Last evening Esther and I finished the arduous task of visiting all the 19 families that host EMU’s (Eastern Mennonite University) students while we are in Guatemala. We spent an average of one-and-a-half hours with each family, usually visiting two families per evening about three times a week. We were shuttled from visit to visit by our good friend and brother Carlos Carrillo or his wife Alejandra.
Esther and I made a few observations from these short visits. They probably won’t be as profound as the view our students have from staying in a single home for eight weeks. However, ours probably cover a wider range of family expressions.
Overall our visits were delightful. Generally the families, whether Catholic or Evangelical, were deeply religious. Our topics ranged from doing works of charity to leading workshops for pastors to talking about spiritual direction. Of the 19 families, only four attended Mennonite churches while four were devout Catholics. One family attended a Friends congregation. The others were a wide mix of Evangelical expressions, many with independent Pentecostal roots. Whatever the mix, all attended church services faithfully, many more than once a week.
Another thing we observed was how obedient and well-mannered the children were—especially those in the difficult teenage years. Only three of the families had children that were all under six, and only three of the families had children a lot older than our students. That leaves 13 families all with children with in the age range of our students. Seven of these families had their teenaged and young adult children sit with us for the whole visit, contributing greatly to the conversation. We were particularly impressed with the young men of five of the families that stuck with us during our visit, some of them sitting very close to their mothers and affectionately stroking them.
In research for a workshop on host families for a conference, Ann Hershberger and I concluded that a host family having younger children was usually a better experience for our students because relating to them was less threatening—especially as they were learning the language. Furthermore, teenaged and young adult children were more likely to have activities with their friends and studying which took them away too often from the family and our students. This was not as often the case with many of this year’s host families with children in our students’ age range. Two families specifically stated that our students and their children had hit it off remarkably well and “were included as part of their children’s circle of friends.” There were other families where this was also the case. Because of this better integration with host siblings, our students came up with the idea to host a pizza party gathering for host families at SEMILLA/CASAS where our students study. Most of the siblings came along. It was a HUGE success. All 19 families attended, and many remarked to us on our visits how meaningful this was for them.
Our final observation is how attached the host families have become to our students, in the eight short weeks that we are here. Over and over again the families stated how sad they were to see our students leave, and how much they would miss them. Some were counting the days left, and with tears in their eyes expressed remorse at how many weekends we took their “children” away from them on our weekend excursions. Many stated over and over again how they treated our students just like their own children, and we saw much evidence that this was true.
Esther and I came away from these visits with a greater appreciation for the 19 families that host our students. (only 9 were repeats from our previous groups) SEMILLA/CASAS does an excellent job of interviewing and selecting the families which host our students. We have made some wonderful connections with them, and by an overwhelming majority, our students have been excellent ambassadors for EMU, for the USA, and for their own families and churches at home.