PINE BLUFF, Ark — Imagine moving hundreds of miles for a job promised to you, but when you arrive you realize there never was an opportunity.
That was the reality for a family who moved from Houston to Pine Bluff two weeks ago, and can't afford to move back to Texas.
Farangis Shah said she's been eyebrow threading for seven years, but she took a break after having a baby. Since her son is four years old now, she wanted to get back to it so she worked for a woman's salon in Houston.
She worked for two weeks when the woman who owned the salon allegedly offered her a job opportunity in Pine Bluff.
She said the woman claimed to have another salon in the city.
"She forced me. She was like 'Okay come here. I give you a job. I pay six month your rent. I give you better life, and then I buy this salon. I already buy it. Then she said, 'Your apartment is already ready for you,'" said Shah.
Shah and her family are originally from Afghanistan, but have been living in the United States for several years now.
Her husband, Khuwaja Azim, wanted to support his wife by allowing her to work. He offered to stay at home with their son, until he could get a job schedule that would allow them both to work.
"She promised us a lot. She said she would take care of us, but afterward [when] we moved, she blocked us on everything. We needed money, because we needed groceries for the baby," said Azim.
Shah trusted the woman.
Since it was a job opportunity, she gave the woman all of her personal information. She claimed the woman put an apartment in her name without her knowing.
She feels it's because of this that the woman took advantage of her, because she thought Shah was an easy target to scam.
"She take my ID. She take my everything. She thinks I'm illegal. I have citizenship over here. I lived in the United States for thirteen years, my husband's lived nine, and then my baby [was] born in the U.S.," said Shah.
After moving to Pine Bluff, Shah said the woman texted her that the salon was no longer hers and if she wanted to leave she could.
The only problem is Shah had uprooted her life for the opportunity.
Shah and her husband filed a police report, but because the woman was from Houston, they were advised to speak with Houston police.
"I was in Houston for nine years. I have everything in my life. A good job, good work, me and my wife and me and my baby. It was very bad. Especially, [because] it's okay, I am fine, but my baby though, you know?" said Azim.
The family's first glimpse into the new place they'd call home, happened when a Pine Bluff police officer offered to buy them groceries and take them back to Texas.
They declined the help, because they didn't want to be a burden, but it would be a domino effect with the kind of help the family would be offered from the Pine Bluff community.
The salon Shah was promised to work at, Angel Eyes Threads Beauty Salon, was real. It was owned by a man named Mr. Rocky who heard her story and hired her to work on the spot.
"He helped me a lot. In my apartment I don't have nothing. He came to my apartment and met my husband," said Shah.
Their apartment was completely empty aside from a pallet they put down for their son to sleep on.
Mr. Rocky would call Debra Allen with First Ward Living Grace's food pantry. They would give the family $200 worth of groceries.
Allen and Mr. Rocky then would both call Derrikka Matthews who is a silent servant community leader for the city.
"I go there to the eyebrow threading place to get my brows done," said Matthews, "Mr. Rocky tells me that they're in need. So I'm like okay, what are they in need of? He said everything."
Matthews is a collections manager for Aaron's sales and lease.
After talking to Azim she said she brought a furniture set for the family. She had a team of people she knew to deliver even more groceries and the set to the family.
The community came together to make sure that while here, the family would call Arkansas home.
"It feels good to be a blessing. Pass it on. So they can be able to help someone else when they get back on their feet. I just want them to be able to help someone else," said Matthews.
Tuesday, Matthews and Allen visited the family with a local pastor to check in on them and pray.
Azim said he couldn't be more grateful.
"Pine Bluff is my home right now. I'm a stay here with these people. With this family. It's all my family," said Azim.