Marie

We received an e-mail from Ah Reum this morning, and she has chosen her American name: Marie. Many Asian students use Western names during their exchange so we Americans can remember, pronounce, and maybe even spell their name correctly. Ah Reum asked us to choose a name for her a couple weeks ago, but I was hesitant. . . What if I gave her a beautiful American name that resembled the Korean word for "intestine". . .or worse!

So our family mulled it over and picked four names for her to choose from. The name Marie means "wished for child". We told Ah Reum--I mean, Marie--that as soon as we saw her student profile, we knew we wanted to host her, but AYUSA told us she had already been assigned to another family. We continued to look at other students, but I kept saying over and over, "I wish we could host that Korean girl!" and I felt disappointed about all the other students we considered.

We were just about to commit to a different student when we got a call saying that Ah Reum's assigned host family had cancelled and she was available again. So in the end, we got our "wished for child".