My Chay Chay

I'm not sure really how to start this post.  I've tried a few different lines already.  I have a lot of tender feelings in my heart right now.  As I have mentioned before, we have an exchange student, Chantal.  She came here with such a different perspective on what to expect here in America.  Overall I think she expected to come here and have an American vacation and so when life hit at full speed, she had a hard time adjusting to it. Our culture was different, our rules were different, and our school was hard (especially when you are told beforehand that it is going to be so easy you wont have to work much at all).  For several months our relationship with her was tenuous and shaky.  We liked her - really liked her.  She liked us but kept looking for the greener grass elsewhere where perhaps she would be able to get that American vacation she wanted.  It was seriously hard on us.  We were putting in a lot of effort to help her adjust and to be happy here.  Everything we did seemed to go unappreciated and unnoticed.  However slowly she did learn to get an American perspective on things and she started to adapt positively.  She has a natural talent of making friends because she is beautiful, funny and has an infectious laugh.  She has a natural talent for incorporating herself snugly into people's hearts.  And she did just that with us.  Every time things were hard on us - especially when we would work really hard to help her feel happy and loved here and she continued to say she wanted another home - we kept trying to see the positive and so naturally we fell quite in love with her and she became like a daughter to us. 

It has been such a rewarding experience even with the difficult parts.  Especially because in the past month she has become truly happy with our family.  If you were a fly on the wall of our home you could see that she was happy and would think that she had always been part of our family.  The kids went crazy whenever she came home from school and she would snuggle and love on them all the time.  She and I had girl chocolate parties on my bed as we talked about life, boys, Germany, and more.  We would laugh on the couch together and talk about friends and school.

As you might be able to tell  - the story is about to take a turn.  Despite how good things were and how Chantal was finally happy and adjusted, her parents decided they wanted her to move to another home.  They didn't like us for whatever reason.  From the beginning they didn't like our religion so I believe it was still an issue for them.  She didn't want to move however and even though she told her parents how she felt they insisted.  It has broken our hearts because it feels like I did all this work to prepare the most beautiful cake and just as I get the chance to enjoy it - I have to give it away.  Thankfully she will be staying local because a friend's family from school will be taking her.  This means that after she is adjusted to the new host family (and hopefully it doesn't take her as long as it did with us) she will be able to visit.  She talks eagerly of it.  I am going to miss when she lays her head on my lap so I can play with her hair and she can talk about her day with me.  I am going to miss the funny ways she perceives things and how it has taught me to see things differently too.  I am going to miss seeing her amazing talent in making cards.  I am going to miss so much I couldn't write it all down.  Lyman cried for a while when we told him she was moving.

Hosting an exchange student is hard.  Really hard.  Helping to raise another person's teenager is hard.  Really hard.  In the end I know that I have gained a daughter.  I also know that she will never doubt that she was loved here.  I am sorry for her to have to go through more lonely times adjusting again to another family but I cant very well say to her "don't listen to your mother".  I am a mother.  Her natural parents don't understand us or appreciate us and so I cant expect them to see any other perspective then their own.  I am not sure I could if I were in their shoes either.  Host families do not get paid for offering their home and hearts up to a stranger for a year but our reward is great and even with all of this I know we will host again someday.