Good Evening! I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Angie Lochbaum and I have been Ben's support person with AFS since he has arrived in the US. I don't know if you have been in contact with Ben but tonight he found out that his host family has decided it wasn't working with Ben and requested he be moved. Since my family has already met him and worked with him we agreed to take him.
I know it's another big change for Ben and he thought everything was ok with his host family so this does come as a shock to him. I assure Ben we are very excited to add him to our family. Ben will have to switch schools but I think it will be good change for him. Although right now he is a little sad.
I wanted to touch base with you so you don't have any worries and he will be in a good family that will love him like our own children,
Here's a little background about our family. My husband and I have been married for 19 years and we have 3 children, Justice is 19 years old and is a sophmore in college she is lives away. Carter is 18 years old and is a freshmen in college and he lives away too. Bailey is 13 years old and lives at home. We have 1 dog and 2 cats. Larry and I have recently purchased my parent's family owned business.
We are both very active in our community and with our children still. (I miss the big kids). We have hosted 3 students for a year through AFS and 1 student plus an adult through a summer program, Ben will be our 4th one. Our first two sons (exchange students have already been back to visit).
I'm on Facebook and that is where I post lots of photos for the families to see if you aren't on Facebook then I like to send monthly updates and photos to the families. I would think it would be hard to have your son so far away!.
Now, I have a question for you. We already had a family holiday vacation planned. We really want Ben to join us but since it's a last minute event we was wondering if you were able to help with the cost. We will be going on a cruise. The cruise and the airline will be around $1200.00 Our cruise will be leaving South Carolina and going to the Bahammas. We will be gone from Dec, 22-27 . My whole family, Larry's parents, and our best friends will be attending. That is 17 people. We would love to have Ben attend and if we had time to plan we would have been able to pay for it. (we have had this planned for a year). We will take care of his expenses while he is on the cruise and trip. We will be going on Carnival Cruise. You can look it up if you would like.
If you have any questions please just let me know.
We are very excited to have Ben in our family!
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Larry & Angie Lochbaum