8/13/2007 - Family hosts foreign students to promote peace

by Nicole Nicolas
special to the Beacon News

Mary Ann and Mark Hislop of Montgomery have taken in 10 exchange students from countries as varied at Germany, Argentina and Thailand. And they’re not about to stop.

The Hislops are awaiting their 11th student—this time a Hong Kong teenager—as part of an international program that promotes peace through understanding.

“All the other kids become part of our family forever, not just for a year,” said Mary Ann Hislop. “They know they can always come back and stay with us. They don’t even have to call. They can just show up on our doorstep.”

The Hislops have been involved with American Field Service Intercultural Programs, which offers an international high school exchange program, since 1998, when they took in their first exchange student, Nativida, from Argentina.

“The underlining theory of the exchange program is if you get to know other people and other cultures, maybe people can work out differences instead of going to war,” Mark Hislop said.

The couple recently signed a peace petition on behalf of AFS, which was organized in 1914 with a mission to transport wounded French soldiers. It has grown into an organization that promotes world peace. Organizers thought if people around the world learned about each other and began to understand each other, there would be no wars, according to the AFS Web site.

The program has grown to accommodate approximately 1,700 students who would like to study for a year, semester or summer. It also gives more than $1.3 million in scholarships and financial aid to U.S. students who want to study abroad.

“AFS is really caring in general for students,” said Thomas Zehelein, a one-time exchange student from Germany.

Zehelein stayed with the Hislops for a year when he was 16. He chose to be an exchange student in the U.S. because he said that the U.S. is globally important, and it has a big influence on his country and the rest of Europe as well.

“I think it’s important for people to know what the (people in) the U.S. are really like,” Zehelein said.

The Hislops are two people out of 5,000 volunteers for the program. In the past they’ve not only hosted families, they’ve also helped with orientation, Mark Hislop said.

“We get a lot more out of it than we put into it. It’s a very rewarding experience,” he said.

For example, as a host family the Hislops have learned about other countries’ traditions through their exchange students. Mark Hislop said he learned through a Spanish exchange student the significance of the running of the bulls.

“There’s 30 seconds on the news once a year of a bunch of crazy guys in pajamas running with a bunch of bulls behind them,” he said. “We’re going, ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.’ She (explained the tradition) was a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood.”