As a single mom of 4, my friends thought I was crazy for adding another child into the mix. Was I? Would bringing another mouth to feed be a mistake? Would my children feel left out or replaced?
In the fall of 2017, my children and I added to our family a lovely girl from Brazil. Nara was open-minded, intelligent, and fun-loving – the perfect fit for our bustling home.
The simple things we took for granted, such as free refills at restaurants, mozzarella cheese sticks from Sonic, easy mac in the microwave, and bright yellow school buses, brought joy and wonder to our new daughter/sister. She attended the activities of my children, cheering them on from the sidelines, comforting them when they were sad and laughing with them over card games and Legos; Nara took to the big sister role of this crazy family with ease.
They just kept coming!
Nara started a fire within my children and myself. The desire to add to our hearts continued to grow. We have now hosted 9 students in our home over the years. Brazil (x 2), The Netherlands, Germany (x 2), Belgium (x 2), Italy, and Japan – these countries are the homes to my bonus children and the bonus siblings of my biological kids.
Nara, Imke, Mariana, Richard, Jessy, Nicola, Sota, Louis, and Manuel have opened the minds of countless people in our community over the years. Friends, family, teachers, and classmates have all benefited from knowing these amazing young adults.
I was also a foster parent for a few of these years! Having both exchange students and foster children at the same time was amazing. The foster children didn’t feel different because they weren’t the only child in the home not from my belly, and the exchange students had the opportunity to give these children even more of the love they so desperately needed.
Those people over there?
No longer when we hear news from around the world do we not care since it doesn’t affect us--it does. Those are our family members and extended family. No longer are my children afraid to try new foods, to consider new ways of thinking, new traditions and customs to experience.
Real Italian dishes, schnitzel, proper ramen, and pao de queijo are not dishes found here in our small town, and things we may have never known we loved without welcoming these wonderful people into our home and life.
The simple small-town life; will they hate it here?
Savannah, Tennessee, is a town of 7,000 in a county of 25,000. There is one high school with 900 students. The nearest mall, Starbucks, and Chic Fil A is an hour away. Wouldn’t a student be miserable here?
Not one of the students, in my home or under my supervision, has complained or said they wished they had been placed elsewhere. Sure, they laugh in surprise that people here really wear camo even when they aren’t hunting, that “y’all”, “ain’t”, and “over yonder” are in our daily vocabulary, and that a trip to Walmart can take hours because we literally know everyone in the store and have to talk to each of them.
But they grew to love it. They miss the friendliness, the slower pace, and the fact that they are truly “famous in a small town” upon returning home. They take our southern drawl with them, now knowing that the word “four” is actually two syllables.
Richard from Berlin said it best in 2019, “I come to America, I learn to kick a football instead of a soccer ball, and now they want my autograph!”
Nara ran track and cross country, Imke and Mariana played soccer, and Richard was the starting kicker for our football team and would have played soccer, too, but some crazy pandemic had other plans.
Jessy was a cheerleader, Nicola was on the school radio staff, and Sota played football. Louis was also on the school radio, and Manuel was in the marching band and played tennis. These traditional high school experiences are the dreams of teens in other countries.
Yes, many of these activities they can do back home, but often, they are not affiliated with their school. Pep rallies, homecoming parades, prom, senior skip days—our normal rites of passage are absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them.
What now?
Undoubtedly, the hardest part of loving an exchange student is sending them back to their home country. It is a bittersweet event because while our hearts are breaking, I am also so excited for their natural parents to get their baby in their arms again.
The impact of these students on our lives is permanent.
My oldest child is planning to become a Local Coordinator working with exchange students in the next few years. My second child helped create and found a Culture Club at our high school, the only organization like this in our area. My third child has saved up enough money himself to spend a month in Berlin this summer with one of his German brothers and hopefully see several of his other siblings as well. My youngest is trying to decide which country he would like to do an exchange in.
Nara is becoming a veterinarian, Imke is starting a family, Jessy is in law school, Nicola is becoming an aerospace engineer.
And me? I am dreaming of grandbabies, both in America and all across the globe.
