text: “I saw the fire trucks,” she recalled. “I saw the fire, and I didn’t even realize that there was a refugee family that lived in that house. It was just a few hours later I got a call stating a refugee’s house just burned down and there’s five children involved.”
  As a former short-term missionary to the Middle East, Whaley said, “I have a heart for all internationals, but there’s something special about those Middle Eastern people that just really tugs at my heartstrings.”
  After connecting with the family’s teenage daughter who speaks English, “I went over there within the hour and met the family and talked to the father and met all the children and developed a friendship right then and there,” Whaley said.
  The next day, she went over to their house “and loaded them up in my car and just picked through the rubble of their house. We took them to the Welcome House and got them situated.”
  Sunny Ikojoh, who serves as minister of hospitality for Welcome House Knoxville, came to the U.S. from Nigeria in 2015 to attend seminary. The Welcome House facility is a former missionary guest house that the ministry rents from a local church to provide short-term housing for refugees. (WMU photo by Pam Henderson)