THE TIMES, THEY ARE EXCHANGING’ : Volunteer Families Open Hearts, Homes to High-Schoolers From Foreign Lands

Talk about an extended family with a global twist.

The Lesters of Huntington Beach--Richard, 55, and Adorae, 54--already have a big clan in the usual manner.

They have four married daughters, 10 grandchildren and enough other kinfolk to easily fill their neatly furnished, two-story suburban house at clan reunions.

But the Lesters always seem to have room for one more.

Like Philip and Lilian from Kenya. Geoffrey from Ghana. Eli from Brazil. Seyda from Turkey. Umberto from Italy. Christine from Sweden.

Since 1974, as a volunteer host family under a nonprofit AFS International/Intercultural exchange program, seven foreign high school students have lived with the Lesters, usually for an entire school year.

And next month, the Lesters are taking their eighth: Oscar, a black youth from South Africa.

All this has brought the Lesters a certain esteem. “People think of us as a kind of international house--a tiny United Nations,” said Richard, who teaches math and computer sciences at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale in Los Angeles County.

Such admiration, however, is usually tempered by downright amazement. “People tell us how wonderful it is, and for such a good cause,” said Adorae, a kindergarten teacher at Liberty Christian Schools in Huntington Beach.

But, she added, “they also leave the impression that they would never do it and that maybe families who do are a little peculiar.”

Volunteer families like the Lesters are indeed a part of what remains a fringe phenomenon in American society.

Authoritative figures are hard to come by, due to the maze of nonprofit organizations, commercial ventures and ad hoc community groups in the field--and the lack of a single agency that compiles such data.

What estimates there are underscore the relative rarity of volunteer “home-stay” families--those who host foreign students not only for full-year residences but also for visitors in the increasingly popular summer-only programs that focus on learning English.

According to AFS regional director Craig Brown in Pasadena, the national numbers have risen dramatically in the past decade, but the total is still small--an estimated 35,000 for both full-year and short-term programs at the high school level.

Orange County, home-stay organizers say, seems to reflect the national experience. Although the county is among the more attractive areas for such placements, there were only about 200 full-year “home-stay” high school students in the academic year that just ended, in addition to hundreds more in the short-term, summer-only visits.

But, organizers point out, it is understandable why the numbers are still low.

After all, not every American family--even in this era of glasnost diplomacy and “people-to-people understanding”--is about to engage in this kind of surrogate parenting.

Not if it means taking on the social and disciplinary as well as fiscal responsibilities of caring for a stranger from a strange land. Not if it means giving up certain familial privacy, especially if the student is staying 11 months, the usual time for an academic-year resident.

“We’re talking real commitment here--in time, energy and emotions,” said William Gustafson, president of the Laguna Beach-headquartered ASSE International Student Exchange Programs. “It calls for people who are, in these respects, quite special.”

Like the Johnsons.

If there is an “ideal” home-stay setting, it would probably mean the kind offered by the Johnsons--Glenn, 46, and Sharon, 45--of Placentia.

Their house, a splendidly restored dwelling in the city’s historic sector, is stylish and spacious, complete with a back-yard pool. They live close to the freeway, shopping centers, schools and parks.

Their oldest daughter, Heather, 21, is a communications major at Arizona State University. She had lived with a family in Sweden while a summer exchange student there in 1983 (placed under the La Jolla-based American Intercultural Student Exchange).

And their twin daughters, Heidi and Holly, 17-year-old cheerleaders at Valencia High School, are particularly close in age to a visiting student.

Yet, like many host families, the Johnsons were initially reluctant.

“It’s something you have heard about and figure you would like to try. But I was concerned about giving up the privacy and the time--and for a whole year,” said Glenn, who owns an architectural-model firm.

“But because Heather really loved her (foreign) stay, and had gotten so much from it, we were won over by the idea. It has turned out to be a wonderful experience.”

In 1984-85, the Johnsons hosted their first full-year high-school student, Minna Fred from Sweden, under ASSE International Student Exchange Programs. This past year, the student was Pernilla Kuhlefelt from Finland, again under ASSE.

ASSE’s screening procedures are typical for the home-stay field. This means intensive family and school evaluations on the prospective foreign student (he must be in the “upper third” in academic ranking and is usually one of scores competing for limited openings), as well as wide-ranging community checks and home visits involving the host family.

