Retired math teacher welcomes Nicaraguan family
William “Bill” Bewick describes the moment, 10 years ago, when he learned his son Isaac was killed in a car accident as the worst day of his life. In the days that followed, Bill’s other children came together to honor Isaac’s life.
“Life doesn’t stop because you’ve lost your son,” Bill said. “I’m thinking about what Isaac was going through, and I just laid my head down and cried very hard. At that moment, Jesus came to me and he said, ‘You know better than that. Those thoughts are not my thoughts.’ And he reminded me of the Good Samaritan story.”
Bill recalled the Biblical parable from the Gospel of Luke where a traveler was beaten and left on the side of the road for dead. While several people passed the man, a Good Samaritan took him in, clothed him, fed him, and nurtured him back to health.
“If Jesus would tell me to have mercy on the man by the side of the road, I can be 100% sure that Jesus was not going to leave Isaac by the side of the road. So that told me that Isaac was fine, and my tears cleared up.”
Driven by his deep faith and his personal history as a civil rights and Vietnam War activist in Georgia during the 1960s, Bill looked into sponsorship opportunities, particularly after Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2022.
He sponsored a Ukrainian family in 2022, welcoming them to his rural town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, about an hour west of Madison. Bill was pleased with the outcome of this sponsorship, describing the family as “wonderful” and noting that they are now living independently.
Encouraged by this positive experience, he decided to sponsor another family, this time under the CHNV humanitarian parole program. This pathway grants newcomers from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela refuge in the U.S. for up to two years.
“I originally thought, well, Venezuela seems to have the biggest problem,” Bill said. “So, I thought I would take in a Venezuelan family, but I got matched up with the Ramirez family from Nicaragua.”
He was clicking through beneficiary profiles one afternoon with his family when he stumbled upon the profile of the Ramirez family. One of his children pointed out the father, Ervin Ramirez, was a mathematician and former math olympian who had studied in Taipei, Taiwan.
Bill, a retired middle school math teacher, began messaging back and forth with Ervin and his wife Hellen. He agreed to sponsor them just before Christmas of 2023.
Ervin and Hellen met in a Baptist Church in Esteli, Nicaragua, in 2014, when Ervin visited his home country on vacation from his schooling. When he returned to Nicaragua in 2016 after finishing his fellowship in Taiwan, Ervin and Hellen married. Three years later, they welcomed their first child, a daughter, Abigail. Four years after that, in 2023, they had their son, Elias.
During this time, Hellen worked as a primary school teacher and Ervin had several jobs, including working for a Chinese company and teaching at a bilingual Spanish and English school.
At this point, the family had moved to the capital city of Managua where they were renting a house. Life in Nicaragua was difficult. He hoped to one day relocate to either the U.S. or Canada.
“The political situation that we are going through in Nicaragua nowadays is very difficult,” Ervin said. “It’s difficult to get a job because they [give] preference giving the jobs to those who are related to the governing party in Nicaragua.”
He added that the extreme weather conditions attributed to climate change also drove them to leave.
“The weather [in Nicaragua] is very, very hot. The conditions were difficult. Our family didn’t have air conditioning at home. It was very, very tough for us.”
In April 2023, three months after learning about the humanitarian parole program for Nicaraguans, Ervin discovered Welcome Connect, a platform that connects people from eligible countries with potential sponsors in the United States.
The number of available slots for beneficiaries to register on Welcome Connect each month are determined by the number of available sponsors. So, it took a few tries before Ervin was able to register in December 2023.
Shortly after, he was connected with Bill. In February 2024, Bill submitted the proper documentation on behalf of the Ramirez family, and just one week later, they received approval to travel.
The family received free flights through a partnership between Welcome.US and Amex GBT, in which sponsors are able to apply for travel vouchers for newcomers. The family planned to fly to the U.S. in late April 2024.
Then, out of nowhere in late March, their son Elias became very sick.
The 1 year old was admitted to the hospital, and was still there on the family’s travel date, so they could not leave.
In the meantime, Bill worked with the Welcome.US team to extend the travel credits and rebook the family’s flights.
Two days after their original travel date, Elias was in stable condition and left the hospital. This time, the Ramirez family made their flights, although Elias was still very sick, and the journey was difficult. A day after their arrival in the U.S., Elias was treated at the American Family Children’s hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. He has since made a full recovery and is doing well.
I was very concerned about Elias’ health. We were able to get medical assistance right away, and that was really a blessing for us. So that’s something that we see already happening, those dreams coming true.
“Welcome Connect has saved his life,” Bill said.
Since their arrival, Ervin, Hellen, and their two young children have been living with Bill in his home. Bill is teaching Ervin how to drive, and the Ramirez family is awaiting work permits so they can eventually move into a place of their own.
“William has been an angel for us because he’s done so many good things for us,” Ervin said. “We feel blessed.”
Both Hellen and Ervin hope to be able to settle down and improve the quality of life for themselves and their children.
Hellen shared that she’s thankful to the U.S. government, to Welcome.US, and to their sponsor Bill, for providing her family with the opportunity to build a new life. She hopes that more sponsors will be able to offer the same help that Bill offered to her family.
“We really encourage people to join the program because many, many people need that type of assistance,” she said. “And they would really make a change in their lives, and more and more families are needing this type of help.”
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