Victory Church is one of the multiple groups in the area working to help Afghan refugees move into Tulsa

Victory Church is preparing for the arrival of hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan

Victory Church is expecting the first Afghan family

TULSA, Okla. — Hundreds of Afghan refugees are looking to start new lives in Tulsa as local organizations try to help get them started.

Victory Church in Tulsa is one of the multiple groups in the area working to help the refugees out. Victory Pastor Paul Daugherty said he knew they had to do something as they watched the video from the Kabul airport showing thousands of people trying to leave Afghanistan.

“So, we started looking at what planes we could rent that are in nearby countries that could fly into the airport and start evacuating refugees,” Daugherty said. “Within the first few weeks, we had 365 people on planes that were getting out, and then the following weeks it went up to 450 and just continued to help as many people as we could.”

Daugherty said they had a missionary in the area to help vet the people getting on the planes, and from there they had several checkpoints over the span of a month’s time before getting to their final destinations. Oklahoma became the destination for 1,800 total Afghan refugees, 800 headed to Tulsa.

They say this is the first time they’ve been involved in rescue efforts from start to finish.

“We have stories of teachers, of a 17-year-old girl that was rescued by a soldier and brought her into the airport,” said Victory Reach director Tati Wilson. “People that were directly connected to Victory through either or Victory missionaries or partners of ours that helped rescue those kids and families and parents and moms and young people.”

Wilson says they’ve got their apartment set up and the four children will be enrolled in their Christian school.

“We love God, and we love people, that’s what we say that we do. And knowing that there are people hurting in different places of the world or even in our local country it’s what we’re about,” said Wilson. “We can’t help everyone but if there is a small part that we can play in helping people all over the world, we will do that.”

Catholic Charities say that they expect the families to arrive over the next six weeks, with the program potentially running until March of 2022.

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