As many already know, I have been accepted to spend my 2016-17 Junior year of high school abroad in the Philippines with the YES Abroad state department scholarship. While this is a very well known fact due to all my excitement, what isn’t so well known is the story of how I got here. This post is the beginning of a story about one of the most exciting, challenging, life changing, rewarding experiences in my life.
When I was five years old, my family decided to host our very first exchange student, little did I know that this would be the beginning of a life filled with exchange. Since then I have gained 13 exchange brothers and sisters from all around the world; South Korea, Germany, Brazil, Jordan, Australia, Hong Kong, Russia, Spain, and Slovakia. Up until I was 14, I always said I would never be an exchange student, that it would be too hard, and I wasn’t interested. All that changed the second I began looking into what it really meant to be a youth ambassador for the US by going on exchange.
I just want to pause for a second and explain why I chose YES Abroad and not a different exchange program or scholarship. When I decided to apply for exchange, I wanted a scholarship that fit my goals, which were to learn about another culture by becoming a part of it, while sharing a small piece of my culture with the one that surrounded me. With many other scholarships, it is about the language, or the politics, but with YES, it’s about gaining a cultural understanding. While I am sure the other state department scholarships are great opportunities, each one has a specific aim, so I felt it important to choose the one whose purpose I would best fulfill.
The day I decided to apply for exchange, the waiting began. First, I waited for the applications to become available, which was about two months for me. When they finally came out, it took me about two months of dedicated work and perseverance to complete and turn them in. Once they were turned in, I had to wait to find out when and where my interview would be held. All this time I was praying, more and more each day that God would do what was best for me, which of course, I thought was exchange.
On Friday, March fourth, I got the most exciting, disappointing, confusing email of my life; I had been placed as a YES Abroad alternate. I wanted to jump up and down, because I hadn’t been rejected, yet cry for hours, because I hadn’t been accepted. The more I looked into it, the more grateful and hopeful I was to be an alternate, although still confused to a degree. In doing research I found out that in past years, over three fourths of the alternates had gone abroad, and in some years all of them had been offered a finalist status! This was the most encouraging news I could I could fathom at the time.
After exactly two weeks of agonizing waiting, on Friday, March eighteenth, I was one of the first alternates to be upgraded to finalist status. I would be spending my next school year in the Philippines! My first thought was to calm down, which lasted for about half a second, and then it hit me, all I could do was scream, and cry, and laugh. It was impossible to express or explain the excitement I felt, but that didn’t stop me from trying!
As my orientations and departure draw near, my excitement continues to grow for everything that God has in store for next year in the country which I’m sure will become a second home to me. There are so many more little facts and details which were too much for this post, but I will continue blogging to keep everybody updated! While in the Philippines, I will try to post every week or two, but until then, it might not be so regular. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!
