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The Family Exchange is a three day two night retreat for International and local families to connect, have a vibrant cultural exchange, experience defining moments, engage in deep conversations, and start relationships that will continue for the duration of their time as a part of the Auburn community. 

 

The expectation for local families is simple. We desire to create a space and take care of the entertaining and logistics so that you all can focus on intentionality with the other local and international families. Our desire for this retreat is connection so we will do everything we can to set the table for this to happen.

 

Interested in being a local host family? Fill out this form!

Details

When: April 14-16, 2023

Where: Camp Marannook

Who: International families and local host families!

Cost: $25 per family

Desired number of local host families: 6

Arrival: Friday 6:30pm

Departure: Sunday 11:30am

Kids must be age 5 and up to attend

All meals will be provided

General Schedule

Friday

6:30pm: arrive at Camp Marannook

7:00pm: Intro/Trivia/Games

8:30pm: Games + bed time when needed

 

Saturday

8:30am: Breakfast

9:30am: Kids leave for activities/ Parents start cultural exchange activity

10:30am: Bring a game to share from your country!!!

11:30am: Lunch

1:00pm: Family activity

2:00pm: Free Time

4:30 pm: Back to Cabins 

6:00pm: Parents dinner/ Kids dinner

8:00pm: Surprise!!

9:00pm: Bed time when needed

 

Sunday

8:30am: Breakfast

9:30am: Kids leave for activities/ Parents start cultural exchange activity

10:45am: Pack up cabins

11:30am: Head back home!

What happens at The Exchange?

To summarize it in one wordeverything that happens at an Exchange is all about - Relationships!

Meals are eaten together with ample time because we believe in the power of breaking bread together and how people can be more prone to open up to others over a meal with them. We desire to create fun, defining moment activities that our international friends most likely have not done before. In this case, staying at a local American summer camp experiencing activities like archery, fly fishing, or ropes courses that they may or may not have experienced before. We also like to orchestrate purposeful cultural exchange conversations to have in group settings.

Why The Exchange?

The reasoning behind the name “The Exchange” is multi-faceted. On the surface it’s that we want this weekend to be a fun cultural exchange where internationals feel welcomed and they, as well as the local hosts, get to learn more about cultural similarities and differences.

As a cultural exchange, we want them to have fun experiences in our local cultural setting while also being able to share about their culture. We will discuss cultural differences and share ideas about the general needs of America and the world. 

Our hope is for many to become good friends and continue their relationships long after the weekend. 

Our ultimate hope is for anyone in attendance that is not a follower of Jesus to exchange the lie they’ve been believing (i.e. that things of this world will satisfy, that there is any other way to God than through Jesus) for the truth and life of Jesus. And in so doing we pray for a reversal of the exchange that Romans 1:25 describes that we have all made where we have exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served creation rather than the Creator.

This world is not our home. In Christ we are sojourners/pilgrims/foreigners in the world. As such, we should love the physical sojourner/foreigner in our midst. This is a natural outflow of a life changed by the gospel, it is obedience to the Scriptures (Leviticus 19: 33-34,Exodus 23:9, Matthew 25:35, Romans 15:7, Hebrews 13:1-2), it is loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40), and it is simply following the “Golden Rule” in Matthew 7:12 of doing for others what we would want them to do for us if we were foreigners in another country.

On top of this, it is our call as believers to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20), and in Auburn, we have the unique blessing of the nations coming to us. Therefore we have the opportunity to declare to them the hope and abundance of life in Jesus, in hopes that they would place their trust in the Lord and share this hope.

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