Love Without Borders

Happy 75th anniversary to AFS-USA, celebrating 7-plus decades of connecting students and families through foreign-exchange programs across the globe!

Although AFS wasn't the particular program that brought Lukas to our lives in 2014 (loving our snowy Easter) or sent Carter over to his home in Germany in 2015, foreign-exchange programs are special to us. And especially this one since it employs our baby!

As Carter has told us: AFS-USA honors the legacy of its founders—volunteer WWI and WWII American Field Service ambulance drivers—who emerged from the wars with a bold mission: to help prevent future conflict through cultural exchange and understanding.

As a partner in the global AFS network, AFS-USA offers international exchange and education opportunities in over 45 countries and hosts exchange students from 80 countries. This cultural exchange helps people come together, across typical divides, to make a more peaceful and just world. That’s the #AFSEffect. 

Carter has a dual role working in marketing and providing support to host families. This hasn't landed him in Germany again or anything, but after talking to him today and he said it was 80-plus degrees in Raleigh, I'm pretty convinced he's in a good place.

I know I've said it before – even this week – if you can host a foreign student (even for a month like we did) or send your child to study abroad (I know it's hard to let them go), do it. It's life changing.

We're proud of our boy for his role in continuing to make that happen for others.