Chapter 1

Roxanne O'Connell, thirty six, wife of Brian and mother of three children is a woman in charge. To anyone who knows her or who has ever had anything to do with her, there will be no disagreement. She is no dummy, having graduated near the top of her class in high school, and continuing to do well in the first two years of college that she attended before halting her formal education to become a mother. She is the type of woman who knows what she wants, knows how to get it and then goes about doing just that. In her home, she is in charge. In her marriage, she has the final say. Even in her church, which she attends regularly and which has never supported strong women within its hierarchy, she is a presence to be considered. She is more than mildly conservative in her dress. The decor in her home is entirely predictable, as is her sex life. She has slept with only one man in her life, always in the missionary position, and always, and only, on Sunday mornings, before church.

There are about as many different religions, sects and quasi-religious organizations in this country as you care to count. Some of these are "laid back", mellow and easy going, others have established rules of conduct to which each member is expected to abide. Still others have more stringent requirements pertaining to both lifestyle and actions. Conformance to those requirements by members of those groups are, typically, rigidly enforced if by no other means than peer pressure. Roxanne's church falls in this last category.

One dictum of her church involves the rite of passage into adulthood. In the year that a child becomes eighteen years of age, the child must plan, develop and perform a mission to benefit mankind. Brandon and Regina O'Connell are twins, born eighteen years earlier as the first of Roxanne and Brian's children. While it is traditional that the young person conceive of, plan and implement his or her own mission, Roxanne in cooperation with the head of her local church, agreed that this year would be an ideal opportunity for the entire family to spend a few months in Central Mexico preaching and converting the natives to the church. They would live and be based in a church owned building in central Mexico. Roxanne thought this to be an ideal opportunity for her children to strengthen their bonds with their church. Being her usual self, she didn't ask for opinions, but rather, announced the plan at dinner one evening. The reactions of her children were very subdued; Brian, her husband, knew better and said absolutely nothing at all. Thus when the summer vacation from school began, the O'Connell family found itself on the way to Central Mexico.

As is the case with many religious missionaries, Roxanne believed strongly that reading from books about her religious beliefs and "preaching" to "native heathens", as she referred to the local villagers, was the best way to accomplish her goal of "saving" them. But doing this only managed to upset the villagers and especially their religious leader. Sending the twins, Brandon and Regina, out to the other villages using the same approach made them seem foolish and weak. To the villagers, a young man as healthy and strong as Brandon should already have several wives and children. A young woman as physically mature as Regina should have already found a man and borne him his legacy. That neither of these young people had done so convinced the villagers that what they were being told was actually harmful to their way of life. They didn't like it, and wanted to hear nothing more from these strangers. After meeting with the village leaders and listening to the rantings of several village women, the village Holy Man developed a solution.

Maria Gomez, along with her husband Hector and their sixteen year old daughter Elena, supported by three younger men from other villages and in the company of the Holy Man, called upon the O'Connell family one evening. Maria is very much like Roxanne in her personality. She is a strong willed woman who "knows how things are to be". She had been one of the most vocal of the women who badgered the Holy Man about the O'Connell family in recent days. In her youth, Maria Gomez worked at a maquiladora near the northern border and taught herself to speak passable English. She knew how things were north of the border. She also knew the benefits to a child born of an American citizen. Standing in the courtyard of the house in which the O'Connells were living, and surrounded and backed by her husband, daughter, and a growing number of villagers, Maria knocked on the door and asked that all members of the family join them outside. There was no indication of danger or even animosity between the groups, and Roxanne recognized another opportunity in the making. Quickly she urged her husband and children to join the others.

Maria introduced herself, her husband, daughter, and the Holy Man to the O'Connells, and then began explaining why she had brought them all together.

"You have been going from village to village for many days speaking to our people about the benefits of your religious beliefs. You have claimed that it is better than ours and that your life is superior to ours, and yet your daughters have no children and your son has not even one wife to his claim. If your beliefs have made them childless, then it is what is wrong in your life. But we can change that tonight. I have brought you my daughter. She is beautiful, and she is of an age to marry and bear children. She is pure, never having been with a man, and her body is at the time of her month that is said to be ripe. I have brought her here tonight to your son so that he may be with her and that she may then be with his child."