Seven young Korean students, stranded in Ipswich after their homestay plans went haywire, learnt the true meaning of Christian hospitality when a Catholic school opened its heart and homes to them.
Such was the generosity of Springfield’s St Augustine’s College staff and families, more places were on offer than were needed to house the distressed students and their teacher for a 18 days.
Principal Leon Capra said he had received a letter from Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale congratulating the school on the way it “handled an unexpected situation with professionalism and care”.
Mr Capra said he had first heard of the situation when Ipswich City Councillor David Morrison contacted the school on January 31 to say a group of Korean exchange students – aged 10 to 12 years – and their teachers had gone “in desperation to the Ipswich Chinese community on arriving to find no accommodation available”.
“The Korean staff with 17 students from two different schools in South Korea had arrived on Saturday, January 28,” Mr Capra said.
“Cr Morrison told us there were concerns about the arrangements for the students’ homestays and it appeared that the usual checks and communication about such arrangements had not occurred.
“The whole tour appeared to have been poorly organised – there was nothing about educational arrangements, for example.
“We’re still not sure what happened.
“There was some sort of Mexican standoff between the initial homestay hosts and the Korean tour leader, and the police were called to intervene.
“And the only information available about the children was their English and Korean names, their birthdates and that one of them couldn’t eat seafood.
“Clearly things had gone horribly wrong in a way that’s unimaginable in this day and age.”
Mr Capra and others from St Augustine’s met with the group on January 31.
“There was no Korean/English translator and they were very distressed, saying they literally had nowhere to go,” he said.
“So I arranged a meeting with the Korean staff and a tour of the school.
“The campus minister Casey Ambrose looked after the children.”
Things became more complicated when one group of 10 decided they were going to head back to South Korea.
“However, there were still seven children and their teacher left,” Mr Capra said.
“I was amazed by the (St Augustine’s) staff response to requests for help with teaching and homestay accommodation.
“At a moment’s notice they threw open their homes to these students from a foreign country.
“We actually had an over-supply of homes offered for the group.”
Meanwhile, St Augustine’s staff members were quickly structuring an emergency educational program for the stranded group.
Head of Primary Libby Lee helped co-ordinate the response.
She said the staff had built lessons into their daily programs for the young Koreans and organised excursions to Australia Zoo and Mount Tamborine.
“At the same time we were having to take calls from concerned parents in Korea,” Ms Lee said.
“The school also organised phonecards so that students could call home.
“The parents of one young boy, Kevin, passed on a special thank-you to the school.”
Mr Capra said: “For us this was an unexpected opportunity to make real our college theme for 2012 – ‘Reach out to Serve’.”
