Halfway across the world from a life of widespread fighting and violence, two Sudanese women approach the 10-year anniversary of their hard-fought move.

Originally from Sudan, Shadia, 21, and Gulya (pronounced Julia), 22, fled their home in Egypt as teenagers to escape racism and mistreatment. The sisters remain in the United States under refugee status with their eye on permanent citizenship.

Sitting in their living room as their own children and younger siblings run and play in all directions, Shadia and Gulya speak passionately about the things they’ve seen along the way, both in Egypt and as young women thrown into a foreign school

system and job market.

At their first school in St. Louis, Gulya and Shadia were set up with translators, but like their classmates and teachers, they were often hard to understand.

“It was horrible because we didn’t know the language,” she said, adding that her teachers encouraged her to talk to the students from Somalia, unaware that they didn’t speak the same language.

Shadia said even basic concepts, like using a locker combination, were foreign to them, and that the girls often found themselves being chased around by their classmates without knowing why. After being separated from fellow refugees upon arriving in this country, the family had few acquaintances.

“That was the last of our friendship, that was the last of my mom’s friends,” Gulya said of the moment they stepped off the plane onto U.S. soil. “Basically it was all like one family, but it was a whole bunch of other families, but everybody got separated.”

Despite these obstacles, Shadia said she wouldn’t leave the United States because she wouldn’t know anything about her home country anymore. In Sudan, women are often treated like objects, sold into marriage and abused by their husbands. She and Gulya relate several instances of violence to their family, including Gulya being kidnapped when she was too young to remember and their father’s death in Sudan. It was stories like these that the family told United Nations officials before finally receiving their plane ticket out.

“It took years to get the process and stuff done,” Gulya said. “We’d have to sleep in the street right by the U.N. because those are the people that bring us here. ... You have to be there early.”

For now, the women, who did not want their last names published, concentrate on taking care of their own families and becoming U.S. citizens. Without her papers, which were destroyed by her former husband, Gulya expects that process to go slowly.

“My papers are going to take a long time to come,” she said. “When that time comes, I’m going to rock over here.”

Lilia White, a representative at InterServ, said that upon their arrival, refugees are given an I-94 card and a work permit. These documents authorize them to remain in the country and also to get a Social Security number.

A refugee can apply to become a legal permanent resident in one year and can start the naturalization process four years after that. Ms. White said refugees can continue to live in the United States without completing these processes, but it is recommended if they want to become citizens.

Unlike immigrants, Ms. White said, a refugee is identified as someone who leaves a country to escape persecution. Immigrants enter a country for family, employment or religious reasons.

In St. Joseph, the majority of the refugees are Sudanese and have come for work opportunities.

“We didn’t have refugees here before the Triumph food plant,” she said.

Roger Lenander, pastor at First Lutheran Church, said another defining factor for refugees is displacement from their home country because of a situation like war. He said they often look for a safe place where education and jobs are available.

“They’re moving to a place for healing,” he said. “It’s not to take the place of or displace anybody else.”