Yuen: This ‘quiet little family’ said yes to housing three international teens

First there were only three.

“We’re just a quiet little family,” David Krieger says. “Super peaceful, love to read.”

But this fall, David, his wife, Sunnie He, and 5-year-old Theo took a chance by opening their doors and doubling their family size. They moved themselves into a home on the campus of a college-prep military day school and took in three international students — all teen boys.

Needless to say, this family is no longer quiet.

“Bro! Bro!” is a constant refrain from the dinner table. So is uproarious laughter. Brotherly barbs (literally, in the sense that 14-year-old Quang and 16-year-old Quan Do are brothers from Vietnam) volley back and forth. And studious 17-year-old Matvii Suminov of Ukraine swaggers just a smidge while recounting his AP History grade.

On any given night, the boys could be reminiscing about their girlfriends back home or playing a ruthless 3.5-hour battle of Monopoly. “Last night I got demolished,” Quan concedes.

The pack is so lively and large that even at the grocery store, strangers will ask David and Sunnie: “Are all of these boys yours?”

For this school year, the answer is yes.

At St. Thomas Academy, an all-male Catholic school in Mendota Heights where David teaches English, administrators were in a jam. The Do brothers and Matvii completed their first year at St. Thomas with their original host families, but the school scrambled to identify new hosts to take in the boys for this school year.

The academy tried for several months to find a willing family. When no one came forward, officials approached David and Sunnie with an idea: Move their family into a 1970s duplex, just steps from the academy, that was previously occupied by the school’s chaplain. And become host mom and dad to this international trio.

The sudden addition of three teenagers has given the couple a crystal ball into what parenting might look like in a decade.

“It’s fun but a lot of learning on the fly,” David says. “It’s about creating good rules and expectations and making sure they’re doing well at school and that they’re getting enough sleep. That kind of stuff, I don’t think anyone can prepare you for.”

But David and Sunnie were perhaps better equipped than most families to accept the challenge. The couple met while David, a 2004 academy alum, was teaching in Beijing. Sunnie was his Mandarin instructor. They had careers in international education before resettling in Minnesota three years ago. They know what it’s like to be a stranger in a new land, to feel both the excitement and wistfulness of being away, and to adjust one’s perspective over time.

They also know how to make a temporary housing arrangement feel like home.

“The food here is awesome, actually,” said Matvii, citing Sunnie’s mastery in the kitchen and her ability to cater to six individuals’ palates. “Sunnie taught me how to make fried rice. I cook for them, too. I found out no one here likes Ukrainian food, except David.”

Matvii’s circuitous journey from home began in early 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion. He remembers hearing about 70 bombings a day in his home city of Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine. Then a rocket struck the building next door, shattering his bedroom window as he was watching TikTok videos. “I need to move out of here,” he recalls thinking.

At just 15, he took an evacuation train by himself to Lviv, near the Polish border. His parents stayed behind. Matvii tried to enter Poland, but authorities denied him entry because he was too young to independently cross the border. He found refuge at an orphanage in Lviv, and then with multiple families that took him in.

His fate turned once again while scrolling through TikTok: He watched a video that mentioned Ukraine Global Scholars, a nonprofit that provides Ukrainian high school kids from modest means with scholarships to top schools and colleges around the world. He got accepted into the program, and the small private school in Minnesota beckoned.

Even before the invasion, Matvii was always interested in studying in the United States. His mom was worried about him leaving but encouraged him to make his own decision, even if it meant parting with everything he ever knew during a war.

“Dreams come true when you don’t want them,” she said.

His plan is to graduate from St. Thomas Academy and possibly attend college in the U.S. A public transit buff, he sees himself one day returning to Ukraine as a city planner so he can help rebuild his homeland.

For Quang and older brother Quan, the path to a Minnesota prep school was more straightforward. Their mom liked the idea of sending her sons to St. Thomas, a place known for its structure and academic rigor. (The students there are trained to line up for inspections to make sure their hair is clipped short and their uniforms are tidy.) The Do brothers were also a natural fit for the school’s historically dominant swim team, which has won 15 state championships since 1995. After practice and other activities, the boys can walk down the hill and are home in no time. That’s lightened the load on their host parents — no endless Ubering kids to and from school.

One eye-opening aspect of raising young men: They inhale food as if it’s oxygen. “The amount of rice and carbs they can consume after practice is incredible,” marvels David.

Life in a leafy American suburb wasn’t supposed to be in the cards for David. Although he grew up in the Twin Cities, his plan after marrying Sunnie was to stay abroad, possibly forever. Theo was born in China, and David received the job offer of his dreams as a principal at an international school there.

But in early 2020, when much of China was shut down due to COVID-19, David started to experience severe back pain and night sweats. When he finally went to see a doctor, the news was startling: stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The disease is beatable, but it would mean grueling rounds of chemotherapy ahead.

David moved back to Minnesota so he could receive treatment from Mayo Clinic. Six months later, he was celebrating his recovery. And about a week after that, a teaching position serendipitously opened at his beloved alma mater.

Some people might turn more insular after a major health scare. But it taught David and Sunnie to ride out their blessings, ditch the long-term plans and be open to change.

And when the question came to house the three teens, this quiet little family thought about the international life they left behind, and the unique connections that can be forged from sharing stories over hot pot and board games. When you regard someone from another culture like they’re your own, your bonds become thicker; your world becomes smaller.

They’ve taken Matvii, Quan and Quang to the family cabin in Clearwater, Minn., and are hoping to host them next school year, too. Little Theo has essentially gained three doting older brothers who dribble a soccer ball and reel in fish with him. Without warning, Theo routinely leaps from the family’s living room sofa and into their arms. They always catch him.

“If he can grow up and be like any of these kids, I’d be happy,” Sunnie said. “They’re nice kids, very respectful.”

It’s not to say there aren’t stresses. The Do brothers, for example, love to play guitar, often alongside David on the drums or piano. But one day past midnight, the couple awoke to a Jimi Hendrix tune ripping through the bedroom next to them. Sunnie had to leave within hours for her early shift at the airport working at the ticket counter. David, for the first time, felt like a true dad of teenagers and explained why it was too late to be plugging in. (A bishop lives on the floor below them.)

“It was just a couple minor funny things. Nothing too crazy, knock on wood,” he said of their experiences with the teens.

Then again, he added with a laugh, “it’s still January.”