By AARON MUELLER
Niles Daily Star

Sharon Wiltse was up late into the night on Wednesday and into Thursday morning, waiting for her daughter to return from a night out with her friends.

And by daughter, she means her 40-year-old former exchange student.

This week Sharon and her husband Bill have reunited with Josien Zijlstra of the Netherlands, who stayed with them in the 1987-88 school year as part of the Brandywine High School Youth for Understanding (YFU) exchange program.

Zijlstra could not help but laugh when she found her exchange mother up waiting for her with heavy eyelids at nearly 1 a.m.

“I’m 40 years old and she still waits up for me,” she said with a laugh.

“Once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother, I guess,” Wiltse said.

The Wiltse family has kept in close contact with Zijlstra since she graduated from Brandywine and moved back to the Netherlands. This is the third time she has come back to the states to visit, and Bill and Sharon have gone to her homeland twice, including a trip there for her wedding.

“We’ve kept in contact exceptionally,” Zijlstra said. “I still call them mom and dad.”

She still remembers her experience with the exchange program vividly.

“At that time it was one big adventure,” she said. “I mean, you’re 18 years old and you’re standing there with your suitcase and your backpack and you’re heading out for one year of experience and adventure. It was exciting.”

Ziljstra said it took some getting used to the differences in education between the United States and the Netherlands, but some things were very similar.

Like spats with your siblings.
“Josien and my son (Shawn) were truly like sister and brother,” Sharon said. “They’d have their little tiffs with each other.”

Ziljstra said in a lot of ways it felt like home.

“It was not a problem. I was not home sick,” she said. “They were a lot like my parents in the Netherlands.”

Sharon said their relationship is still as close as ever.

“When she walks in the door, it’s like she’s never been gone,” she said.

Ziljstra is now a director for internal communications for a government organization in Glimmen, Netherlands and a part-time life coach.