A young person who goes to another country to live and study in an exchange program will probably look back on the trip as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But for some people, student exchange is an experience lived over and over. These are host families with a long-term commitment to exchange programs sponsored by nongovernmental organizations. These families open their doors year after year to welcome a young person from another country into their homes. eJournal USA found one such family in Beavercreek, Ohio. Eric and Lela Marcus host students through the nonprofit, nongovernmental Rotary International Youth Exchange program, which is active in 82 countries and involves some 8,000 students each year. Rotary's youth exchange program recruits local Rotary clubs and their members as hosts to visiting students, with the support of many community families. Eric and Lela Marcus began participating in the program in 1998, when the oldest of their three children was headed off to college. Since then, eight students from seven countries have joined their family for periods of several weeks, up to an entire year. Eric and Lela talked about the host family experience with eJournal USA Managing Editor Charlene Porter.

Question: What is it like when a new exchange student comes into your home?

Eric: I always tell families that are maybe going to be hosting a student, and I tell the students as well, that a family has 15 or 16 years to get used to how their own kids operate. Their kids have that same length of time to learn how their parents operate. But an exchange student has about 15 or 16 minutes to figure it out when they move into someone's home. So it's always a strain on both sides because they just don't know how the family works: what's right, what's wrong, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable … so you're always bumping into borders.

But sometimes, everything clicks. We had a girl from Argentina a couple years ago who was just an amazing kid. She came into our house, and it was like she had been born here.

Lela: "She's a keeper." That was the American phrase we taught her, which she absolutely adored. She changed her screen name on the Internet to that.

Eric: It was like she'd been one of our kids all her life. My wife and she were thick as thieves. They built the "tiki bar" on our outside deck because she was here in the summer. They put up all these oil lamps and strung lights, and they'd sit out there and sip non-alcoholic umbrella drinks.

Q: What does the host family experience bring to your own family? How does it change your view of the world?

Eric: First off, I now have children in seven different countries. They're like my kids. They e-mail me, they e-mail my wife a lot.

Lela: They're not like my kids. They are my kids. These are my kids, and they call me "Mom." And I love them. They bring life into the home. We are getting older, though we're still young. But we are getting older, and we are becoming empty nesters, and it's sad. We built this beautiful home for a large family, and it's so much fun to have all this life, these youthful people, and their life experiences.

It's fun to watch them make their own mistakes, you know, even the big, bad ones. Because they've got to learn, and it's nice to be there when they need a shoulder to cry on or someone to boost them up, pick them up, and guide them the right way.

Like when they're homesick. That's a big issue for these exchange students. They get homesick really, really bad. I don't mind them having conversations with their family and friends and keeping up with them, but they can't do it 24/7. They need to let go and break loose and become their own adults.

Eric: The other thing I find that is a lot of fun is that the kids tend not to say "no." For American teenagers, if you want to do something with Mom and Dad, it's like, "Ewwww, go out with Mom and Dad?" Exchange students, you tell them, "You want to go to the grocery store?" "Oh, yeah!" "You want to go to Wal-Mart?" "Oh, yeah!" "You want to go to a baseball game?" "Oh, yeah!" "You want to go visit our friend's house?" "Oh, yeah!" Anything you want to do, they're ready to put on their coat and go. You can drag them every place you go, and they're not ashamed to be seen with their parents. Which is different from your own kids. For them, it's not cool to be with your parents.

Exchange students are curious about everything. Maybe in their own homes, they're just like our teenagers, but because they're here, they're willing to do things that they wouldn't do at home. Because we're not really their parents, they're not really seeing us as their parents, but, in the end, when they're leaving, we're Mom and Dad. Usually in the Rotary exchange program, they'll have two or three Moms and Dads. And they call you Mom and Dad, and that's what is really nice about it.

Q: How else do you find them to be like or unlike your own teenagers?

Lela: Their accent is different, their language is different, but I think they are the same as us. They cry like us, they bleed like us, you know. They are just kids; they get in trouble like our kids do.

Eric: They do the same dumb things our teenagers do.

Lela: They're somewhat more cautious though.

Eric: Maybe not doing their homework, or doing something they shouldn't be doing, getting into trouble occasionally, just like our kids do. From that standpoint, teens are teens all over. You find that they are kind of punched out of the same mold. The only thing different is that they're from a different country; they have a different accent and a different culture.

But the cultures are fun to learn, too. We had a Thai student, a girl, for just a couple weeks before she went to another family. We went to an Oriental grocery store, and she was just going crazy, buying all this stuff from Thailand. So we took it all home, and she made us this huge Thai dinner that was so good.

Lela: It was amazing.

Eric: So you get to taste a little bit of their country. You hear about their country. You learn about them, as much as they're learning about you.

Some of them don't have good English skills when they arrive. Helping them learn English, and watching them at the end of their exchange, they sound like they're from the United States.

Q: You are welcoming these young people into your home in a very personal way, but do you also see yourselves having a role in international understanding?

Lela: Yes, I do.

Eric: I'm very involved in Rotary, and I go to the conventions. Two years ago, the president of Rotary said that if every 17-year-old became an exchange student, we'd have no more wars because they would be able to go to other countries and learn what other countries are about first hand and be true citizens of the world — and not want to get into wars with other countries. I think that's a truism, I really do.

Q: What about your community? In Beavercreek, Ohio, you introduce your visiting students to friends, to neighbors you meet at the grocery store. Are you helping them understand a little bit more about other countries through these young people?

Lela: I think so. I think everyone falls in love with these exchange students just as much as we do. They will just yak their heads off about their experiences while they are here. People here fall in love with them and help them out as well. When they are in school, the kids accept them so well. They fit right in like a glove.

Eric: I think that's where it rubs off the most, with the high school kids. They become part of the school class. Everybody in school knows who these kids are. They get to meet somebody from another country and learn what it's about.

And the neatest part about the Rotary program is that we send American kids in exchange for these kids. For every student that came to the United States, an American student went to their country as well. It's one for one.

The opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.