few times, but soon enough, Hassan Al Dandashi, his wife, Nesrin Soufi, and their 6-year-old son, Karim Al Dandashi, had arrived.

•••

The morning following their first night in Coeur d’Alene, Hassan and Nesrin stayed in their room in the Warnicks’ house until about 9 a.m. By that time, David and Nikki’s daughter had left for school and they had started their day. The Syrian family would come out, make breakfast and start their day, too.

Most days they could hang out with David and Nikki, but as new U.S. residents, every so often they had appointments in Spokane to get their Social Security cards, set up Medicaid and see doctors.

Nikki and David had traveled some and knew a little bit about Middle Eastern culture. Nikki tried to cook for Hassan and Nesrin, using Middle Eastern spices and ingredients. But, due to autism, Karim was very sensitive to certain foods and his mom ended up cooking all the meals.

Nikki wasn’t expecting Nesrin to be so relaxed about her dress. She would often not wear a headscarf, just a small cover, and once the families got to know each other more, she sometimes wouldn’t even wear that.

Nesrin enjoyed making coffee for everyone. She insisted David try some, but he told her he didn’t drink coffee because his father was Mormon.

Nesrin was confused and thought Mormon was an ingredient in coffee that he was allergic to. Once he explained further she understood and said, “Oh, like Mitt Romney.”

David laughed and was eventually convinced to try the coffee. He liked it.

Another thing David had to get used to was the greeting Nesrin and Hassan would give him — a kiss on the cheek.

He wasn’t comfortable getting a kiss from Hassan. As time wore on and the families became closer, he got used to it, and now it doesn’t faze him.

A little while into their stay, Hassan asked David if it was OK for them to pray in the house.

“Of course it is!” David exclaimed.

Hassan and Nesrin always joined them in prayer at the dinner table, perhaps not understanding the prayer itself but understanding they were praying.

Karim became very attached to David. He liked to mess with his hair, patting David’s head and moving his hair around while making airplane noises.

Karim can only say a few words in Arabic, but seems to mostly understand his parents. He doesn’t understand English.

About a week into their stay, some other refugees who had already settled in Spokane brought dinner to David and Nikki’s house to welcome Hassan, Nesrin and Karim.

At dinner, Nikki said their guests were more rigid than Hassan and Nesrin and there was a lot of tension.

“We couldn’t understand them because they were all speaking Arabic, but by their tone of voice we could tell there was some tension there. I think one of them thought Karim was a little unruly and didn’t know why he acted the way he did,” she said. “I think (Hassan and Nesrin) are just wonderful and I don’t think some other refugees are as easygoing with the new circumstances they are coming into.”

•••

Hassan and Nesrin slowly shared their story with David and Nikki. They had lived in the city of Homs, which was referred to as the “Capital of the Revolution.” The opposition to the Syrian government took hold of the city of 1.5 million people in early 2011.

In February 2012, the Syrian military launched an operation to suppress the resistance and essentially destroyed the city, killing an estimated 700 civilians and leaving thousands more trapped without water, electricity and other basic supplies.

Hassan and Nesrin’s home was not destroyed, but Nesrin remembers having to run home from work in fear of the flying bullets.

Hassan and Nesrin decided to move to Cairo, Egypt, in 2013 to escape the war. It was very dangerous and they had a son to worry about.

They had enough money to rent an apartment in Cairo. It was on the sixth floor of the building and had no windows. Due to laws in Egypt, Hassan couldn’t work, so he stayed home and helped Nesrin take care of Karim.

They didn’t talk much about the specifics of their experience back home, just that they lost everything. Once, Nesrin told David she used to teach English, but she forgot most of it in the “three years of darkness” in her life. David is unsure if that meant the three years in Cairo or the three years when she was figuring out Karim had autism.

They lived in Cairo for two years before they decided to try to get into the U.S. One year later, they were on a plane.

Hassan and Nesrin had a very quick process to get into the U.S. According to World Relief, refugees spend on average 17 years in refugee camps, waiting to be accepted into another country.

It took Hassan and Nesrin only one year. David and Nikki guess they got here so quickly because of Karim’s condition and his need for help.

•••

The process for refugees to be admitted into the U.S. is very involved and can take up to two years. However, because the U.S. has the strictest policies and process for admitting refugees in the world, according Mark Kadel, director of World Relief Spokane, many applicants don’t make the cut and have to continue to reapply or apply elsewhere.

Refugees spend on average 17 years in refugee camps because there are more refugees in the world today — 20 million — than at any time before World War II, Kadel said. There are not enough resources to process all the refugees and that’s part of the reason for the refugee migration into Western Europe.

Kadel said the United Nations refers only 1 percent of the world’s refugees to be interviewed by the U.S. to see if they qualify to be resettled here.

Refugees trying to get into the U.S. must be intensely interviewed and approved by five different federal agencies; Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the FBI and the Counterterrorism Network. The refugees’ fingerprints are then run against a database of known terrorists.

Kadel said only about half the applicants pass this first stage of the process.

After that, each person has to go through a medical check because the U.S. doesn’t allow some diseases into the country. Once they pass this, refugees are referred to one of nine nonprofit organizations in the U.S. that provide resettlement services. World Relief is the only one that services the Inland Northwest.

Then, refugees go through a travel documentation process. If they are from the Middle East, they have to travel within three months of getting approved or they have to start over. Kadel said the U.S. does this to ensure the refugees aren’t radicalized after they get accepted, but before they come to America.

