As a Somali refugee who lived in Kenya for 13 years, Abdinasir wasn’t used to opportunity knocking on his door.
Where we come from, we didn’t have opportunities to get better jobs or improve ourselves in that way,” said Abdinasir.
His family was approved to resettle to Minnesota in 2023 through Arrive Ministries. Abdi saw this as an open door he was eager to walk through.
In America, we have more opportunities to earn an income and do what you’d like with it,” he said.
During his first few months in Minnesota, Abdi’s family worked with an Arrive Ministries case manager and employment counselor to secure his family a rental home and full-time employment. Abdi initially worked at a Walmart Super Store. Arrive also connected his large family with a team of Good Neighbor volunteers who made the family’s transition much smoother.
Once the case worker’s commitment is up, the family knows they have friends who are dependable; they can call on our team with any problems and the relationship is there,” said Ripley, a volunteer from The North Church.
Volunteers helped Abdi prepare for his driver’s tests, from there Abdi created his next career opportunity.
One day, I saw an advertisement that Metro Transit was looking for drivers with much better pay than my current job. So my employment counselor and one of my Good Neighbor friends assisted me in filling out an application, and I got a job as a bus operator,” explained Abdinasir.
Abdinasir is aware of the great responsibility in his new role as a bus driver, so in addition to the three months of training offered by Metro Transit, Abdi watches safety videos of passenger loading practices and studies the route maps for all seven Metro-area counties.
The bus is nearly 60 feet long, at first it was hard to drive, but after a lot of training, I’m very comfortable driving it,” said Abdinasir.
After settling into his new home and job, Abdinasir plans to continue embracing whatever this land of opportunity offers him.
“Maybe I will become a supervisor or a mechanic someday, there are many career pathways,” he said. “Our first dream is to buy a house near our current quiet neighborhood as soon as possible. We love it here.”
By harnessing his ambition and a strong sense of responsibility with support from new friends, Abdinasir is in the driver’s seat of his future opportunities.
