A New Beginning

Christmas came early this past year. On December 10, 2025, Pakistani Catholic Michael D’Souza and his eldest daughter, Rochelle, arrived safely at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Longtime NOR readers will be familiar with Michael’s story, which first appeared in these pages nearly ten years ago. For the past two decades, Michael and his family have endured suffering beyond description at the hands of Muslim extremists in their native home of Karachi, Pakistan; corrupt immigration authorities in Thailand; and deceitful human traffickers in other parts of the world.

Thailand is where I first met Michael; his wife, Rosemary; and their three children. He attended an English-language church in downtown Bangkok while my family and I were living there, and his rather dramatic acts of piety before and after Mass could not easily escape my attention. I befriended Michael, interviewed him and Rosemary in their meager Bangkok apartment, and began writing about their family’s travails for the NOR (all of which can be found at newoxfordreview.org/topics/pakistani-refugees) and other publications. I learned about the physical violence Michael experienced in Pakistan; I witnessed the humiliating treatment his family received while twice detained in the infamous Bangkok Detention Center for overstaying their visas; and I helped the D’Souzas get on an airplane back to Pakistan shortly before my family and I moved back to the United States.

Michael did not receive a hearty welcome upon his return to Karachi. Muslim extremists recognized him, destroyed his motorized taxi, and beat him almost to death. The family went into hiding and twice attempted (and failed) to escape the country, once to Sri Lanka, another time to Poland via Russia. Finally, they fled to Azerbaijan, though eventually Rosemary and two of the children were apprehended by local authorities and sent back to Pakistan. Until this past December, Michael and Rochelle were living in hiding in Azerbaijan.

With the assistance of Canada-based nonprofit International Christian Voice, Michael received sponsorship to open an application with the Canadian government’s office of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Many NOR readers answered a December 2023 appeal to help raise $50,000 to cover the cost of that application, which was subsequently accepted by the Canadian government. Now, after a very, very long wait, Michael and Rochelle are in Canada, eager to start a new life. Rosemary and the other two children, still in Pakistan and waiting for a final “green light” to purchase their tickets, should, God willing, be in Canada by the time you read this.

“We praise the Lord for all this journey, and we thank everyone, especially the Canadian government…. They accepted us,” Rochelle declared in a video recorded at the airport in Toronto. “We suffered a lot. And now, as we are landed in Canada, we are feeling a happiness, a joy, that is not expressible.”

I confess a certain incredulity regarding all this. As much as I prayed over the past decade that Michael’s family would one day be free from persecution, I doubted it would ever happen. And yet, here we are, praise God. I plan to travel to Canada later this year to visit the D’Souzas and celebrate this remarkable demonstration of providential mercy with them. I offer my sincere gratitude to NOR editor Pieter Vree for giving me a platform to tell Michael’s story; to NOR readers for their prayers and support; to my in-laws, Stephen and Christine Caveness, for assisting with logistics and fundraising; and to Cajetan and Maria D’Souza (no relation), Michael’s family’s sponsors in Canada. NOR readers who would like to help the D’Souzas start their new life in Canada are welcome to send money to the same GoFundMe we used to raise funds for their Canadian application: gofund.me/f07df303.

I have no doubt that new trials await the D’Souza family in Canada. But their decades-long nightmare is almost over. The rays of God’s grace are bursting through the clouds. It was quite the early Christmas gift.

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