[2024-11] Theresa (Host)

My name is Teresa Karuhije. My husband and I have 5 kids and the oldest is 16 and the youngest is just about 5.

We are just finishing having our first homestay student Hannah, she stayed with us since before Christmas. We would never have thought that we would ever host an exchange student. This was just not something that was on our mind. And then we heard about it and we both thought, you know what, let's give it a try. I think it would be a good experience for our kids, a good experience for us just as a family. And it has been much better than we could have imagined.

Right from day one, the first night that our exchange student was dropped off. Like our kids all gathered around her and started playing games and just were laughing and having a good time. And by the end of the first week all the girls were sharing a room and they ended up squishing their beds together because they didn't want to even sleep far from each other. They just watched movies and they laughed and they played and they teased. We would talk about, you know, packing ourselves in her suitcase and going back to Korea so that we didn't have to lose her when she would go home.

We have loved creating Christmas for her, having her stocking right next to all of ours, just meals and learning Korean food and learning Korean words and going shopping for things together. Doing life together was so important and so enjoyable for us. We have really really loved having Hannah here and if we could keep her longer we would.

We found the leaders of the program to be very approachable. If we had questions, they got back to us. They stayed in touch. We would actually have them come over.

They would just go over how schooling was going, go over any expectations and I really appreciated too that they gave us pretty good heads up leading into this so that we really knew what we were looking at. And I would tell them I love your way of communicating because there might be a way that I wouldn't have thought about something and they could help me to understand. There was no big questions because we didn't have a whole lot of surprises, to be honest. And I really like that. I also like the support. So if I wanted to do something, "Yes. Take her." If I wanted to sign up for something, "Yes. Take her." So we were very free to incorporate our student into our family. And that was that's everything because it wasn't like our whole life was disrupted. Our student became part of our family.

We knew how this was going to go, we just didn't know how good it was going to be.

We would definitely recommend this program to anybody who wants to feel like they're trying out having an exchange student, but doing it in it's a little bit more of a safe way because you know, these students have grown up in good homes. They have got a Christian background. Hannah actually went to school. She wasn't home schooled, but she came here fully knowing what that would entail, what it would look like to be here in a home school family. And she fit right in. And she absolutely thrived. She did great. And yeah, we can't say enough good about the program. Definitely, definitely recommend it. And I think everybody should try it out. It's a good experience.

February 4, 2025