[2024-11] Sue (Host)

My name is Sue Music and we participated in the home school homestay program for the first time this past November until February, the 12 weeks.

We had never done any international exchange type program at all. So it's kind of a new territory for us. We were nervously excited to have a student arrive. Our children love people, so we were confident that they would be welcomed with open arms, but obviously it's a stranger in your home and they don't speak English, so we weren't unsure about that process.

When Junyi arrived, he did not speak much English at all. But the kids took to him very quickly, and as we were expected, it was shared with us at the first two weeks would be an adjustment, which it was. But it probably only took a week for us to really adjust and figure things out. And I would say that there was a lot of humor in figuring out the language barrier and communicating that.

We were very blessed with our student. He was willing to participate in everything all the time. He was so kind and patient with our children, very respectful in our home. So none of those things were ever a challenge. If anything, I was always, like my own kids, telling the student you have to tell them when you want space because they wanted to play with him all the time. It was such a blessed, amazing experience.

Honestly, everybody is very sad to see Junyi leave. I think it will be a big adjustment for us to not have him here. I already know some of my kids are feeling sad that he's going to be gone, so he has really become part of our family. It has just been a really, really great experience. It's been awesome to watch his English progress. It's been great to have like a fourth child along with us to experience the things. We've loved showing him Canada, the activities. And he's been a great help, to be honest, in the home too. Being that he was the same age as my eldest. So I would have two 13 or 14 year old hands to help me when needed, and it's been great.

I would say that they have been extremely helpful. I was not shy about asking questions or uncertainties. We did encounter a couple of situations where I did not know what to do or how to handle it. And Hyunsu was like so responsive, gave really good advice as far as how to approach a situation. I was very pleased and honestly have nothing bad to say. I think the level of support is really great. The fact that they touch base and come into your home every couple of weeks I thought, was really, really great. And they stayed on top of things.

And then there's a little bit of familiarity too for our student, I think it really helped our student warm up to our family too because of the language barrier. Especially early on you had someone could speak Korean with them and help them adapt a little bit more and helped us all adjust to like what we should do and where to have boundaries and kind of staying firm just for the benefit of the student and progressing their English.

February 6, 2025