By David Gordon, associate editor Current efforts to help resettle Afghan refugees in the Chippewa Valley have brought together volunteers from a wide range of religious backgrounds. Nowhere is this illustrated more strikingly than in the three-person group that’s helping the new arrivals prepare applications for asylum and wrestling with the complexities of U.S. immigration law in the process. One of those three, Rev. Dave Anderson, noted in an email to the CVPost that he is a retired Lutheran pastor who is working with Laurie Osberg, a retired public defender and a member of St. James Catholic parish, and with Sahar Taman, a Muslim whose father was a founder of the Altoona Masjid (Mosque) and a long-time leader in the local Muslim community. Anderson said the trio is part of an umbrella group, Welcoming New Neighbors (WNN), that “grew rapidly from a few concerned residents, including folks from western Wisconsin. Our email list now has over 200 supporters,” he said. Taman, a recent law school graduate, was the lead attorney at the Ft. McCoy legal clinic, which served Afghan evacuees who were sent there – a population of almost 13,000 at its highest point, she said. To read more, please click on the headline.