After Years In Refugee Camps, A Family Celebrates Its First Christmas In The U.S.

It's a familiar scene: a family gathering on a Sunday afternoon, the kids off playing somewhere in the house. But in the kitchen, conversations in Swahili fill the room.

Cecil Furaha, 30, uses a rolling pin as a pestle to crush ginger for her version of pilau, a popular rice dish. She is joined by Sharon Fine, one of the first people she met when she arrived in America.

Furaha, her husband, Saidi Roger, 33, and their seven kids have been in the U.S. for three months. Their home in Silver Spring, Md., is a cozy three-story condo at the end of a cul-de-sac. The inside is fully furnished with donations from volunteers. A homemade sign with the word karibu hangs prominently on the wall at the end of their dinner table. It means "welcome" in Swahili.

Furaha says she feels safe here. But life was not always that way.

Back in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she faced constant threats from warring ethnic factions. She was 7 years old when her parents died in the wars.