Back on July 18, 1963, as the AFS [see below] students who had spent their high school year in the United States, were preparing to go back to their countries, they got to visit the White House. JFK talked to them.
It would be another 11 years before I had the privilege to be chosen as an AFS student. I arrived in the United States two weeks after Nixon’s resignation on August 20, 1974. Our group did not get to visit the White House when we went home in July of 1975.
All my life I have been proud to have been an AFS student and to carry the mission forward of spreading peace in the world, one person at a time.
It’s gotten a little more difficult in recent years.
[AFS stands for American Field Service, today the largest and most famed high school student exchange program in the world]
Being an exchange student sounds like a life-shaping experience. I wonder what Trump would say to such a group.
It was completely life-changing for me. And Trump – he would not know what to say, because it’s not about him.
In high school, I was desperate to go on exchange through AFS, but it was too expensive for my family. In my mid-20s, I won a scholarship to study in Egypt for 16 months. That changed my life. I now live in Australia. Since 2020, we have hosted 31 exchange students who have stayed with us for anywhere from 2 to 12 months. I see you live in the USA now. What was your home country?
I grew up in Germany. I was the oldest of 10 kids, our family was poor. I was fortunate to get a scholarship to go on my AFS year. It was definitely life-changing for me.
Living in Egypt as a young woman must have also had a significant impact on your life – I can’t even imagine what that would have been like!
AFS changed my life too, and not just because you became my best friend in high school. I never travelled abroad when young but my family hosted two AFS students, one from New Zealand and one from Chile. AFS has made a difference in many ways!