SPOKANE, Wash. — After five years of being apart, a father embraced his wife and children at the Spokane International Airport on Thursday.
Wardi Fadl hugged his children, including his youngest child whom he was meeting for the first time.
His wife, Nuha Adam, had moved to the United States with two of their children. The family had fled South Sudan because of unsafe conditions due to political unrest.
The younger son, Fadl, had a worsening heart condition, so they went to Egypt to start his medical care.
“His doctor did the surgery and said, ‘I will get you the accommodation to go to a better place so he can finish his health (recovery),'” Adam said.
This is when she began their year-and-a-half process of moving to the U.S.
“I did what I can do for my kids,” she said.
Because of Fadl’s medical condition, Adam and her daughter received an expedited documentation process.
But she said her husband’s paperwork could have taken up to 10 years to process. She knew she and the children had to leave him behind.
At the time, Adam was eight months pregnant.
“The (children) went with me through a lot of struggling,” she said.
They moved to Spokane through the World Relief program.
While Adam said the organization offered her and her children much support, she said she still often felt lonely, having to navigate a new area with three children once her son was born.
“It was like, I go home to my pillow, and I made it full with crying,” she said. “It was so hard.”
In the midst of her working and still tending to her older son’s medical needs, one day she received the news she’d been hoping and waiting to hear: her husband’s papers had cleared and he was on his flight to the U.S.
In what was a long-awaited reunion, Wardi felt the arms of his wife and children around him.
“It’s like you have been carrying a mountain,” he said. “It’s too heavy, like you’re carrying something very heavy. And my emotions were like someone doesn’t even know.”
“Finally, our family is complete,” the older son said during the car ride back their house.