Well, That Was Fast…

Seems that our Marylhurst student will be leaving us tomorrow morning. She’s only been with us since Friday.

We had an inkling that this might be going down. We’d been informed that she was considering dropping out and returning home to Korea.

We were aware that she had some health issues. I don’t know many of  the details, but keeping her body warm is the battle she fights. In part, she has become aware that our winter weather, while mild compared to Korea, is still uncomfortably cool for her. The rain is a major culprit. She has been trying to adapt for almost a month now, and she’s not acclimatizing. And that’s stressing her physical health.

So, she’s going home.

It has nothing to do with us, that’s very clear. If it were us, she would be unlikely to abandon her program of study, just work with Marylhurst to find a more suitable host family. Once C got comfortable with the fact that it had nothing to do with us, she wondered if we’d have to wait a long time to welcome another student into our home. I told her that we were considered a model host family. She wanted to believe me… but she just couldn’t.

So the answer came today when the International Student (IS) staff  called C to say:

1. Our student will fly home to Korea tomorrow morning and could we help her get to the airport?
2. They have already identified another student for us, who will likely join us within a week.

I don’t have any real details on the new student, but the fact that the International Student staff already had someone else clearly told us two things:

1. We have a home and a family that IS wants to be in constant use. We’re indeed a model/preferred host family. We already knew that , sort-of, because this current student is not the first time we taken in a student needing special handling or a better living situation than their initial assignment could provide.
2. The IS staff treats this as both a personal experience and a business operation. If it doesn’t work out for one, wish them well and immediately help the next one in line.

C and I are learning that we can/should do the same. Be confident that we offer a quality home stay ‘product’, and not take a particular student’s struggles personally.