Our multicultural team

Hello! My name is Jeni Cross, and I live in Incline Village, Nevada, near the shores of beautiful Lake Tahoe.  My love affair with French started when I was 19 and lived in Pau for a scholastic year.  After finishing my bachelor’s degree in French, I was hired by American Airlines as a flight attendant, thanks in part to my language skills. However, becoming a teacher was my ultimate calling, and I went back to school to not only earn my teaching credential, but also a master’s in linguistics from l’Université d’Aix-en-Provence.  I taught in public and private schools, from kindergarten to 12th grade, both French and Spanish, for 22-years before deciding recently to do other things. I have a wonderful husband, Art, and together, we have twin sons who completed six-month exchanges to France at the age of 10 and who are currently at university in Utah and Pennsylvania. I am excited to bring short U.S. exchanges to En Famille and, hopefully, help to create more worldly and open-minded biliguals like my own kids and all the EFI children before and after them.  I love to travel, learn new things, read in French and Spanish, listen to current French music, spend time with loved ones, and enjoy outdoor activities and FOOD.

Through traveling, we discover more than new cultures, new languages, and new foods. The best part is making new friends, sharing adventures. En Famille has enriched my family’s life in so many ways! My name is Kathryn Scribner, my husband Dan and I have two kids and live in beautiful Portland, Oregon. Beginning in 2010 our family has hosted 4 students through 4 different programs: from Colombia, from Spain, from Germany and from France. While all of our experiences hosting and exchanging were fun, En Famille stands out as the most professional, organized and caring organization we worked with. We truly feel we have a French family now. I have seen the magic journey a child takes from speaking no English (or no French) to making jokes, and feeling totally at ease, all in a new culture and language. Through each of our exchange experiences, we truly have gained a new perspective. Our children have learned first-hand how much we have in common with other countries and families.  Most important, we gained new friends that we know will be part of our lives forever. The love for travel and discovery starts early, and I’m excited to introduce new families to the magic of sharing our country, and learning about a new one.

After a two-year trip to South America and Asia, I put down my backpack and started my family. I passed on my taste for adventure to my four children. My eldest children have benefited from En Famille exchanges with England, Germany, Spain and California. They tell me that beyond the fluency in the foreign language, the exchange gave them an open mind, strength and self-confidence.They are still benefiting from it in their studies and in their adult lives.
In my spare time I enjoy horse riding, swimming, reading, and spending time with family and friends. My favourite sweet temptation? Dark chocolate!
Through En Famille Internationale, I seek to bring young people together to discover new horizons and to be enriched by cultural diversity. I want families to thrive on differences and for long lasting friendships to blossom between families across borders.

Discovering the beauty of the world and the difference of values such as respect, discovery

I like to walk in the soft rain, to smell the wet earth, to look at the stars, to imagine and to dream. I like to travel the world, to be one more wherever I go. I like to sing, I like a good book that makes me fly, and I like to enjoy. I am lucky enough to be a teacher, so I will never stop learning from everything and everyone. Along the way, life gave me a companion, and we continue our journey together, dreaming, living, loving. We have three children to whom we will leave as an inheritance the experiences, adventures and knowledge that we have been able to give them. “En Famille” helped us, lent us its wings, they flew, and new children came, with other languages and other names, but who have stayed forever in our hearts.
Our children were never the same again, they were better, they are now citizens of a country called the World.

In our family we started the exchange programs more than 8 years ago, and in all this time my three children have been able to enjoy 5 wonderful exchanges, in which they have learned to speak English and French without even realizing it, and also to observe and love different cultures. They appreciate other ways of doing things and have opened their minds to change.

As parents, besides giving our children an academic education, we should teach them human quality, a sense of family, concern for improvement and respect for the unknown. ‘En Famille’ participates in all these values ​​and has made this task much easier for us.

The exchange programs greatly enrich lives of both the child doing the program and the rest of us family, because it’s an experience that we live as a family, and in which each member needs to participate.

During the ‘reception’ period, the exchange child will discover our culture, values, gastronomy, way of relating, customs, festivals, etc... and he will become a member of the family, carrying him this experience in his heart for his whole life. And in the same way, that child will become a son/daughter, a brother/sister, and a grandson/granddaughter for us.

I live in Münster in Westphalia with my boyfriend and my cat. Throughout my childhood and adolescence I was surrounded by people from all over the world. In my family we had young people from France, Japan, Australia and Mexico. So for me it was obvious to do a school trip abroad. I spent five months with a family in Brittany and this stay had a big impact on me. Even today - ten years later - I often think about it and learning French opened many doors for me. Thanks to my stay in France, I was able to work as a French-speaking guide in the cathedral of Aachen during my studies.

I am passionate not only about the French language and culture but also about the Brazilian one. In my free time, I dance the forró, a traditional Brazilian dance.