Welcome, Angele!

Well, we made a decision!  We decided to open our home to a foreign exchange student.  We had received a letter from High School in the USA who had found our name in the Mennonite Your Way directory in early summer.  We set it to the side since we had a lot of things going on. But we came back to it in mid-July and thought, “Why not?”  We looked at very brief descriptions of various students still waiting for a host family.  One stood out among the others – Angele.  She has similar interests as the Madison and Ellie.  The girls also said they would like the person that comes to not be in the same grade as them; it would give them all the space they needed.  Angele is a sophomore from France. 

We started the process, and it moved along quickly.  We got paperwork together, took pictures of our home and us to share, went to a online host orientation meeting, talked to the school about enrolling her, prepped the room downstairs, and waited.  Once we were approved, we were given access to her file and saw her picture for the first time!  We were even more excited – she looked fun, bubbly, and ready to take on a challenge.  Her additional bio also was encouraging. 

We got news that all paperwork was ready to roll, and on a Friday, we got a message that she would be arriving into Cleveland on Sunday night!  We chatted with her on Saturday over What’s App video call.  It was so good to see her “in person.”  We introduced ourselves and talked about what she may need to be sure to pack. 

On Sunday, we headed to Cleveland to pick her up at 5:30pm.  Then, learned her plane was still on the runway at Newark, New Jersey.  We sat in the cell phone lot and monitored her flight on the app…. forever…. She was very delayed.  I think her plane was held on the runway for 2 hours!  Finally, we saw she had taken off and would arrive at 7:30pm. 

Madison had worked on a welcome sign.  Ellie was excited to carry it! 

We waited in baggage claim.  Finally, we saw her coming down the escalator!  She hugged us hello.  We grabbed her suitcases – 2 medium size ones is all!  Then, we went to Cane’s to pick her up some chicken because who wouldn’t be starving after all that!

We also learned how to correctly pronounce her name… like Angel, but with a French accent! 

When we got home, we showed her her room and basically headed to bed.  Thankfully, the next day was not a school day! 

The girls slept in on Monday, I went to school for professional development, and Jeremy went to work.  I left the girls a crockpot meal to put together for supper – a fun, get to know each other activity.  The other job they had was introducing Pepper to Angele.  Surprisingly, Pepper and her hit it off much quicker than we anticipated!  That was a gift for sure!