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Nabil Al Dabei knew it was time to get his family out of Syria when a sniper’s bullet smashed the windshield of the car he was driving in early 2014, narrowly missing his head.

The message was driven home a few days later when a bomb fell on his neighbour’s apartment in Damascus.

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It took a while to reach safety. But three weeks ago, Nabil, 43, his 40-year-old wife Manal, and their four children arrived in Ottawa, their lives transformed by 22 parishioners of St. Basil’s Catholic Church.

The family is now settling into a triplex apartment the St. Basil’s sponsorship group rented for them near Carling and Churchill avenues, gearing up to send their children – Bashar, 14, Julie, 11, Sally, 6 and Kareem, 4 – to Canadian schools starting next week.

On Friday, Julie proudly showed off a patterned purple backpack and equally vibrant turquoise lunch bag, acquired this week in preparation for her Grade 6 class at Lady of Fatima School, which her two younger siblings will also attend. Bashar, the eldest, is enrolled in an extended ESL program at St. Pius X High School.