A couple of years ago we had a young man from Germany. The first home that he was assigned to did not work out and even though we had not been in "the program" we took him into our home around Thanksgiving weekend. It was his Junior year and our son, the 4th and only child still in the home full-time was a senior. We had so much fun with Phillip!!! HE was a great kid and we really enjoyed having him in our home. What a blessing he was to us. He was warned ahead of time that we are a really strict family and we all go to church on Sunday and there were was a curfew and everyone participated in keeping up the household but he wanted to come and was great about joining in and pitching in and helping. We treated him like he was one of our kids (he even got grounded once or twice). He went with our son to the youth group at church and he participated in the High school sports teams, went with us to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas and even stayed an extra 2 weeks at the end of the school year so that he could join us at the week long "Fryathon" (wake boarding, water skiing camping at the lake) He left to go home on the 2nd of July. He was disappointed that he didn't get to stay for the 4th but we were getting together with DH's family and he needed to get home to Germany.
I think he had a great time and even teared up when he said "goodbye". We're hoping that he will make a visit to us sometime next summer or so. We told him anytime that he wanted to visit or his family wanted to come out that we would love to have them here. Even told him that we would love it if his younger sister decided to come out as an exchange student to have her stay with us.
We miss him!!!!
We no longer have any kids in the house and I wish that we had done this sooner. We have done a couple of really short term stays but think that a longer one without any other kids in the house would not be as fun for the student.
I hope you really enjoy this time with Johannes!!!!
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!!