!!!!!!! Exchange student's "Half -Year of Hell" with US Xn fundamentalists

[bobbieinok]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,448350,00.html


SPIEGEL ONLINE - November 14, 2006, 03:14 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,448350,00.html

POLISH EXCHANGE STUDENT IN US
My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists



Michael Gromek



"When I got out of the plane in Greensboro in the US state of North Carolina, I would never have expected my host family to welcome me at the airport, wielding a Bible, and saying, 'Child, our Lord sent you half-way around the world to bring you to us.' At that moment I just wanted to turn round and run back to the plane.

Things began to go wrong as soon as I arrived in my new home in Winston-Salem, where I was to spend my year abroad. For example, every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents hadn't had sex for the last 17 years because -- so they told me -- they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. I admitted that I liked beer and wine. They told me I had the devil in my heart.

My host parents treated me like a five-year-old. They gave me lollipops. They woke me every Sunday morning at 6:15 a.m., saying 'Michael, it's time to go to church.' I hated that sentence. When I didn't want to go to church one morning, because I had hardly slept, they didn't allow me to have any coffee.

One day I was talking to my host parents about my mother, who is separated from my father. They were appalled -- my mother's heart was just as possessed by the devil as mine, they exclaimed. God wanted her to stay with her husband, they said.

"God's will"

Then, seeing as we were already on the topic of God's will, the religious zealots finally brought up a subject which had clearly been on their minds for a long time: They wanted me to help them set up a Fundamentalist Baptist church in my home country of Poland. It was God's will, they said. They tried to slip the topic casually into conversation, but it really shocked me -- I realized that was the only reason they had welcomed me into their family. They had already started construction work in Krakow -- I was to help them with translations and with spreading their faith via the media.

It was clear to me that there was no way I was going to do that. The family was appalled. It was a weird situation. After all, these people were my only company at the time. If I hadn't kept in touch with home through e-mail, I might have been sucked into that world.

more....

[renate]

1. poor kid! I wonder why he stayed so long

In the article he says he left after four months--why on earth would he have stayed in a place like that for more than an hour?

Bless his heart, I bet he was just too polite to go until he couldn't stand it one minute longer. I feel so bad for him. :(

[nickyt]

10. Isn't being en exchange student a really big deal? Like, your hometown is all

proud of you and they give you a big sendoff and it's a dream come true (and probably costs a couple of bucks as well). I'm sure it was really hard and painful to get out as early as he did and not stay the whole year.
At any rate, his hometown will be getting an earful about them whacko Baptists, fer sure!

[lies and propaganda]

2. great find!

I will be passing this around!

[bobbieinok]

5. I found this linked at Dark Christianity

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. That. Is. Horrific. The exchange program needs to do a better job of

screening host families, then.

[lapfog_1]

4. Subtitle: Confessions of a masochist.

You know, there are no guarantees in life, you never know if you have 6 hours, 6 months, 6 years or 6 decades left, why in the world would you voluntarily spend a year in that hell.

[pnwmom]

29. How about because he was a kid,

and all alone in a new country, and probably in a state of shock, and he didn't want -- after all the build-up to coming to America -- to feel like a failure?

[twilight_sailing]

6. In 1970

a Swedish foreign exchange student came to our little town in the Piney Woods of East Texas. He was appalled. I am sitting here laughing just thinking about it.

I'd bet $100 he never came back to America. ;)

[Hav]

7. .

It's strange how well they know God's will..or how God's will will always be the way they want it.

[conscious evolution]

8. When I was a kid we had an

exchange student from Argentina.Shewas way cool.
But I did notice that the only people she hung out with,other than us,were either other exchange students or non-whites.Now when I look back,I am sure it was due to rascism.(Savannah Georgia is not exactly a progressive city.).
When she returned to Argentina,we became pinpals,until 1978 or 79.That was when she quit writing.I thought I had pissed her off or something.
I know better now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. 1978 or 1979?

I hope she wasn't a casualty of Argentina's out-of-control "anti-terrorism "campaign.

[conscious evolution]

14. That is what I suspect

Her name was Maria.I wish I could remembered her last name.

[Ian David]

9. I suppose it COULD have been worse...

[MikeNearMcChord]

11. There has to be a movie made about this.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. I wonder what program he was on

It doesn't sound like AFS, which is for a school year, not for six months.

A friend of my mother was a local coordinator for AFS years ago, and her job included meeting foreign students at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport before they were sent to their host families around the Upper Midwest. She sometimes cringed when she found out where they were being sent.

