Russellville Spanish instructor provides home to exchange student

Not many people help make their own birthday treats.

One recent Thursday night, a Russellville student and parent iced vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. What happened the next day was unexpected.

Students, staff and host family members sang "Happy Birthday" to Peach, a foreign exchange student from Thailand. They presented him with the cupcakes and ice cream, a surprise from Spanish instructor Christina Crews.

Crews and her family are Peach's host family. In honor of his 18th birthday, she wanted to do something special.

Since 2013, the Russellville Multicultural Club has worked with American Field Service Intercultural program, arranging for students from other countries to spend a year in the area.

"When he first started here, he was temporarily being hosted here in town. He was talking to me about needing to find a host family, and then it just kind of fell into place from there," Crews said.

She has been with the Cole County R-1 School District 14 years. Crews and former librarian Susan Bell were instrumental in connecting the district with AFS through the Multicultural Club.

This is the first time Crews has hosted a foreign exchange student. She said having five young children of her own was part of the reason she held out. Her children - Isabel, Adriana, Deneé and Nathaniel - are students in the district. She also has a 3-year-old son, Christian.

"I don't know what all AFS students are like, but he (Peach) is easy. He is on top of everything he needs to do," Crews said.

If one word could summarize his experience here, Peach would say everything is "different."

He began his senior year in September and said the freedom in the American education system is not what he experienced back home.

In the United States, high school students choose their classes based on their interest, he said, while in Thailand, once an academic path is chosen, students often stay in the same room for class while the instructors switch out.

"When I tell people here that, they say it might be boring," Peach said.

At Russellville High School, he said, most of his classes are easy, except English. He is glad he chose classes he can get a different experience in.

Another difference in America is turning 18. Peach said there's nothing special about it in his culture like there is in America, while age 25 is marked as a year of "benjaped" or bad luck.

At the end of June, he will return home to his parents and sister, Pear.

He said Russellville offers an atmosphere he doesn't experience much.

"For me, one thing is I live in a suburb area, so you don't really have this land, this peaceful," Peach said.

Since the Multicultural Club began, Crews said, members have formed friendships with exchange students from Norway, Brazil and China. She said having Peach live with her family has been a positive experience and he has fit right in.

"Something our children can take away from having a host-brother is that he is from another country, another continent. He speaks another language, and his culture is some different than ours. They are learning about him and how he is similar and different," she said. "Peach is a blessing to us. Nathan and I commend his parents on a super good job they have done in raising their son."

They plan to keep in touch after Peach returns to Thailand.