My husband and I wanted to host an exchange student for a couple of reasons. First, we were at a time in our lives where our careers were moving forward and money wasn't scarce. We figured that providing room and board wouldn't put a financial strain on us. Secondly, it would be a lot of fun to give someone an adventure. Anna came to us as our third exchange student. Anna was a 16-year-old FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange Program) student and came to us from Kiev, Ukraine. Anna was one of three students who came to stay with us on August 21, 2006. We also had Tijana, a 17 year old student from Nis, Serbia and Murad, a 17 year old student from Azerbaijan. Murad's stay was temporary until a host family could be found for him and Tijana and Anna would live together in our house as host sisters. We went from a childless home to having three teenagers in one day. Talk about a shock for both me and my husband. Murad's stay with us lasted 3 short weeks and then we had to say goodbye. It was a very sad day because even in 3 short weeks you can become very attached to someone. Tijana's stay with us was also short because she was not a good match in our house. Tijana moved out of our home in October to stay with a family from her home county who now resided in Franklin, Wisconsin. We had the pleasure of hosting Anna with us for an entire school year. Anna and I spent many evenings doing her homework together for the two English classes she had decided to take. One of his first writing assignments was to write a two-page article about who his hero was. He asked me to read his article to make sure there were no grammatical or punctuation errors and as I read his article tears came to my eyes. He wrote that his hero was me. How my selflessness in having a complete stranger in my home and allowing this stranger to have the same luxuries and experiences that I get in my daily life was something he had never experienced before. She was grateful that I had "chosen" her as a student to stay in my home and that she was very lucky to have someone who cared so much.