Anyone else a host family for kids from around the world?  We've been involved with a group called FLS for the past year plus.  We've had over 20 different boys & men staying in our home with stays ranging from 5 nights to 8 months!  Now, we've just signed on with a new group called PAX and are finally expecting a girl (praise the Lord! lol).  She is arriving 8/14 and is from the country of Georgia (formerly USSR).  She is 17 and seems so bright and eager to be here!  I'm so happy to finally have a girl and really praying we hit it off - we already have a lot in common - she wants to be a journalist when she grows up and I am a writer and news junky


Just wondering if anyone else has experienced (or would like to know more about!) this great opportunity.

 

I never have but I thought about it. Worried about the language barrier tho.

Depending on the student's English ability, it definitely can be quite challenging.  Unfortunately for me, I literally *just* realized that you can get translations done online for free!  You can also do it in Microsoft Word.  This helped me significantly over the past few weeks when we were hosting multiple Chinese students.  Their culture is vastly different from our own and it presents a lot of challenges, but the experience is still more positive than negative.

 

I have heard that you get paid for hosting students and that the students bring thier own spending money?!

Depends on which agency or group you're going through.  We get $100/wk. through FLS (and we had up to EIGHT Chinese kids per week for two weeks in July!) and the kids DEFINITELY bring spending money - nearly all of the kids go home with new laptops, PSPs, PS3's, and all the games to go with.  It's NUTS how much they spend!  We estimated one of our kids from Brazil last year spent close to 5K in his 3 weeks here!

Unfortunately, the new program we're doing, PAX, does not pay us.  This girl is going to be like one of our own kids.  She will, however, get $125/mo. as her own spending money for movies, dances, clothing, fun stuff, etc.  She's coming on a scholarship sponsored by the state department which was created after 9/11 to help improve relations between the US and other countries (many of them Muslim - we *almost* had an Egyptian boy, but begged for a girl instead).  These kids are aged 15-18 and our girl was one of 200 chosen for the reward out of 50,000 who initially applied!!  We can also keep getting FLS kids when she's here, so we'll most likely do that.

 

When I was in 10th grade, appr. 29 years ago, we had an exchange student from Brussels Belgium stay with us for the school year, a boy. HIs name was Pol Formois', anyway, we never got paid, he brought his own money. He was treated as part of our family. We did meals, etc.... It was a great experience and I hope to do it again when my 8 yo becomes a teenager. My other two are 17 and 20 and wish we would have done it with them but never got around to it.

That's awesome that you've experienced it first hand!  I imagine Pol still remembers his year spent here and has told many, many people over the years about his experience.  That's a big part of why I do it - I figure for each child's life whom we touch, it will spread from them out to possibly hundreds of people over their lifetime, telling people from other countries that Americans are pretty good people.  I get tired of the media telling us how much we are hated around the world, so I figure this is like my way of doing something patriotic on behalf of the US.

With this new program, my own kids will be eligible for the YES scholarship when they are of age, should they choose to apply.  I've told my 9 year old homeschooled son this and he's determined to master Spanish so he can study abroad for a year when he's of age.  He's already had several Spanish classes, but he wasn't taking them very seriously - now, he has a renewed interest

My youngest daughter is 8 1/2 and will start spanish when school starts. I believe it is a couple mornings a week before school.

As for our exchange student, two years after he was here, I graduated high school. My friend and I went to Europe for 6 weeks, stayed with family I have over in Belgium. We looked him up. It was great to see him. I would recommend this for anyone.

I was an exchange student through Rotary International.

I lived in Cape Town, South Africa for a year.

My family there is still close to me.  In fact, their son moved to Arizona and married the best friend of my ex.  Our kids have grown up together.

Both me and my family have hosted before and after, through the program I used and through other affiliations.

I have had Swedes, Australians, Indians, Mexicans, Brits, Brazilians, Pakistanis and Germans stay in my/our home and worked with groups for those and many more countries.

If you are in any way up to it ( and I would say not to work with any program that didn't look at you as hard or harder than you look at them) you should DO IT!

It's great for your kids, great for you, and a positive contribution to world understanding.  You will probably wind up with a friend for life and a place to visit if you happen to go overseas.