By Christina Morales Wood, AFS-USA Host Parent and Board Member
Being a host family was never on our agenda.
But raising international kids was.
As a career military family, we had spent eight years living overseas in Korea and Germany, and had even put the kids in the local German public schools. When my husband, Mark, retired and we moved to Portland in 2015, I looked for ways to continue that experience for our kids, putting the younger two in the German International School and hoping the older two would choose to study abroad.
Thinking study abroad was a likely eventuality, I signed up for the AFS-USA newsletter, fully expecting our oldest, then a freshman, to be an exchange student his junior year of high school.
Sadly, after spending most of his childhood overseas, what he really wanted was the Friday night lights version of American high school. For him, being an American teen was the adventure.
So I reluctantly let it go.
In fall of 2017, an email landed in my inbox. A YES student from Bosnia was being hosted in the area and needed a new host family. Urgently. His first placement simply hadn’t worked out, and there weren’t any other families available.
For me, it felt serendipitous. Both Mark and I had served as Serbian-Croatian linguists in the military. We had spent years working with the region, vacationing there, communicating with and teaching the language, and had truly grown to love the culture. Bosnia was not just a random place on a map for us, and this young man’s need for placement tapped directly into a need we hadn’t known we had as a family.
This was a very personal call to action for us.
It also felt like wildly inconvenient timing.
We had four kids at home; our house was loud, crowded, and chaotic. Taking in another teenager would be a very impractical decision.
So naturally, I called Mark at work and said, “I think we need to do this.”
And that was it.
AFS moved quickly. We were interviewed and approved, and soon after, we met Harun.
And from day one, he was the right fit.
He and our son, only six months apart in age, became instant friends.
Of course, there were moments that stretched us as a family.
We felt terrible asking two almost-grown boys to share bunkbeds in a small bedroom. It fundamentally felt like we didn’t have the means to provide. But Harun just shrugged. To him, sharing space like that was normal. No big deal.
That moment has always stuck with me. We thought we were so much more intercultural than other families, and especially with our familiarity with Bosnia, but we still had our assumptions challenged and our norms shifted. This moment reminded me, there is always room to grow.
There were also bigger conversations. We were very frustrated with the state of politics in our country that year (and still), but Harun would remind us that things can be far more complicated than they were. His perspective gave us the lens through which we saw our own privilege.
We entered into the experience thinking we were here to help him, only to learn that he was also here to change us.
Adding Harun to our family was a profound experience, but it was only the beginning of our AFS journey.
In 2018-19, I became a liaison for Haneen, and our family temporarily hosted Sufiyan, both YES students from Pakistan.
In 2019-20, we hosted Leira from Belgium, and when COVID changed our world, sending Leira home early, we got to meet Labiba, from Bangladesh, who quite literally got stuck with us when airports shut down and she couldn’t get home.
In 2021-22, when the world was making tentative steps at a new normal, we hosted Lara from Argentina. Lara was the same age as our middle daughter, and the year after her stay with us, our daughter spent Christmas in Argentina with Lara and her family.
By the time 2022-23 brought Anouk to us from Germany, hosting was simply a part of our family rhythm. Over the years, we’ve welcomed 13 students into our home from Bosnia, Italy, Pakistan, Belgium, Bangladesh, Argentina, Portugal, Germany, Indonesia, and the Czech Republic.
They start out as strangers, guests in your home who aren’t sure what the rules are. But as they grow comfortable with the rhythm of the house and the school they’re attending, they become family. It takes time, some discomfort as both the family and the student stretch to accommodate each other’s differences, but by the time that student leaves at the end of the school year, you can’t imagine what you were as a family before them.
We’ve stayed in close touch with most of our students. Social media and the fact that we’re a community of travelers help. Three of our kids have visited their exchange siblings, Mark and I have visited Harun, and we’ve had five of our former students come back to visit us.
That’s what AFS does.
It quietly expands your network and rearranges your life.
Being a host mom was just the beginning for me. I became a liaison, and then a support coordinator, and ultimately joined the national board.
Serving on the AFS-USA Board, I have the privilege of working with a leadership team that is thoughtful, strategic, and deeply committed to the mission.
In my professional life, I’m a nonprofit fundraiser. I spend my days helping people invest in things that matter in this world.
So I don’t say this lightly.
Intercultural exchange matters. AFS matters.
I’ve seen what happens when a young person lives inside another culture instead of just visiting it. It changes how they think. It changes what they study. It changes the careers they pursue and the way they show up in the world.
It also changes the families who host them.
We are more patient. More curious. Less certain that our way is the only way.
And in a time when the world feels increasingly divided, that matters more than ever.
That is why I give to AFS. AFS is funded by individuals like you and me who believe that human connection makes us stronger as a nation and within our global systems.
I’ve seen the return on that investment. It is measured in relationships, in perspective, and in lifelong connections. It is measured in a world that feels just a little smaller and a little more human.
And once you’ve experienced that, you don’t just support the mission.
You become part of it.
Inspired by Christina’s story? Consider opening your home to an AFS exchange student.
Hosting is a powerful way to bring the world into your family and create lifelong connections. Learn how you can become a host family and make a difference in a student’s life – and your own.