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We were intrigued and decided to participate. We hosted many international students over the years when they first arrived. More importantly, I joined the FFIS Steering Committee shortly thereafter and served as the Chairperson for 8-plus years. I am still involved in leadership roles today. I credit this involvement to you and the Rotary Exchange Program.
Your family’s hospitality led directly to warm memories two generations later for dozens of international students that Suzanne and I hosted in our home. I’ll relate one story that encapsulates the love that your family showed me.
Shion was a young Japanese student staying with another host family in 2007. She met us and spent many weekends in our home because she felt more comfortable. We took her on several weekend camping trips and enjoyed spending time with her.
She returned home, graduated, and got a job. Like all Japanese, her work life was grinding with long hours and days. A few years later she reached out to us to say that she would like to come for a weekend visit. Of course, we opened our home to her for those few days.
We learned later her boss wanted to reward her work with a use of his frequent flyer miles anywhere in the world she wanted to go and have a day off. She chose to use the miles to visit Suzanne and me because that is where she felt most at peace. She flew many, many hours to Eugene and back home for less than 48 hours here so that she could briefly experience the feeling she had when she was with us.
She would not have had that moment if many years ago you hadn’t given me those moments in Stratford. There are many more examples I could tell of students who were touched by our hospitality, which would not have happened but for your hospitality to me in 1977-78.
There is a poem by James W. Foley that begins:
“Drop a pebble in the water: just a splash, and it is gone;
But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the sea.
And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.”
Your pebble in the water led to a ripple that may continue for multiple generations. We had a telephone call from Saudi Arabia today from a wonderful man who didn’t stay with us but was a part of our family many years ago. He remembered us lovingly and wants to return to visit with his wife. Your choosing to be a Rotary host family for a young Yank stranger so many years ago led to this call. That is part of your family’s legacy!
I miss your smile and your laugh. I miss Nyla, Robyn, Murray. Brenda, and Lynn. I miss seeing Mt. Egmont (Taranaki), milking cows, working hard in the sheep shearing shed, riding the milk trucks when they made their rounds, playing rugby and cricket when I had little idea what I was doing, the blokes and sheilas I met at Stratford High School, and singing in the school musical (Born to be Wild).
You are a remarkable man to be so spry and active so many years later. Nyla and you raised a remarkable family. I can still picture you in my mind from 1977 and my memories are strong of the days I spent in your home. I miss pavlova and lamb with mint sauce. I miss the nights around the dinner table.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the love you and your family provided and felt for me over the years! It is deeply appreciated. My own father passed away in late June 2023 after Suzanne and I cared for him 24/7 in his home since the beginning of this year.
We miss him. You are my Dad, now. THANK YOU for all that you and your family did for me so many years ago!
Much Love,
Rick Obst
2223 Warren Street
2223 Warren Street
Eugene, OR 97405-1100
United States of America