Sometimes families can’t travel within the three months because someone gets hurt, pregnant or they have to deal with family matters, and they have to start all over.

“Refugees are the most carefully vetted people we let across our borders,” Kadel said. “It’s because refugees aren’t coming here temporarily, like on a student visa; they come here permanently. They are becoming our new Americans so we want to make sure they have what they need. I often tell people they aren’t people promoting terrorism, they are the victims of it. They’re the ones being targeted by these terrorist groups and that’s the reason they had to flee and become refugees.”

Syrian refugees make up a very small portion of the refugee population coming into the U.S. So far this fiscal year, the U.S. has resettled approximately 50,000 refugees, fewer than 4,000 of them Syrian. Most refugees coming to the U.S. are from Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, Congo or Ukraine.

World Relief receives about 10 percent of the refugees who come to America. They place about 500 to 600 refugees in the Spokane area annually.

•••

There has been a lot of discussion among states about how they want to handle their refugee populations. States cannot refuse to let in refugees.

“It’s a federal program,” Kadel said. “States don’t have a right to say no. A lot of refugee programs in states, like employment programs, are funded through state programs and there are a few states trying to restrict the state money used for those programs. But all states receive refugees.”

Wyoming is the only state that doesn’t receive refugees because “they don’t have the resources to provide large enough communities or don’t have enough resources to provide refugee needs,” Kadel said.

Religion has also played a large role in how people view refugees, specifically Syrian refugees.

World Relief is a Christian-based organization. It is very careful not to indicate that its services are tied to any belief system. It accepts all refugees, regardless of race, belief systems or other personal identifications.

Kadel said these refugees are desperate and vulnerable, but above all they are people. He believes that with the Christian faith, he and others are obligated to welcome strangers to the U.S., just like our ancestors were.

“I believe it is a very sad situation that our country, that’s been built on immigrants from around the world, where we wouldn’t be here today if our forefathers hadn’t come to this country, that there is fear amongst some Christian congregations — that a message of fear is being propagated, rather than one of love,” he said. “Within the Christian church, there was a lot of fear back in the civil rights days, there’s a lot of fear of the LGBT community and I think that the Christian churches should be taking charge, driving the bus on this opportunity. We don’t really have a right, when America opened the door to us, to close the door behind us.”

•••

Part of World Relief’s contract with the U.S. Department of State to provide resettlement services is to greet the refugees at the airport in a language they are familiar with and with familiar food.

World Relief also helps families place their kids in school, helps them pay rent while they search for a job, enrolls adults in English classes and gets people signed up with Social Security, which they qualify for because they are now permanent residents of the U.S. World Relief also helps refugees establish credit.

“Before they agree to travel, they have to sign a promissory note saying they will give back to the U.S. the money we are spending to fly them from the refugee camp to, say, Spokane, Wash.,” Kadel said. “It’s like a loan. Four months after arrival, they have to start making payments to the government, which is really good for two reasons: It funnels money back into the refugee program so that it’s not a burden to the taxpayer and it also provides them a line of credit, so after they get here and get a job and they want to take out a loan for a car or something, they can show they are a good credit risk for making online payments to the government for their travel expenses.”

David and Nikki were only going to be hosts for Hassan, Nesrin and Karim for the two weeks they were at their house. But now, the families have played such an important part in each other’s lives, David and Nikki continue to visit the Syrian family about once a week in Spokane.

World Relief gives refugees bus passes so they can travel around the city to different appointments, meetings and lessons. However, as they found out very early on, Karim has a huge phobia of buses.

So, David and Nikki will often drive to Spokane to take the family where they need to go. Another woman in Spokane is helping them, too.

One weekend, Karim had an appointment with a speech pathologist. David drove to Spokane and helped them fill out the proper paperwork.

David sat at the table in Hassam and Nesrin’s apartment and tried to ask the parents questions about Karim’s medical history.

“Did he have any surgeries?” he asked.

The couple stared at him blankly.

He typed the question into a translator app on his phone while Karim was tousling his hair, and showed it to Hassam.

His eyes lit up when he understood and answered with his best English.

This went back and forth for about half an hour. At one point David had to play charades to ask at what age Karim learned to sit down.

The joy of discovery has been a frequent companion. Nesrin couldn’t contain her excitement about their new apartment — she flung her hand up and gestured to the door to their small balcony.

“Now we can see birds and people!” she exclaimed.

She couldn’t hold in her gratitude toward David and Nikki, either.

“Mr. David is a good, faithful man. He and his wife Nikki is very affectionate and helped my family. I thank you, thank you, thank you for David and Nikki,” she said as she prepared coffee for David. “We did not feel alienated. They took Karim to the park and took care of him. They entered a place on my heart.”

Finally, they had filled out the paperwork as best they could and got in David’s car to go to Karim’s appointment.

There, the speech pathologist taught Hassan and Nesrin different tools they could use to help Karim engage with his new environment.

She showed them that if he couldn’t verbally acknowledge what he wanted or that he understood something, Karim could sign it. The sign for “please” is to rub a circle on your chest.

Hassan and Nesrin made an appointment for the following week, then David took them home.

When David and Nikki initially agreed to take Hassan, Nesrin and Karim in, they didn’t expect to stay that involved with them after they moved to Spokane.

“We could have volunteered as a mentor family, but that involves seeing them on a more regular basis,” David said.

“But we’re already doing that, just because of our relationship,” Nikki chimed in. “We weren’t anticipating that, but we love them, so we’ve continued.”