Judy Atkinson

Caren: When my daugh­ter Beth was four­teen, she trav­eled with a small exchange group of teens to Poland where she would live with a cou­ple and their teen daugh­ter in a small vil­lage. In a true exchange, the Pol­ish teens then trav­eled to Min­neso­ta for a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence. Nei­ther group spoke the other’s lan­guage. Recent­ly, while clean­ing out box­es, I found a reflec­tion Beth wrote of that experience: The Pol­ish kids taught me one of the most valu­able lessons I have ever learned; the pow­er of a smile … I thought that to cre­ate the iron strong bonds of friend­ship, a com­mon lan­guage was essen­tial.