The student’s own family generally pays medical insurance, air fare and related costs (in Pernilla’s case, about $3,500), and usually sends over a small monthly spending allowance. The American host family assumes all room-and-board expenses. (Students are not permitted to drive and are warned that drug use is cause for expulsion.)

The motives behind Minna’s and Pernilla’s journeys were plain enough. Like the other home-stay students, they sought to improve their English--now the international language--while seeing America and making direct, day-to-day contact with its people.

But there are no assurances that a student will be placed in his preferred area or choice of American family. The same randomness goes for the host applicant: the family generally cannot pick the country or even gender of a prospective student.

This was true in Pernilla’s case. But once she was matched with the Johnsons, they mailed each other “family introduction” albums, complete with pictures of pets. Sharon Johnson followed up with detailed letters on each member of her family, on the area’s schools and on the Southern California region.

Even so, Pernilla suffered the inevitable cultural shock. “It’s scary and lonely, no matter how much you prepare,” said Pernilla, who admits her spoken English wasn’t all that fluent in the beginning.

But Pernilla made the transition smoothly. She finished with a 3.8 grade-point average (her subjects included math, science and American government, as well as English). And, with Holly and Heidi Johnson especially active at Valencia High School, she plunged into a hectic round of movie-going, dances, picnicking and sports-booster events.

She also made the entertainment circuit, from Disneyland and Magic Mountain to South Coast Repertory and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, plus side trips to Tijuana and Las Vegas.

To get an even closer look at Hollywood’s rich and famous, Sharon Johnson took her one afternoon for iced tea at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge.

Meanwhile, Pernilla fell madly in love with cheeseburgers, pizza and corn on the cob.

The image of America as a land of plenty is a clearly justified one, said the 17-year-old Finnish student, whose father is an engineer, in an interview shortly before she left July 7 for Helsinki.

But, like other foreign students whose initial images of America came mostly from American-made movies, television serials and sitcoms, she found the ethnic diversity and economic gaps more pronounced and subtle. Because of such television shows as “Dynasty” and “Dallas,” she said, “We thought almost everyone here was rich.”

When asked about another popular image--the “typical” American personality--she said, “I thought an American was, maybe, loud and noisy.” Smiling, she quickly added, “Now I know Americans are very open--not so reserved, maybe, but very warm and kind.”

The admiration, apparently, is mutual.

“Knowing someone like Pernilla and Minna changes your views, too,” Sharon Johnson said. “We tend to think of Scandinavia as like those old, quaint pictures and that it isn’t very modern--which is silly, of course.”

Best of all are the students themselves.

“They’re all individuals, each so different and in so many ways, rather unpredictable,” said Sharon. “They’re all cream-of-the-crop kids. They’re also gutsy kids--just to be living abroad like this.”

For sheer dramatic involvement, Richard and Adorae Lester are hard to beat.

They, too, got into volunteer family-hosting because of a relative’s experience--one of Richard’s nieces had studied in Peru as an exchange student.

This led to the Lesters’ first foreign resident in their Huntington Beach home in 1974: a full-year student from Kenya, Philip Ogola.

From then on, it was a long succession of foreign students, including Christine Sun Karlberg, a Korean orphan adopted by a Swedish family. (The Lesters also hosted a black American from Maryland, who stayed one semester under an AFS program for a multi-ethnic “domestic family” exchange.”)

The Lesters’ commitment didn’t end there. Three of the family’s daughters took exchange-student studies in Latin America.

And in 1980, Richard and Adorae Lester journeyed to Africa for the first time to visit the villages of two former home-stay students--Ogola from Kenya and Geoffrey Asamoah from Ghana. (The trip made headlines. Before visiting Ghana, the Lesters and another touring couple were robbed and held captive for hours on a game reserve in Kenya in East Africa. They were released unharmed.)

When the Lesters reached Ghana in West Africa, Geoffrey and his farmer father, Daniel, got their chance to be hosts.

“We were the only whites in their village,” recalled Richard. “They were wonderful to us. Geoffrey had spent weeks preparing for us--stocking canned fish, rice and soap. Because there is no plumbing, they even built an outdoor toilet for us!”

“The others (villagers) had told Geoffrey we wouldn’t stay,” added Adorae. “They figured we would be like all the others--say hello and take a car to a hotel in Accra (the capital, 130 miles away). But we stayed--14 days. They treated us like family.”

The Lesters since have formally adopted Geoffrey, who is now living with them and taking graduate studies in chemistry at Cal State Fullerton.

