Imagine you get off the plane, stepping on American soil for the first time, joyful of what is to come. Tired but at the same time you can’t sleep, going to your host parents’ house. Finally, you find your room in a new temporary home and go to bed too tired to dream. You wake up and finally have a free thought, then anxiety sets in, knowing you are the farthest away from everything you know. This was reality for Jakob Geiss.

Jakob is from the east side of Germany. But he fits right in with the Eagles, attending games, participating in the Musical, and other after-school activities such as joining track later in the spring.

“No one goes to watch those games, but here it’s “GO EAGLES” – Jakob said. Back in Germany, only the parents attended the games, and schools often didn’t have teams. Jakob played volleyball back in Germany.

He wanted to become an exchange student after his family hosted many children because it looked like so much fun.

The program called is called Youth for Understanding (YFU)  Interested students first sign up and then they are put on a list. In the meantime, a potential host family signs up for YFU and goes through a series of tests and checks to see if they are qualified. Then, once the family is eligible, they pick the student, and the foreign exchange student has no control over where they are going. After that, the child is put on a plane and flown to the country.

In Jakob’s case, it was to Chicago, then he was picked up from the airport and driven to his host family’s house.

“I’m in a huge house. What the heck?” – Jakob thought when stepping inside his new home for the first time. Dreaming of what’s to come.