[pacalo]

15. That poor kid! I'm thankful he was able to get moved out of la-la land

to a more normal household -- he might have thought we were all lulu's.

[nicknameless]

19. Darksided!!!

That freak was exactly who the OP got me thinking about.

:scared:

[lildreamer316]

dupe

[lildreamer316]

dupe2

[lildreamer316]

16. dupe3

fucking crappy laptop

[lildreamer316]

17. Ohhhhhhhhh noooooooooooo.

I knew it was bad.

THEN I scrolled into the story and saw it happened in my HOMETOWN.

SHIT SHIT SHIT.

I am MOVING.

[spooky3]

18. Poor you! But the new hosts were nice to him.

On top of everything else, those fundies were extremely RUDE. How dare they behave that way to a guest from a foreign country and nearly ruin his experience? Their job was to truly welcome him, help him get adjusted to school and the community and be as supportive as possible. It's outrageous that they tried to impose their odd and extreme views on him and use him for their own goals of building a church in his home country. Wish there were some way to penalize them. Thank goodness he was moved to the new family I wish he had spoken up the first week he was there. Better yet, the program should have screened out these boorish nutcases.

[tblue37]

20. My Japanese friend, who is a Buddhist, came here to Kansas at 14

as an exchange student. Her host family forced her to go to church and to summer Christian camp and badgered her constantly, making her pray and promise them that she was converted to Christianity.

Little 14-year-old girl, away from home in a strange land, all alone--they really abused their position with her. She still freaks out when she thinks of it. I think those families should be screened better!

[Pacifist Patriot]

21. No wonder exchange students love my family.

That is beyond awful!

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Obviously a question should be added to the hosting parent's

profile sheet: If a Christian, what is your brand of Christianity?

[JHB]

24. It wouldn't matter...

...they'd lie (all in the service of The Lord, of course).

A chance to convert a "heathen" and send them back to "witness" in their heathen homeland? They just can't pass up opportunities like that.

[AllegroRondo]

23. I was an exchange student in High School, to Germany

the host family I stayed with was incredibly nice. I dont think we ever discussed religion, except for when I first arrived and they asked what my religion was (Catholic at the time) and they offered to drive me to the nearest Catholic church in the next town on Sundays.

I dont think I could have survived 6 months if I was stuck with religious nutjobs like that.

[knitter4democracy]

25. My mom and I rescued a foreign exchange student one year.

She was from the Netherlands, and her host family was awful. They were abusive and wouldn't take her anywhere or show her anything. When Mom found out (she was the girl's high school art teacher), she reported it to the organization and was told that they had nowhere else to put her if Mom didn't take her. So, she did.

Ilse was a really interesting person, and we had so much fun taking her around and showing her the sights. She'd never even been to the mall (apparently, that was an evil place or something) or really anywhere. Her parents came for graduation, and it was all so much fun.

Those kids often end up in borderline families. It's really sad.

[MasonJar]

26. He should have (or his parents should have) notified the agency

in charge of the exchange or the high school. The company would undoubtedly have found him a new place to live during his year abroad. What a nightmare!

[Nikia]

28. I agree

I know of several exchange students in my home area, while I was going to high school, who switched host families for a variety of reasons.
Agencies should do a better job of matching students up with the needs and preferences of the student and needs and preferences of the family.
For example, there was an old widowed woman who lived in my neighborhood. She hosted 1 or 2 girls every year. She was a religious Methodist and although not as Fundamentalist as this family, made her host students go to church and Sunday school every Sunday and was more strict than the average family about going and such. Some enjoyed their time with her. Others disliked living with her and a couple even got different host families because they didn't relate well to an older woman, found her rules restrictive, or were non religious or of some other religion. I think asking students if they would mind living with a single woman their grandparents age and if they minded participating in a Methodist Church would have increased the chances of her having happy exchange students.

[yellowcanine]

27. Some of those programs don't screen host parents too well.

My wife and I "rescued" a girl a while back who was placed in a screwed up host family. The host sister had was taking the exchange student on hitchhiking jaunts and basically terrorizing her into keeping quiet about their escapades. If we hadn't stepped forward the girl would have had to return to her home country 1/3 of the way through the school year. It turned out to be a great experience for her and for us and we are still friends with the whole family. There have also been cases of sexual abuse by host parents.

[Maestro]

30. Disgusting!

How completely rude, arrogant, ignorant and culturally insenstive can one be? But we are talking about fundies. It shouldn't surprise me. I hope the young man knows we are not all like this.