Traveling abroad can be life-changing, and no one knows that better than Arne and Kelly Scholz.

German teacher Arne Scholz moved to Lawrence from his home in Eutin, Germany after meeting his wife Kelly Scholz, the chair of the Sister City Advisory Board, on his exchange trip to the U.S. in 2013.

“After this experience I can say with certainty that a student exchange has the potential to change your life,” Kelly Scholz said.

Arne Scholz was an English teacher at Johann-Heinrich-Voss-Gymnasium, his school in Germany, when the head of the exchange program in Eutin stepped down. He took the position and went on his first exchange trip to Lawrence in September and October of 2013.

“I actually didn’t want to be the successor,” he said. “Then my principal, in a friendly way, kind of prodded me to.”

Despite his reluctance he said his trip went remarkably well. Not only did he and his students have “a whale of a time” but he also made a lifelong connection.

Arne and Kelly first met at a pizza party held at the Train Depot in north Lawrence meant for welcoming the German exchange students.

“I met, I don’t know, a dozen people that night,” Arne Scholz said. “All for the first time, I’d never been here before, and she was the last one.”

After they first met they continued to see each other at sister city events like football tailgates, visits to Kansas City and boat rides on Clinton Lake.

“We all got together, and I could just tell on the boat ride that they were just like, you know, makin’ eyes at one another,” former German teacher and exchange program chaperone Natalie Wolfe said.

Their relationship blossomed from there. They started meeting outside of exchange events on the trip, and after the trip ended, making long distance visits.

“After he returned to Germany with his students, we Skyped every day without fail in between our in-person visits,” Kelly Scholz said.

In March 2013, when Kelly went to Germany to visit Arne Scholz’s friends and family, he surprised her by proposing.

“He had arranged a strandkorb, a Baltic beach chair, complete with red carpet, flowers, chocolates and champagne, to be waiting for us upon arrival at a beach resort in Travemunde,” Kelly Scholz said. “Jet lagged and exhausted from the journey, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, but once I caught on, I happily said ‘Yes!’”

They then decided that Arne Scholz would move to the U.S. permanently. Kelly, with two young daughters, was incapable of relocating.

“You cannot take, at that time, a 13- and 15-year-old and just transfer them to a different country and throw them in,” he said.

Arne Scholz, after studying at Penn State University and having visited the States multiple times, was not opposed to the solution.

“I knew the states, I’d actually wanted to go to and live in the states,” he said. “Twenty years ago I applied for a green card and never got one so it worked out.”

The couple, having only 90 days to get married because of his fiancé green card, a visa provided to couples with proof of upcoming marriage, had a destination wedding in Kauai, Hawaii. A week after returning from the wedding they had a reception with friends and family at the Train Depot where they first met.

“We were married at sunset, on the beach on the island of Kauai, surrounded by our family.” Kelly said. “And it was every bit a dream as it sounds.”

Arne moved to Lawrence for good on Aug. 8, 2014.

“Having [Arne] Scholz in Lawrence now means I laugh a lot more,” Kelly said. “He is super funny. I’m pretty sure I’ll never tire listening to his accent. And, I’ve noticed I watch more soccer and drink more beer now that I am married to a German, if I’m allowed to say that.”

After waiting a year to be eligible to work he began substitute teaching in the district. Soon after, he found his job at LHS, where he sees familiar faces from his exchange trip every day.

Arne Scholz is currently living in the U.S. on a green card and will be eligible to apply for citizenship in four years.

“I might or I might not apply for the citizenship, [it] depends,” he said. “Right now I wouldn’t. I’m German, I have my German passport… I’d have to give it back and I don’t think I want to just yet.”

The differences between his home and Lawrence took some getting used to.

“Sometimes I miss the sea,” Arne Scholz said. “I lived 200 yards from the Baltic Sea so when I got up in the morning I would see the ocean…and that’s a little different.”

However, as well as teaching German, Arne is the coordinator for the Eutin exchange trip and accompanies student groups to Eutin.

“Because Mr. Scholz is teaching German now in America, he can take American students to his home country and back to the school where he taught,” Kelly said. “He can stay connected with his colleagues, students, family and friends. This important to me because I acknowledge everything he sacrificed and left behind to move to Lawrence.”

For this reason and because of the hospitality of the midwest, he said he’s rarely homesick..

“We’re not as open and welcoming and ‘Hey, how are you’ [in Germany],” Arne Scholz said. “I love the friendliness and the openness here. I’ve been to the east coast and the west coast but the people in the midwest are the friendliest bunch of people I’ve ever met.”

Despite minor cultural differences, Wolfe said those sorts of divides can be easily overlooked.

“There are a lot of small differences,” she said. “I think at the core of it we’re all just people. People are people.”