Five years ago, Arlo and Elsie Monthei received an urgent phone call from the Iowa Council for International Understanding: “We have some international visitors coming; we’re desperate for housing for them, would you be able to help us?”

“This was on a Wednesday night,” Arlo Monthei said, “and I asked, ‘When would you need us?’ and they said, ‘Tomorrow.’”

Despite the last-minute notice, the Montheis agreed to host the visitors, three farmers from Moldova, none of whom spoke any English, for three weeks in their Des Moines home.

Since then, the couple, both of whom are blind, have opened their home to hundreds of international visitors as a host family for the ICIU. Arlo, an occupational therapist with Iowa Methodist Medical Center, and Elsie, who is retired and a former instructor for the blind, are among dozens of Iowa families who participate each year as host families.

The organization’s programs include dinner parties for international visitors hosted by Iowa families, as well as three- to four-week visits by professionals in various industries who stay in small groups with host families.

The Montheis, who have hosted about a dozen small groups for multi-week stays as well as dinner parties, provide their guests a unique chance to experience America through the eyes of a disabled couple.

“Since we don’t drive, we kind of feel that we can be representative of not just someone who has a big car and big house, so it’s kind of different from the perspective they may have of other Americans,” Elsie said. The couple takes their visitors around the city by bus, for instance, for all their shopping and errands as well as to eat out.

With each visit, the couple invariably forms a special bond with their visitors, said Michele Soria, the ICIU’s executive director.

“Often, the visitors don’t speak a word of English and Arlo and Elsie don’t speak any of their language,” she said. “But by the end (the visitors) are calling them momma and poppa. They really take these visitors in as parents, and that’s how the visitors feel about them.”

That parental approach took on a new dimension this summer, when the Montheis agreed to host Alexey Hohulya, a blind teenager from Central Siberia who needed a year-long host family. That program, known as Future Leaders Exchange, or Flex, is coordinated through the U.S. State Department and is not affiliated with the ICIU.

“The reason we did was, again, was that someone came to us and said, ‘Help,’” Elsie said. Initially, the Montheis agreed to take Alexey for just a couple of weeks, but when an arrangement with the original host family didn’t work out, they were asked to host him for the entire year.

“So I guess if you have room in your heart and room in your home, you find a way to do it,” Elsie said.

Alexey, who is a junior at Roosevelt High School, is becoming fluent in English and is taking classes in Spanish. He plans on going to college and then working as a language interpreter in his home city of Novosibirsk. He receives supplemental educational materials, such as Russian and English literature books on tape, through the Iowa Department for the Blind.

“He’s very independent,” said Elsie, who noted he likes to ride a bike – not unheard of for a legally blind person – to get to his tae kwon do classes nearby.

The Montheis’ experiences as international hosts have shown them that families really are much the same, no matter where they’re from.

“Every person we’ve had is concerned about the same things that we are in our family,” Elsie said. “They’re concerned about their children getting on drugs, getting into university, too much drinking, staying in school. Those things are just kind of basic to every culture we’ve ever hosted.”

Soria said additional volunteers are always needed to serve as host families, particularly as it launches a new exchange Iowa-Kosovo exchange program. For more information, visit www.iciu.org, or call Michele Soria at 282-8269.