My family hosted our first time in 2000, we were a second family for our beautiful Dutch daughter Floor. Her first family was good and she was good, they just weren’t a good fit together. That is why a good volunteer support system like we have with AFS is so good. Families can be changed if needed, without making the family or student feel bad about it.
I met her because she played basketball on the school team with my daughter. We gave her rides home a lot and began to get to know her. She invited us to the Local AFS Chapter meeting one night where she was giving a presentation on her home country. We began to be interested in hosting. She moved to our family shortly after that.
Then we hosted our second AFS daughter from Switzerland the next year, Bala. We have since hosted Jennifer from Costa Rica, Marie from Germany and Henrique from Brazil…and I am a District Rep. and Liaison for two school in our Chapter and the Hosting Coordinator for our Area Team.
We have gotten to know so many wonderful young people, families and volunteers through our affiliations with AFS. Looking forward to getting to travel some day and visit a lot of the young people. We did got to the Netherlands and Switzerland to visit them before…now I want to visit Costa Rica, Germany, Thailand, Brazil, Switzerland again and the Netherlands again…so many places, so little time…so many loved ones!
– Brenda Stoll, host mom and volunteer
of Independence, MO