Liberated refugee pays it forward

Samira Izmadi says a series of circumstances, and miracles, delivered her to the place from where she helps struggling emigrants

Story by Christina Hughes Babb

Samira Izmadi was a Muslim girl living in Iran when, she says, the Virgin Mary appeared to her.

“I had a vision of a lady in white who came from behind a rock. I asked my mom who Mary was and she told me, ‘the mother of prophet Jesus.’ ”

At 6 years old, Izmadi had no context for imagining Mary, the mother of the biblical Christ. She believes Mary appeared to deliver a message. It would be one of several during Izmadi’s young life that directed her to- ward a dogma different than that which, in her homeland, she was required to observe.

While some of her assertions seem fantastic, Izmadi is not a religious nut. She is well spoken, comprehensively educated and, evidence suggests, tolerant of others’ religious principles.

Perched at a table in her office at the Gaston Christian Center at Greenville and Royal, the bright-eyed 41-year-old — wearing sunshine yellow and a gold crucifix necklace — speaks matter-of-factly about the needs of our community’s refugees. She rattles off statistics — Texas receives almost 6,000 refugees each year, more than any other state, from dozens of countries; Dallas is second only to Houston when it comes to receiving refugees; these refugees are freedom fighters and the faithful, persecuted on religious grounds, and Iraqis who have helped American soldiers; there is a vast concentration of refugees from Iran, Iraq, Bhutan, Cameroon, Congo, Colombia, Liberia, Afghanistan and other countries at nearby Vickery Meadow and in Lake Highlands — and she speaks frankly about barriers such as poverty, language, transportation and cultural issues that threaten their success in America.

Just as easily, she talks about the “seeds God planted in her heart” and jobs to which “God has called her.”

Today, she serves as executive director of the nonprofit she founded two years ago, Gateway of Grace, which serves Dallas/ Fort Worth-area refugees.

Iraqi immigrant Mohammed (he asks that we withhold his last name) is an engineer and interpreter who held highsecurity-clearance positions with both American and Iraqi military. He fled to the United States after his parents began receiving threats — at times from intimidating masked mobster types — because of Mohammed’s work on projects aimed at obstructing Al Qaeda, he says. Pressure mounted when he refused to quit, and he soon fled, he says.

When Mohammed, his wife and twin toddlers arrived in Lake Highlands in 2012 on a special immigration visa, they were financially broke and distraught about leaving their parents behind, he says. Izmadi was a stranger who reached out to him and, in a way, offered him a new family here.

“I was looking for a job — had nothing, everything had to be left in Iraq — when she first called me to say she had some furniture for me,” he recalls. “I thought at first she was trying to sell me something, but she wanted to give.”

Since then, he says, Gateway of Grace has helped his family in numerous ways and Izmadi has become “like a sister.” She might not always have an immediate solution — like when Mohammed’s wife Sarah needed eight root canals at a cost of some $18,000 — but she will work for you until she finds one, he says.

“I don’t know how, but she found a very kind dentist to start the work. Even though he did it free, two of the teeth, he treated us so kind,” Mohammed marvels. He adds that the generosity fuels his desire to succeed and help others. He calls this sort of altruism “infectious”. He works the night shift as a security guard and is pursuing a master’s degree at University of Texas at Dallas. He says Izmadi would not care for him crediting her with too much. “She does not want to be flattered,” he jokes. “She says she does not want to get an ego.”

Izmadi’s journey from Shiite-run Iran to her desk at this Christian center in Lake Highlands was tough. She thanks divine assistance. By age 9, Izmadi wanted not only to convert to Christianity, she says, but also to become a nun.

“I saw ‘Song of Bernadette’ [a movie about an appearance of the Virgin Mary to a nun] and I knew it was a calling.”

At the time, however, becoming anything other than a devout Muslim was unrealistic.

Even belonging to Iran’s minority branch of Islam meant trouble.