My name s is John Anderson
My name is Betty-Lynn Anderson
We live here in Harrisonburg, we came here
back in January/February of 1964.
21 years ago we began to host students from
around the world as they came to JMU.
We are a host family, they don’t actually
live with us but they are going to JMU and
living on campus or off campus but they feel
free to come to our house to just rest, take
a break from studies.
We then can take them out to eat somewhere,
we can show them around the area, it just
gives them a place away from home to come
and visit.
I've enjoyed that so much.
I worked at social security before I retired
and I used to see so many foreign students
come in for social security numbers, open
bank accounts and so forth and as I would
meet them I thought it would be so interesting
to get to know them better so that’s kind
of how it started.
We have hosted students from Hong kong, China,
Vietnam and Dubai.
We usually take one at a time.
We “adopt” them as our own during the
those years they’re at JMU, we become very
close and sometimes it's very sad when they
leave to go back to their home country.
We’ve been very fortunate in that they have
invited us back to meet them, their families,
extended families and we’re taking a trip
in December back to Hong Kong to visit our
very first student from 21 years ago.
We will be visiting her and her family there.
I think it’s really a blessing to them,
they seem to appreciate so much having a place
away from home.
