Japanese students or young adults (usually ages 17~22), come to the U.S. for short stays (two to four weeks) during their school holidays. They come to the U.S. because they are interested in practicing their English and experiencing American culture firsthand.  They also enjoy the sightseeing opportunities. This gives us, as Christians, the opportunity to share our lives and faith with our Japanese visitors. It's a lot of fun for the host families too, as they learn about another culture and make a life long friend. Host families are 100% volunteers and see this as a mission and ministry opportunity. Host families provide a room, some meals, and friendship to their Japanese student during the program. Host families also drop off their student at the host church each weekday morning, and pick up their student there in the evenings (car pools can often be arranged).  Mission To Japan organizes English classes, sightseeing, and Bible classes so that students have a full program each day Monday through Friday from 9:15 - 5:30 pm (or later on all-day sightseeing trips at major theme parks).  This allows host families to host a student, even if they work normal business hours.  Mission To Japan also gives an orientation to host families and provides staff that meet with the students each day. The staff is always available to host families too for support during the program.  Each host family usually hosts only one student at a time (to allow for more English practice for the student) and the participants come in groups (groups can be as few as 5 or as many as 25).  For details (locations, times and schedule) of the next program, see the "Homestay Schedule" link in the menu bar above.

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Host Family Qualifications

We are thankful for every volunteer. However in keeping with our objectives, ideal hosts meet the following criteria.

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1. Christian: Hosts should be dedicated Christians involved at a local church.

2. Location: Hosts should live within reasonable driving distance to the church we'll be using and should be able to drop off and pick up their student (car pools can sometimes be arranged). Host families or car pools should drop their student off at the church at about 9:15 am and pick up at the church about 5:30 or 6:00 pm most days (some days are later). See
student's schedule at "Homestay Schedule". 

3. Nice home and spare bedroom: Either a guest room or a room that a child has given up (who can sleep in a sibling's room during the program). Your home, apartment or condo doesn't need to be fancy but should be welcoming. 

4. Host families should provide most meals including a sack lunch most days. Students buy their own dinner during all day outings to theme parks (usually 3 ~ 4 times over the course of a program). 

5. English is the mother tongue: Students want to hear and practice English so hosts should speak natural English in their home. 

6. Couple, Single or Family: We have all kinds of hosts (couples, singles, and families with children). 

7. Some time for the student. Though students are away from their hosts over 40 hours a week (for classes and sightseeing), the host should have some time to eat dinner with their student and spend a little time with their student on the weekends. 

8. Even if a host meets all the qualifications, we try to match students to hosts according to students' requests. We also take into consideration a student's allergies or fears and concerns (some are afraid of dogs for example). If we don't end up being able to have a host family involved for the current program, it might work out for a future program (there are three programs per year, but it's possible that only one of them per year is in a certain family's vicinity). 

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The Process of Placing a Japanese Student in Your Home

1. First, a prospective family or host learns about this ministry and what's required from this website (see Host Family Qualifications above), and/or through talking to the director in person, or by phone or email.

2. Next a prospective host family fills out the online application (see the link in yellow below).

3. After you fill out the online form, the director will contact you to set up a short 20 ~ 30 minute in-home meeting to view the room where your student will stay and to answer any questions you might still have. 

4. It might take a few weeks to get enough host families to apply, but once that happens, we begin the matching process. During the matching process, we look at each student's and each host's profile to try to get the best match. 

5. After we match a student to your home, we will give you your student's profile. This might be at or around the time of the host family orientation meeting (which is usually about a week before students arrive). You'll learn some basic things about your student, and will get a picture and letter from him or her. You'll be able to start corresponding via email or social media. 

6. We'll have a host family orientation meeting (about a week before students arrive) where we'll go over details of the schedule, and give helpful advice for making your experience as good as possible.   

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Thank you for taking the initiative and for being involved in missions through this ministry! May the Lord richly bless you!

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