Prince George, B.C. -The first privately sponsored Syrian refugee family will arrive in Prince George at around midnight tomorrow night.

The family of five, a mom, dad and three adult children in their late teens to early 20s, have been sponsored by the Westwood Church.

Lead pastor Mark Wessner says it’s a moment they’ve been waiting for the past 14 months since they first applied to bring a family over.

“I think there’s going to be lots of excitement tomorrow night and even just an appreciation that it is actually happening,” he says.

“Recognizing that okay, good, there’s actually people going to be here who are going to join our community.”

He says the family, who are all relatively comfortable with English, were already refugees in Lebanon when they were first introduced to each other last spring.

And though they were only given notice of their arrival time yesterday, Wessner notes plans are firmly in place to help them get started.

“We have an apartment for them to stay in already, that’ll be their place once they’re here and it will be ready,” he says, adding initial grocery shopping has already been completed with other services offered by the community at large.

“One is financial, the whole banking system, how do you get set up and so we’ve had a bank contact us this fall and say when the families come we want to help them,” says Wessner.

“We’ve had people who specialize in counselling offer their services and connections in health care – people from all sectors have come forward to provide expertise to the family.”

As for employment, he says once they’re here and get to know them they’ll have a better understanding of where they’re at though he notes the Prince George School District has offered to help with any educational services they may need.

He says it’s the first of three families his church hopes to bring to Prince George, noting the second could be arriving any day now.

Wessner says they are planning on raising $50,000 for each family they sponsor to adequately fund the initial and ongoing expenses of starting a new life here.

He doesn’t know how many more families may be coming.

“There are other churches in this process as well, where each is in terms of time lines I’m not 100% sure.”