When students recall their study abroad, their go-to response is how many countries they visited or the strangest food they tried. But when you are uprooted and transplanted for four months, bouts of homesickness are inevitable. Throughout my time abroad, I have found the true cure to homesickness is not just food, but love — the love that only a family can provide.
Dear Kartause Families,
From the moment we students arrived last semester, each of you worked so hard to make us feel welcome. You struck us differently than professors and administrators we had interacted with before, because you take a personal interest in every class that shows up. We looked like deer caught in headlights, but you gave us the tools we needed to feel comfortable.
To the women: You opened your hearts and shared your personal testimony about your family with the ladies at Women’s Ministry. You gave us advice and sparked conversations that I was still having with my girl friends until the end of the semester and beyond.
To the men: What an example of masculinity each of you provided. You challenged the men each week, bringing up new thoughts and ideas they desired in their own lives. They found role models in each of you.
For those four months, we were all each other had. The students invested themselves in your families because out of everything changing around us, you were our constant. So many of you are without extended family, so you invested in us, because you know what it’s like to be alone in a foreign place.
We noticed how you took the time each day to celebrate Mass as a family. Mass now seems incomplete without those small bikes perched outside the Chapel. We saw how you made the time for Festivals of Praise and Adoration, and how you sometimes brought the kids for a bit. Your families were very much in the fullness of the word, and seeing that devotion to the Lord was inspiring.
As students, many of us feel exhausted trying to seek and practice the Lord’s will in our lives. Every time we stand, we get knocked down with discouragement. There was so much contentment knowing many of you faced similar odds. Your witness — said or not — offered hope that even if we cannot see where we are headed, the Lord can, and that is all that matters.
And above all of this, it still was not enough. You opened your homes to us and let us be apart of your families. You let us play with your children and invited us over for dinner. The value of a home-cooked meal cannot be overstated.
Each time the students saw the sweet, joyful little boy who loves playing tag in front of Francis House, it brought a smile to our faces. Each time we saw your little nuggets on the swing set or in a tree, all we wanted to do was join in. Friendships were born with the older kids and pure joy radiated from the younger ones.
We understand that this is no easy task. When those last nights at the Kartause came and went, the students finally understood what you knew all along: that opening your hearts each semester is no easy task, let alone that of children, or that goodbyes never get easier, you only get used to them. But what struck us the most was despite all of this, you and your families continue to pour yourselves out for us each and every semester.
Though it will never be enough, thank you for loving us so well.
Always in our hearts,
Austria Program Veterans
