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Family Testimonials
Twenty years ago my family couldn’t afford to travel abroad, but we still wanted to meet people from all over the world. So we decided we’d “import” them by way of the dinner hosting program at the Minnesota International Center.
My husband Michael and I started doing this when our children were very young. The international visitors were invariably delighted to see little kids; sometimes they missed their own children so much that they’d hold ours on their laps or get down on the floor to play with them. As our children got older, they’d look in the encyclopedia for the flags of our visitors’ countries, and replicate them on typing paper with their crayons, then hang them on the front door to greet the visitors. They kept a map of the world tacked to the playroom was; with each visitor, they’d stick a paper star on a new country.
So Joe and Anne grew up thinking it was quite normal for people to drop in for dinner from Bombay, Belfast, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the former Yugoslavia. Once we had an East German visitor stay with us for an entire weekend. The Berlin Wall had just come down, and he was a young lawyer who was helping to write the new German Constitution. Another time we hosted Yasser Arafat’s press secretary, who was fascinated by our daughter Anne, then a teenager. He quizzed her about whether everything he’d heard about American teens was true (it wasn’t.) At the end of supper he invited Anne to come and ride horses with his daughter in Palestine. The influence of years of international visitors on our son may be one reason he developed an early and strong interest in other countries. Joe was a Concordia Language Village camper and counselor, and he spent a year of high school in Barcelona through American Field Service. In college, where he earned degrees in International Relations and Spanish, he studied for a year in Chile – and returned home with Gloria, his Chilean bride.
Now Joe is a second-generation co-host.
Debra and Michael O’Connor
Hosts
“We love to entertain and host visitors. It gives us great joy to show them American hospitality. As everyone learns, we receive more than we give. They [the visitors] are always wonderful, warm people and leave us with memories of great conversations and fun. We have kept in contact with a young man who was here on a study program with NASA. We e-mail back and forth. We also had three Russian ladies. We keep in touch with one of them.”
Sue and Paul Heitzmann
Hosts
“On a personal level, I have always been satisfied when a visitor, particularly Europeans, have expressed surprise to meet an American with intimate knowledge of world events. Visitors expect Americans to be uninformed.”
“As a humbling experience, I witnessed my Albanian visitor in tears at the hospitality he had received.”
“This is an excellent program for fostering contact at a grass roots level.”
“I continue to remain in contact with my LINK students, a Taiwanese couple, ten years after our first meeting.”
Bob Di Tirro
Professional/Host
“Participation in the International Visitors Program of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs has introduced our family to a diverse and fascinating group of businessmen, journalists, economists and government representatives from all over the world. The few hours each one spends with us in our home have provided a perfect opportunity to personalize world geography, history and politics. For our children the visits have given the World a face. For my husband and I the visitors keep us abreast of world developments in a way no radio or television newscast could. Articles I might otherwise have missed in the newspaper or a magazine catch my eye because my curiosity has been aroused by a recent visitor from the country or part of the world being discussed. Though it is not always easy to break away from the routine of a busy family schedule, it has always provided well worth the effort. The visitors are so appreciative and invariable well-educated and pursuing such interesting careers. Most have spoken English quite well, and where conversation is sometimes halting it is almost possible to understand and to be understood. Living in the center of the country as we do, ‘North Coast’ though it may be, Cleveland does at times seem somewhat insulated from the ‘outside world.’ The Cleveland Council on World Affairs International Visitors Program has brought that world to our doorstep. As these visitors enter our home they have bought that larger world inside with them.”
Caroline and Mort McClennan
Host
“We have maintained contact with many of our visitors and have visited with them in their countries.”
Ed and Marilyn Polster
Hosts
“I very much enjoyed my opportunities to get to know visitors from other countries, as well as getting to know more about their countries.”
“I still maintain contact with a Japanese guest who visited us in 1986. We send notes once a year.”
Mary Lynch
Host
“My family and I have gained a far greater understanding of the world and its mosaic of people through home hospitality and other contacts, and our children (all now married and not in Cleveland) all are continuing another generation of understanding for their children.”
“When my husband and I traveled to the Seychelles we made contact with a gentleman who had been programmed in Cleveland two years earlier. The reverse hospitality shown to us made our visit a great deal more meaningful and worthwhile”!
Betsy Shrader
Professional/Host
“Over the past 15 years, we have had more than 20 International visitor to our home. On each of the occasions we have included others-often giving them their first exposure to international citizens. Our attempt to extend our love of intercultural/international friendships has been enriched, local residents have translated, and all have joined in global understanding.”
“As a former school principal, my international visitors provided excellent practice for foreign language teachers, and important development of peace/understanding to all educators included in the dinner parties.”
Linda and Darrell Robertson
Hosts
“I find it personally rewarding in that I feel I am contributing in some small way to world peace and intercultural understanding.”
Joseph Belfer
Host
“As a result of hosting a visitor from Brazil we were contacted by him and requested to host his son, which we did for six months. It was a good experience for both of us.”
John and Dolores Kirn
Hosts
“Personal impact has been significant. I have corresponded with a doctor in Taiwan for at least eight years following his very homesick time at Case Western Reserve. I also was able to expose my son to a newspaper editor in South America, a student at Cleveland State and a couple form Ecuador."
Sarah Berg
Host
“These experiences have opened gateways to parts of the world which we may never see first hand.”
“Our friends and we have learned so much from our dinner parties with international visitors.”
Joyce M. Wallace
Host
“I have truly enjoyed the international visitors program. I have had very interesting visitors and love to entertain them.”
“We have learned a lot from our visitors and I have the impression they like the break from their activities that a home visit offers.”
Lori and John Bongiovanni
Hosts
“We have very much enjoyed hosting visitors in our home for dinner over the years.”
“Our children, now grown, remember fondly the exotic visitors we entertained - I think the Tibetan who came for Thanksgiving dinner may top the list.”
Lee and Heidi Makela
Hosts