By Way of Introduction...

Hello, my name is Elizabeth and I have no idea what I’m doing.

Way back in early spring, when my pregnant brain was just pulling out of the nauseous fog of first trimester, my husband, Eli, and I decided to see if we could bring his two youngest siblings to the US from Nicaragua (his home country) to attend school here.

The situation in Nicaragua for Gabriel, age 14, and Juli, age 12, looked pretty bleak. They lived with their aging father in a tiny house with no floors and no indoor plumbing and - even more distressing – often no food. The neighborhood, one of the poorest in Managua, consisted mainly of delinquents and unemployed alcoholics. The graduation rate for the local school hovered in the low percentages as most of the boys dropped out early to work dead end jobs or do drugs and the girls because of unplanned pregnancies.

The second chapter of James says: Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

It seemed like a no-brainer. This wasn’t some metaphorical situation or rhetorical supposition. These were our actual flesh-and-blood brother and sister. Eli alone, of all his siblings, was in a position to give these kids an opportunity at a better life. Americans sadly take their country for granted all too often and forget that for most of the world’s materially poor, this is the land flowing with milk and honey.

We started the process of applying for two student visas. The website made it sound so simple: get accepted to an approved school, file a couple forms and snicker-snack: visa.

Nothing but nothing is ever easy.

It took several months of aggravation and a few greased palms to even get the kids’ passports. Finally, we had all their documentation in order and I was able to apply for their visas. The first visa application was rejected because the kids didn’t speak any English. We had to get a new round of forms from the school and re-apply for the visas. 

I should mention that I completed those applications sitting on a labor ball having contractions five minutes apart!

Seriously.

We made their embassy appointment from the hospital recovery room while our firstborn son snoozed in the bassinet and found out the visas had been granted in another hospital room a few days later when I had to be re-hospitalized for a terrible infection.

By the second week of August we all of a sudden had a two week old baby, a fourteen year old step(ish) son and a twelve year old step(ish) daughter.

There is really just no training manual for this kind of situation. We are a family navigating different generations, cultures and languages. We are the mango smoothie of blended families! Although I often feel the need to make pronouncements as if I know things (“It’s a school night, go to bed” or “the baby is not hungry, he is just tired”); in reality I am bumbly-fumbling my way through each day. Eli and I, with as much love as we posses, are completely making it up as we go along (These words were actually said in my house the other day: “eat your vegetables; we don’t want you to be a whale.”).

So this is me: a wife and brand-new mommy of three with a full-time job.

Oh James, what did you get me into?!