When Ada Drescher came to Western Pennsylvania for the first time 36 years ago as a high school exchange student from Croatia, her host family met her at the airport with a sign that read “Welcome Ada.”

The same sign greeted Drescher, now 54, two weeks ago when she returned to the area to visit her former hosts, Maria and Vince Neal of Penn Township.

“(Vince) opened his garage door, which was always the main way to get into the house,” Drescher said. “The doorway to the house had a sign that said ‘Welcome Ada,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, Dad, you put it up for me to feel welcome!’ And he said, ‘No, I never took it down.’ He put it up back then in the ’80s, and it’s still there in the garage.”

Four decades have passed since Drescher’s first visit to the U.S. and much has changed, she admits. Traffic, development, prices and global politics are different than they were in 1986.

What hasn’t changed is Drescher’s close bond with the Neals, whom she calls “Mom” and “Dad” like family as they trade stories about the past.

“It seems like 36 years didn’t even pass,” Maria said. “We were in touch all the time. If there was something happening, let’s say her son got married, then we would hear about it. Our daughter now lives in Switzerland, and our son is in Australia, and she knows all about it.”

“My own aunts and uncles are not so close as the two of them, even though I was here for, I think it was 11 months,” Drescher said. “We were all lucky, I know many (exchange families) aren’t staying in contact with families.”

Drescher originally spent a year as a student at Penn-Trafford High School through an AFS exchange program. The Neals’ daughter, who was in high school at the time, gave the family the idea to serve as hosts.

“Probably within 15 minutes, Ada and I bonded,” Vince said. “We bonded instantly, at the airport, before she was even in the house, and we still are.”

Drescher agreed.

“I was lucky, it was like a match made in heaven,” she said.

Exchange experience

Drescher took classes with Penn Trafford High School students, made friends and hung out at Western Pennsylvania attractions such as Seven Springs Mountain Resort. She found herself surprised by some aspects of American culture.

“You need to go to school, you get to the bus — we don’t have that. Yellow buses, school buses, are just from the movies, and that was like, ‘OK, so that’s real!’ ”

While in school, Drescher tried her hand at playing volleyball, as she originally played handball and ran track and field in Croatia. She also got involved with archery, a hobby she passed to her own children.

AFS-USA is celebrating its 75th anniversary this academic year. Since the advent of the covid pandemic, AFS Intercultural Program participation has slowed down somewhat, with a reported 5,678 students participating in global study abroad programs in 2021 as compared to 11,863 in 2019, according to the organization’s annual reports.

During the year Drescher stayed with the Neals, a handful of other of exchange students were matched with families in the area, Maria said. Their home became somewhat of a hub for exchange students, and Drescher met, befriended and traveled with students from across the world.

“We got to meet all of these foreign students from all of these different countries,” Maria said.

Community connection

Drescher has kept in touch with the Neals regularly since that first trip, and the two attended her wedding in 1990. She still texts and follows the Neals on social media. They’ve visited her several more times since in Europe, but this year is the first time she has returned to the U.S., Drescher said.

“I think that my perspective has changed, because I am 54 years old, and I’ve lived in different countries,” she added. “Everything was new. Nowadays, nothing’s new. That was the first time I went over here.”

She remains pleasantly surprised at the community connections in Penn Township, even as the area has grown and changed.

“I have a feeling that the community is very tightly knit still. The neighbor came over, and she remembered me from that year, and they are still the same neighbors,” Drescher said. “I have a feeling it’s even closer than it was.”

Drescher leaves this week to continue her visit to different parts of the U.S., and plans to visit Niagara Falls with a friend. But she hopes to return to visit the Neals again, potentially with the rest of her family.

“I would love to make it a yearly thing,” Drescher said. “I have my visa for two years, so they are not safe next year.”

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