Hosting Rotary youth exchange students has become a passion of our family. Over the years we have hosted girls from Sweden, Italy, Japan and Germany, while getting to know other students from Belgium, France, India, and throughout Latin America. While apprehensive at first, our children have formed special and unique bonds with each student, which has shaped the way they approach new relationships.
2
min read
By
Team Insights
Reluctance gives way to eagerness.
Immersion quickly changes perceptions.
Hosting Rotary youth exchange students has become a passion of our family. Over the years we have hosted girls from Sweden, Italy, Japan and Germany, while getting to know other students from Belgium, France, India, and throughout Latin America. While apprehensive at first, our children have formed special and unique bonds with each student, which has shaped the way they approach new relationships.
As a family we welcome students into our home with understanding of the difficult decisions they have made to leave behind friends and family and delay graduation, all for the opportunity to immerse themselves in a foreign environment. Students often find themselves feeling alone or homesick and we find our kids are often best equipped to reassure our guest.
David, Amanda and Duke McKinney with Rotary Youth Exchange student Emma Zaby from Reidstadt, Germany enjoying game day with the Seattle Mariners.
Forming Relationships With Guest Families Back Home
Relationships with our guest's family back home are formed by way of FaceTime visits, playing Minecraft with younger siblings at home, playing games together online across the oceans, while travel plans are made to visit our guest back at home after the exchange has ended.
We have had the good fortunate to visit two of our former students at home where they live in Reidstadt, just outside of Frankfurt, Germany and another in Tokyo, Japan. Last summer we met up with Mano and her fiancé in Toyko for a day of touring and eating! The previous summer we vacationed with Emma’s family in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria and then spent a week at home with them in Reidstadt enjoying many hikes, outings and BBQ feasts. Emma’s father had been a Rotary youth Exchange Student in the mid-west and fell in love with St, Louis BBQ and has become quite the afficionado. It’s been great to meet Emma’s family in their home, meeting her siblings and more clearly understanding her surroundings.
Watching these new friendships blossom, evident is the absence of judgment, politics, assumptions, labels. In its place is the desire to understand, to seek common ground while reveling in the new perspectives. We can all learn from this more inquisitive approach as we consider how we enter into new relationships, putting aside our defenses.
