In about a month, we will stand on our front lanai to welcome our friend Fr. Kaleeg and his three young children back from Canada. We will follow a simple Hawaiian ritual to unite our families: we will open our front door and and our arms and say, “We receive you into our home.”

I first heard the word “Hanai” just a few weeks ago, when I was at the playground talking to a Hawaiian woman. She asked me how many kids I had, and I gestured over at the girls, “Well, those two are mine, and those three are moving into our home soon.” She nodded her head. “Yes, they are your Hanai children.”

As soon as I heard that word, Hanai, I knew it captured some of the meaning of what we are doing intuitively, but there is no corresponding American word to describe this kind of arrangement: we are taking another family into our home, receiving the children as our own, and committing to care for them and support each other as our children grow. There is no corresponding paperwork or contract, just a verbal agreement. Here in Hawaii, Hanai children are very common, and there are support groups for Hanai parents as they navigate the emotional terrain surrounding this kind of arrangement.

The night that we first heard this term, we were also preparing to do something (else) we’ve never done before…in the morning, our friend Nectarios would be arriving from Honolulu with Hawaii’s myrrh-streaming icon, The Holy Theotokos of Iveron. Here’s the icon after it was placed in our icon corner:

I know all this seems very strange, especially for those who have no context. If you want to learn more about this, click here. For the last four years, this icon has been streaming an exquisite, golden, rose-scented oil that seeps into the cotton beneath it and is used for anointing. Sometimes there is so much myrrh that it seeps through the cotton and all over the floor. Sometimes, when this icon visits churches, the other icons begin to stream. The smell is unforgettable and intoxicating. It is the scent of heaven.

The morning that the icon was coming to our home, however, I was grumpy. I was worried that the house wasn’t clean enough, wondering what to serve to Nectarios, trying to work out all the last-minute details. I decided to take a walk in the coffee fields to clear my head and came home to this message on the chalk board:

When Nectarios arrived at our house, we told him about the changes in our family. He glanced at the chalkboard and said, “When I first saw that word, Hanai, I was a little worried, because in Hawaii, that word carries a lot of weight. But I am glad to see that you understand it.” He went on to tell us the story of how he was Hanai’d into a family, when he was a young boy with his mother and his siblings. He explained to us that Hanai is not just about a practical arrangement but has to do with the recognition of a deep, spiritual bond that transforms friends into family. Just before he left, he said, “The Holy Theotokos has come to bless the creation of your new family.”

So we are taking a leap, as a family, doing something that we know appears bizarre from the outside but to us, as we live into it, feels completely natural and right: Our girls, Ella (10), Anna (9), Heulwen (7), Natalie (4), and Bridget (4) will live together, here in Hawaii. This is not the life we imagined for ourselves, but as Jenny H. (The mother of Ella, Heulwen & Bridget) says, “This is all covered in grace.”

The other day, I heard Bridget singing to Natalie in the back of our car. She sang, “Natalie, I love you so much. I can’t wait to watch you grow up. I will be amazed by you.” And that is exactly how I feel, as well, about all of our girls.