Our family hosted a child for the first time this summer. Our child had dental and orthdontic needs and was served by some wonderful dentists and an orthodontist who all volunteered their time and seemed to love being a part of the program. The administrative volunteers who coordinated the medical and dental communities, the fun activities, the interpreters, the travel arrangements, the respite families and all of the other support provided to the host families were phenomenal. It made being a host family much easier to know all of the "details" were taken care of so that we could focus on our child's needs for love and emotional support. It was challenging at first to find foods my child liked to eat, and to communicate with each other due to the language barrier, but as the days went by, it became easier as we each learned important words in the language of the other and as we learned to gesture and demonstrate more. There were also "apps" (of course-- there's always an app) on my daughter's Ipod that helped with some translations. My 11 year old was so important to the process-- since our child was very modest, but was comfortable with another child showing her how things worked in the bathroom, for example.