Exchange Student Research Paper

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
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
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 the United States. She told me that night that she loved me and that it's very hard for her to love someone and to trust someone but she knows that someone on the other side of the world will be constantly thinking about her and loving her too. I was grateful at that moment that the lights were off in my hospital room as the tears were running down my cheeks. I knew what it was like to have unconditional love for a child at that moment. The second incident happened about two weeks later when she returned from a trip with other exchange students whom she had just met. We were driving home on the freeway from West Bend when she started crying uncontrollably in the passenger seat in my car. When I asked her what was wrong, she simply