Internet Success!

The internet never ceases to amaze me. I must admit that I really do resist it sometimes, so when I have a success such as this, I kind of shock myself. You must be wondering what in the world I am talking about! Well, here is the story.

Shortly after the time that I got married and moved out, my parents decided that they wanted to host a foreign exchange student. Maybe they were trying to replace me, who knows? Peter, from Sweden, showed up and lived with them for a year. He was a great kid, everyone got along great and we had a new member of the family. The next year, Lucius from Germany, showed up and he was another new member of the family. By this time, my Mom was working as a placement coordinator for the exchange program and she was placing 20 kids each year in homes around the area. She did this for a few years until the schools made it so hard to place them that she kind of gave it up. Naturally, my parents made a lot of life long friends with some of these kids and they traveled to Europe a number of times to visit this one or that one. Just last week one of the brothers of an exchange student from Germany came with his family and took my Mom to dinner, so it kind of gives you an idea of the bond that was formed.

As with most long distance relationships, time and distance make it hard to keep in touch and my folks lost track of a few of the kids they were close with. Email addresses got changed and people move, so you can imagine that it's easy to loose touch. When my dad passed away, we notified most of the kids, now adults, that they had hosted over the years but there were a handful we didn't have contact information for anymore. Recently my Mom has been stressing over the fact that Peter and Lucius, her original host students, didn't know about my dad.

So, I got the idea to look them up on Facebook. They had to be on Facebook, right? Heck, even I am on Facebook! I had immediate success and found Lucius right off the bat. It was kind of crazy but so neat to make contact. He immediately emailed my Mom and they have been chatting. Peter has been a bit harder though. I sent about 10 messages to different Peter's that fit the age group etc, but no responses. So then I started sending messages to women that might be his sister and I got a response from her today! Believe it or not, I got the right one and now have Peter's information too. She and I have been chatting back and forth a bit this morning. Susanne was here for a summer and worked as an Au Pair with a family my Mom set up for her too, so she also remembers my dad fondly.

I know my Mom is going to be so excited when I call her and tell her I found Peter. There are a few people that I have tried to find that I have lost touch with but with no success, which makes me kind of sad. But, I guess if they wanted to find me they probably could.

I am going to call my Mom now and give her the good news!