Our family recently hosted some friends of ours in our house. They were moving back to Pittsburgh from Missouri and needed a place to stay until they found a house or apartment. While it was stressful at times, I didn’t really mind having an extra six people in our house. I actually miss having them around all the time since they’ve found an apartment. It wasn’t as much as an inconvenience as I thought it would be, and actually made some things a little easier.
After having a family of six in our home for a month, It became obvious that we do have the capacity to host people in our house. Elise and I have talked about adopting at some point, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for that. While I do love our kids and like to hold babies, I don’ want to make any more. So what does that leave us with?
I recently met the Western Pennsylvania Coordinator for AHLI (American Home Life International). As we talked, I got to thinking about hosting an international student in our home. I talked to my wife about it and she likes the idea too. They try to have the same host for a full semester or a full year, so January would be the earliest that we would host a student, but I think we would wait until the next school year.
Here’s how the program works. The student is home for the summer, and sometimes holidays as well. Their tuition is paid and their school lunches are paid for as well. The host family has to provide the student with a private room and internet access. Anything that the host family would do or get for their kids, they would do or get for their international student as well. The $500 per month stipend helps make that easier and covers other expenses that may occur. The host family is basically responsible for the international student as they would be for their own kids, including driving them to and from extracurricular activities.
I think it would be a great opportunity for our kids to practically have an older sibling. Seeing an older student that is responsible for his/her schoolwork would help our 5th grader learn how to be responsible for her own work. There are some rules that keep the the international students from becoming a part of the family, but I don’t think that keeps them from feeling like a part of the families that they stay with.
We haven’t applied to become a host family yet, but I think we will soon. I am nothing short of excited about this opportunity and I hope that we can do this in the near future.