"My experience changed my life. My host family helped me have a great experience and they really opened my mind to everything. My host mom, she has a big deep heart, I learned from her that nothing is impossible in this life, and the important part is to make sure that you always give your best for everything."
This is what one exchange student had to say about the experience of coming to America and living with a host family for a year.
As a new school year is rapidly approaching my family has been busy getting ready to begin our second year of being a host family. And to add to that excitement, I decided to answer the call to become the Community Representative for this area and find the perfect homes for foreign exchange students wanting to come and experience our way of American Life.
One of the exchange students that will be arriving soon is Amjaad. She is a YES student from Bethlehem. YES is the acronym for Youth Exchange and Study. She has been preparing for this experience for a long time, learning English and writing essays. It is a very competitive process to go through in order to be chosen to come to America.
Bethlehem (in case you don’t know) is a city about the size of Tupelo. It is the birth place of Jesus and home to the oldest Christian community in the world. It is THE HOLYLAND. Amjaad lives there with her Mom and Dad. Her mother teaches English and her dad teaches history.
Amjaad and I have been chatting almost daily thanks to Facebook . She is half a world away but we chat a good bit. She asks questions and I answer them. I won’t be hosting her but I will be like the second Mom for her. As the Community Rep with AYUSA, the organization that I work for, I will keep close contact with the exchange students and the host families to help make the transition easier and to just be another person welcoming a student to our American ways.
Amjaad called her host Mom, Gina Schmitz of Bruce, on Sunday. She is so excited about coming and being the big sister to Gina’s three very active boys. She also is excited about starting school here and she wants to play basketball with the Lady Trojans. She plays on her country’s basketball team in Palestine. Thanks to YouTube, she has been able to see some video’s of the Lady Trojans in action.
She tells me she is a little scared about coming. Not that she is fearful of anything. But she is scared because everything will be new for her. Just imagine what it will be like! Every day will be a new adventure to cope with; new sights, new smells, new foods, new home, new family, new bed to sleep in. She will be attending a new school, meeting new teachers, having to speak a language that is not her native tongue, study History and Literature that is not familiar to her culture and meeting all sorts of new people that will be just as curious about her as she is about them.
It will also be an adjustment for her host family. Gina will finally have another female in that house full of boys and will be learning about high school subjects also. But what a wonderful time this will be for this family.
I can tell you from our previous experience that hosting an exchange student is such a wonderful learning experience. You learn about other customs and cultures. It is a wonderful sharing of ideas and values and experiences because not only is the exchange student learning something new, so does the host family, and the teachers and students at school and the community at large that the students are a part of.
All exchange students come here to learn about our leadership belief systems, our civil society principles and community service. We will be taking them to Jackson to see our State Government in action, (hopefully there will be some sort of action and lawmaking going on!). They will attend city council meetings and be making presentations about their native cultures and traditions at local churches and for the local Civic clubs. They will become part of our community and a family member in their host homes.
For a short time, Amjaad will be here learning what life in Mississippi is all about. The Schmitz family has opened their hearts and their home to a wonderful young person from another country.
We don’t want to be the only ones having all the fun. You too can say YES by opening your heart and home to a young person from another country.