Indeed, most of their resident students--including the Lesters’ most recent resident, Lilian Njenga from Kenya--have taken to calling the Lesters “Mom” and “Dad.” This gesture of affection delights them.

“Some people, I suppose, might be startled by this, when the (racial) differences are obvious,” Adorae said. “If some people are bothered by this, that’s their problem, not ours.”

Then, looking at photographs on one living-room wall of all their home-stay students, she added, quietly: “To me, they are our sons and daughters. All of them.”

There are, however, a significant number of home-stay failures.

For example, the “replacement rate”--when students have to be moved to another family home--has been estimated nationally at between 10% to 25% of the students.

(The rate for students who return to their countries before the year is up, however, is no more than 2%. But that figure includes illnesses and family emergencies as well as outright expulsions.)

Louis and Rita Peteque of Dana Point are just such a “replacement” family.

Last winter, the Peteques took in Erik Johannson, an 18-year-old from Sweden under the ASSE exchange program. Erik and the Peteques’ son, Vince, were both on the soccer team at Dana Hills High School.

“Erik and his previous (host) family didn’t hit it off,” explained Rita, whose family had never been in the host program before. “So they (ASSE) asked us because Erik and Vince were already buddies and our home was a meeting place for foreign students anyway.”

Organizers contend that personality conflicts--”the wrong chemistry”--are the chief reason for home-stay breakdowns. Factors can include sibling rivalry with host children, “nit-picking” demands of host parents, or communication lapses, particularly if the student is naturally shy or speaks poor English.

Some reasons have little to do with personality clashes. “There are enough cases where the (host) parents wanted nothing but a baby sitter or a house maid--a form of cheap foreign labor,” said one organizer, who asked not to be named.

Then there are the unrealistic expectations.

“Some people expect that all foreign students are supposed to be super-polite and super-obedient,” explained Adorae Lester. “When they find out they’re not, and that they have distinct personalities of their own, they get upset.”

“They’re like kids everywhere. They have their ups and downs. They’re always trying to test you,” said another AFS participant, Dreena Olmsted of Orange, whose family has hosted students from Belgium and Japan.

The best way is to treat them “like family,” Olmsted added. “Get mad when you have to--discipline them if they break your rules. Be honest but be supportive, and try to understand that their values and customs may be drastically different.”

There are still, organizers say, lapses into the “Ugly American” mentality.

Some involve political and economic differences--when a host parent voices nothing but disdain for the student’s home-country system.

“Something like this should never get to the shouting stage, even if the student himself is highly critical of the American system,” said Jacque Lauder of Yorba Linda, whose family is in the Youth for Understanding International Exchange program.

“You should talk it out, and try to understand each other’s ideas,” said Jacque, whose family has housed summer students from West Germany and a full-year student from Switzerland. Besides, she added, “you try to use common sense, and quite a bit of tact.”

This ethnocentrism can extend to broader, nonpolitical matters.

“You know the line: ‘If you’re living in America, by golly, you’re going to do it the American way,”’ said another home-stay organizer. “We’re talking attempts at total, instant conversion here--right down to how you use your fork and knife.”

The vast majority of home-stay families, organizers say, are not like that.

Instead, they maintain, most families are like the successes represented by such Orange County families as the Lesters, Johnsons and Olmsteds.

But the raising of the “Ugly American” specter--regarded as the very antithesis of the goals of these exchange programs--may help explain why these families join home-stay programs, sometimes more than once.

True, organizers say, such families may be motivated by the “parental challenge”--a test of caring for a teen-ager from another culture. Also, with a foreign visitor in the household, families enjoy a certain note among neighbors and colleagues.

But the principal reason, they argue, is purely altruistic, particularly since the families do it strictly on a volunteer basis.

“We’re certainly not doing it for money (host families receive none), or because we think of ourselves as especially noble,” said Paul Olmsted, a machinist, whose family in Orange will house its third AFS student in the coming school year, a youth from Australia.

“It’s our way--OK, a very small and quiet way--of doing something for intercultural understanding,” he said. “And that’s not a bad idea these days, is it?”

Ken Lauder, the Youth for Understanding program participant in Yorba Linda, agrees.

“It isn’t just trying to understand another point of view and way of life,” said Lauder, an aerospace quality control manager. “It is also seeing your culture and lives through another person’s eyes. You learn a lot more about yourself and our own society.”