Hosting Foreign Exchange Students

My husband and I wanted to host an exchange student for a couple of reasons. First, we were at the point in our lives where our careers were moving along and the money wasn’t tight. We felt providing the room and board would not put any financial strain on us. Second, it would be a lot of fun to give someone an adventure.

Anna came to us as our 3rd exchange student. Anna was a 16-year old FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange Program) student and came to us from Kiev, Ukraine. Anna was one of three students who came to stay with us on August 21, 2006. We also had Tijana, a 17- year old student from Nis, Serbia and Murad a 17-year old student from Azerbaijan. Murad’s stay was temporary until a host family could be found for him and Tijana and Anna were to live together in our home as host sisters. We went from a no child home to having three teenagers in one day. Talk about a shock for both myself and my husband.

Murad’s stay with us was 3 short weeks and then we had to say good-bye. It was a very sad day because even in 3 short weeks you can become very attached to someone. Tijana’s stay with us was also short as she was not a good match in our home. Tijana moved out of our home in October to stay with a family from her home county who now resided in Franklin, Wisconsin. We did have the pleasure of having Anna stay with us a whole school year.

Anna and I spent many evenings doing her homework together for the two English classes she decided to take. One of her first writing assignments was to write a two page paper on who her hero was. She asked me to read her paper to make sure that there were no grammatical or punctuation errors and as I was reading her paper tear welled up in my eyes. She wrote that her hero was me. How my unselfishness to have a complete stranger stay in my home and to allow this stranger to have the same luxuries and experiences that I get in my everyday life was something she had never experienced before. She was grateful that I had “chose” her as a student to stay in my home and that she was very blessed to have someone who cared so much. I gave her back the notebook after making one small correction and with a quiver in my voice, stated “thank you, thank you for giving me the reason that I have been looking for as to why I was put on this earth; to make a difference in someone’s life.” She went back up to her room to finish her homework and I sat on my couch in my living room thankful for taking on the challenge of this experience. I felt that I was lucky to have been born in America and it was my duty as an American to allow students to be able to experience some of the freedoms that I get everyday.

Anna spent many of her Friday and Saturday evenings with a good friend of mine, Jon, who is a Lieutenant with the Big Bend police department. He took her on many police ride-along journeys with him and she was able to meet many wonderful people to share her stories with, stories she had from back home in Ukraine. She found that the older residents that she was able to converse with marveled in the stories that she was able to share with them about her experiences.

Anna had the wonderful pleasure of spending some time in our country’s “Big Apple.” Jeff’s mother lives in New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia. They left on a Thursday morning to return on Sunday. I received a phone call when they arrived from Anna telling me how beautiful Philadelphia was. She was able to see the Liberty Bell, an experience that not many Wisconsin exchange students get to experience. On Friday, they took a day trip to New York and visited Times Square. Anna told my husband that “I really feel at home here.” The next day they were able to spend some time in Atlantic City. She called me and told me that, “while walking on the boardwalk, I was able to reflect on my experience here in America and for what you have done for me I will be forever grateful.” I know that she was sad to have to leave what she felt like was home, but it is an experience that she will take with her forever.

Near the end of Anna’s journey here in the United States there were two profound incidents that happened that changed our lives. I had to spend about 4 days in the hospital with pancreatitis. The night before I was to come home we sat in the window ledge of my hospital room and spoke of what lied ahead for Anna when she returned back home. She had lots of tests and entrance exams to take to get into the University of her choice and she was worried about them. Throughout this whole experience, Anna knew that when the government allowed her to come back to America (she can’t return for 2 years after she leaves because of the visa that was issued) that she was welcome to stay with us for as long as needed to get herself established here in