I have tried calling and e-mailing my co-ordinator, but she is not responding. I know this is a busy time for her, but I once again feel ignored and unimportant to her. I know that I actually am unimportant to her because I am commited to having G here. She is trying to place the remaining students, and although I understand that, it doesn't make me want to refer the organization or use this group again. That means perhaps next year it will be harder for her to place students! Having worked in Customer Service, I have no patience for poor service.
It isn't even the fact that I have received no travel date- the only info I got was from G herself. I also have not been given the dates for the two meetings I need to attend. I found in my notes from last summer that the first one was Aug 21. That is just a month away and she doesn't have it planned yet? Or just can't find the 5 minutes to send me an e-mail with the date, time, and location? With other kids to plan around plus my own activites, I want those dates, especially since I may need to find a babysitter for my younger ones.
On the bright side, I got a very nice e-mail from our contact at the school district today. I had sent an e-mail last week, but she may have been on vacation seeing how it is summer. In any case, she gave me the names of the advisors for a foreign language honors society ( the language my student speaks) and also the international club. I hope to now get contact info for these women so we can have G meet some students before the first day.

Our student, I will call her "G", sent us an e-mail with her departure date- August 24th! We are bummed that it is so late, and so is G. It means that she will only have a short time before school starts. It will be less than a month before my husband and I leave on our anniversary trip ( we won a trip to Hawaii!) and she will not have much time to aclimate herself before the craziness of school starts. She told me at her mother's information meeting that if the host family requests it, sometimes the students leave earlier, and G said some of her classmates are leaving the first week of August.
I sent an message to my co-ordinator here and she said she will try to get it earlier, but I don't have much confidence that it will change.
I also need to get dates on our meetings. They should be coming up soon as it is July now. I don't even remember how many we have to go to! I think it may be two.
This whole process has been a struggle, but I hope once G gets here it will be worth it, and not just more struggles.

We had our interview and it was fine. They asked some odd questions of us and the kids, but I think we passed with flying colors. Mostly it was about how we discipline. We also got many of our questions answered and then we showed them the house and especially the room for our student.

We have also now made contact with our student. She was very excited to hear from us. We have also sent pictures of us, our house and her room now. I got an e-mail from her mother saying how much she appreciated hearing from us and seeing our family. She is relieved to know her daughter is going to a good family. I can't even imagine how I would handle one of my own leaving for a year.

I am feeling much better about the situation now. I was so frustrated for so long about how nothing was moving and no one cared about that. Now there is a big rush. It isn't how I would like things to go, but I am not in charge.

We are all VERY excited to meet our student and have her here with us. We are hoping to get the date of her arrival soon. We know it is in early August, but not the exact date. There is only one day that would be really bad- that is the day of the family reunion in VT. Lets just hope that isn't the day she arrives!! Although I think it would be overwhelming for her, it would be cool for her to go, especially since there is a wedding in November where she will see all the same people again.

OOOOoooo! I can't wait!!

I finally got word from YFU and they are coming out next week for the final round (I think) of interviews and paperwork. Then after that I think we just have the orientation, but that is not until late July or August.
I also was given unoffical permission to contact our student since it is getting closer to the time when she will be arriving. I sent her an e-mail on Friday and she e-mailed me back this morning. She apologized for taking a few days to write back! She has been ill. She sounds very excited to be coming and is happy to have brothers and sisters! Yay. That was one big concern of ours- that she not be upset at not being in a family with other teens, and instead being with little kids.
I am really hoping this is the beginning of a great relationship.

Ok, it has been exactly two weeks since I heard from YFU. So this afteroon I called. " oh, haven't you heard from the volunteer?"
Then she was supposed to call him ( the volunteer) and then call me back. However, my Mother called, and so I missed the call, but I got an e-mail saying she will call me tomorrow. We shall see what the excuse is now. Something about the volunteer's wife is about to have a baby I think. I wonder if we will ever get to host. This is the second year we have tried and it has not come about.