Every year, families in Alabama perform missions work with students from around the world without leaving their homes by hosting exchange students with the AFS Intercultural Programs.
“To be honest, before coming [to Alabama], I didn’t know a lot about God,” Arnaud said of the difference the program has made in his life. Arnaud, whose last name is not released by AFS for privacy, described his native Switzerland as a place where worship is only symbolic and doesn’t attempt to connect with youth on a personal level. “It’s more like going to church is not a big deal for people.”
Now Arnaud said he has a new perspective on God and what it means to be a Christian.
Jill Hickey, AFS community development specialist, said the program places foreign students in the homes of American families that are able to share their culture and beliefs with the students in hopes of making an impact on them.
“I tend to look for someone conservative (and) Christian that I know is doing this for the right reasons and just wants to be a witness to these kids,” she said of her thought process in choosing host families. “The hosting experience is a way that someone … can live out their faith on a day-to-day basis and still impact families in other nations.”
Established following World War II, the student exchanges were envisioned as a way to promote peace among countries. Students usually stay in homes from August through June, but that time frame can vary with students sometimes staying temporarily in the homes of other host families.
Arnaud has been a guest in the home of Joe and Pam Pilkinton since October 2006 and has participated in youth activities at Union Hill Baptist Church, Bessemer, in Mud Creek Baptist Association, where the Pilkintons are members.
He excitedly recalled a youth trip to Gatlinburg, Tenn., during which he was able to ask questions about subjects such as abortion and the difference between Baptist beliefs and his family’s Catholic beliefs. Arnaud also learned that church activities can be fun.
“I made very good friends, and I love my youth group,” he said.
His experience staying with the Pilkintons is similar to that of Jonas, a German student who spent a year in the Birmingham-area home of John and Kim Dobbs for the 2005–2006 school year. Jonas said church youth activities reached him in a way churches never attempted to in Germany.
“Many times, people asked me if I was saved … . And, to be honest, yes, I was saved before I came to the U.S., but I experienced God in a new way in Alabama,” he said. Jonas said in Germany, there isn’t anything like church youth activities here and church and God have nothing to do with each other — that’s why he doesn’t go to church there. But while staying with the Dobbs family, members of Union Hill Baptist, he was always excited to go to church.
“Pretty much anytime something was going on with the youth, he was there,” John Dobbs said. “A lot of his friends were in the youth group, and even friends he made at school kind of starting coming to our church, so he brought in some other people.”
Jonas’ participation in church activities opened the door for the Dobbses to share Christ with him, with Jonas asking questions about their beliefs versus those of European churches.
Joe Pilkinton has also had a chance to share Christ with his guest, Arnaud. “We want [him] to be able to know that even though we may be separated by an ocean (when he returns home), with Christ as our Savior — if he believes that Christ is our Savior and trusts in Him — that we will all see each other eternally with Christ,” Pilkinton said.
Arnaud shared how the Pilkintons gave him “The Purpose Driven Life,” by Rick Warren. “I read this book and that changed me,” Arnaud said, relating how he has passed from experiencing life from a worldly view to understanding what living for Christ means.
Raising three children of their own, the Pilkintons never set out to be a host family. Arnaud was initially staying with another family from Union Hill on a temporary basis, but an illness in that family prevented him from being taken to social events.
Attempting to help out, the Pilkintons began sharing a taste of American culture with Arnaud by taking him to places like the Riverchase Galleria mall in Hoover and college football games.
Pam Pilkinton said the bond that formed between Arnaud and her family members led them to believe God was telling them they should let him stay in their home. “I feel like he’s learning and growing and changing.”
For more information about AFS, call Hickey at 205-566-6306 or e-mail jhickey@jefcoed.com.
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