Chinese student a perfect fit for family

Seventeen-year-old Cheng "Angel" Peng stepped off a plane from China last month, on a student foreign exchange program with Sisters High School (SHS), marking another step in a journey which began, in many ways, 35 years ago.

She calls herself Angel because it's easier for Americans to pronounce and because her mother calls her "my little Angel" in their native language of Mandarin.

Peng first met her host family over the summer, when Joey Hougham and Staci Stabil of Sisters - along with their three children - ventured to China with SHS teacher David Perkins' Mandarin language class.

It's pretty unusual, within the student exchange programs, for host parents to travel overseas to meet their student ahead of time. But in fact, this was Stabil's third trip to China; on her first, seven years ago, she adopted baby daughter Olivia.

Stabil grew up knowing that her family had a strong heart connection to China. Her grandmother, a nurse, spent an extended time in 1976 attending to babies in an orphanage in southern China; she continued to sponsor the education of children and young adults throughout her life.

When Stabil's grandmother passed away, she left her a small inheritance. It came at a time when Stabil found herself unable to get pregnant; she decided to use the money to adopt a Chinese orphan.

The adoption request process took five months. As fate would have it, the very day Stabil put the final, completed adoption packet in the mail, she learned that she was pregnant. A daughter, Faith, was born five months after Olivia.

Olivia, now eight and a third grader at Sisters Elementary School, attends Perkin's Mandarin class at the high school along with brother Wyatt, a freshman. Wyatt began taking the class as a middle schooler.

Of all the students, young Olivia is the most proficient at the challenging language. Spending her first 15 months in a Chinese orphanage and attending a Mandarin immersion preschool and kindergarten in Portland gave her a great start.

Hougham and Stabil saw hosting a Chinese student as another step in familiarizing their daughter with her native culture.

So on the summer trip, while the sight-seeing students visited Xian, home of the famed terra cotta warriors, the Hougham's had a pre-planned date to meet Angel Peng.

Says Stabil, "A side benefit was that her parents were willing to fly over to meet us in Xian." Peng's mother is an English teacher; her father is an ex-military government official.

Peng, an only child, got to meet her future host parents and the three kids she will call her brother and sisters for the coming school year.

They all consider it a more than fair exchange. Faith and Olivia love having a big sister; Peng is taking in a myriad of new experiences.

In China, art, music and sports are not emphasized. "Schools are just a place to study," says Peng. In Changsha, the capitol city of Hunan Province, where Peng lives, she daily rides the city bus to attend school for ten hours. "We mostly study science and math," she adds.

Students wear uniforms to school and generally dress modestly, in stark contrast to Sisters High School, where Peng says the students dress "very fashionable." Even ear piercing and toenail polish are less common back home.

The other girls on the JV Soccer team have made her feel welcome. "They are very friendly and so nice to teach me," she says. It's Peng's first experience playing soccer.

While Peng feels at a disadvantage in her United States History class, she is excited about learning to play the guitar in her Americana class.

Although she's discovered that she loves pizza and spaghetti, she says, "I miss spicy food a lot." Peng's mom is shipping some spicy peppers for Stabil to incorporate into family meals.

Peng's dream is to attend one of the top fifty colleges in America. That may present some challenges, as once she goes home at the end of the school year, it will be hard to obtain another student visa.

"People have more opportunities and rights here," says Peng.

Although her father and grandmother are very traditional and desire for her to attend college in China, Peng's family is also very supportive of her hopes and dreams.

In the meantime, she is "settling in well," says Stabil.

"Sisters is very tiny but everyone is nice here and I love the natural beauty all around here," says Peng.

It helps that she is able to have semi-regular Internet Skype visits with her parents back home in Changsha, via computer cameras. A cousin, who attends college in England, helped to show her parents how to set it up at their end.

For Staci Stabil, the arrangement fits her family perfectly.

"We are making lifelong friends. I'm grateful everyday."