When Shelby and Chris in small-town Kansas decided to host an international exchange student through Academic Year in America (AYA), they weren’t sure exactly what to expect. But what they found was a rewarding experience that brought new traditions, deeper cultural understanding, and lifelong memories for their entire family — including their three young children. Hosting quickly became more than just opening their home, it became about opening their hearts to a new lifelong connection.
Read on to learn more about their first year hosting and why they encourage other families to consider welcoming an exchange student into their lives, too.
Please introduce yourself.
“My name is Shelby Bird and this is Chris, my husband. We have hosted one year with AYA. We’ve hosted one student. We’re from Rossville, Kansas.”
What have you learned by hosting an exchange student?
“The funnest thing that I can think of is Nikola Jokic that plays for Serbia—he’s obviously an NBA basketball star—and it’s the Olympics right now. So USA was playing against them, and then listening to my four-year-old talk to Bogdan about the game was absolutely awesome.
I was surprised at how similar our cultures were. There were many times that he wasn’t necessarily culture-shocked by some things that I thought would be different in Serbia versus the United States.”
Do you keep in contact with your former exchange student?
“We have kept in touch with our student. He’s only been gone for three months. We’ve talked to him probably four or five times on the phone. He called us right when he got back off of his flight back to Serbia. His parents picked him up from the airport, and once he got home, he called us and told us that he made it safely—and all 15 pounds of his Sour Patch Kids made it across the ocean!”
How have exchange students impacted your community?
“Having exchange students here has been a part of my whole childhood, all of my years going to school and in high school. [Our Local Coordinator and her husband] are very close family friends, and they’ve hosted so many students, just kind of like what you do. It’s been absolutely incredible.
Bogdan was just a natural fit to come and join us and just keep the tradition going with having a new student every year.”
What does it mean to you to host with AYA?
“Hosting with AYA was a good experience for us because it gave our student not only the opportunity to live in our house and learn how our family worked, but it also gave him the opportunity to travel to different states in the U.S. while he was here for different conferences and to get to interact with other students that were doing the same program he was.
If you’re thinking about hosting with AYA, I recommend doing it. We have three small children. That may be scary for some families to host a student while you’ve got so much other stuff going on, but it was such a great fit for our family because our kids got to learn about a different culture from such a young age.”
Host an exchange student with AYA
Academic Year in America (AYA) is a non-profit organization that connects enthusiastic international high school students with host parents who are ready to welcome them into their homes. In addition to matching host parents and exchange students, we offer valuable 24/7 support from professionals at our national office and our on-the-ground Local Coordinators, who are ready to assist you throughout your entire hosting experience.
If you want to be like Chris and Shelby in Kansas and host an international exchange student, AYA is here to help!
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