Khairunnisa Mentari Semesta, 17, came to the United States to learn, teach and foster understanding.

Semesta is from Yogyakarta, Indonesia (population around 396,000 as of 2010) and came to the U.S. late last summer as part of the U.S. State Department’s Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program. Congress started the program in 2002 in response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Kids from countries with a lot of Muslim population come here and educate people about tolerance and to tell them that it’s not that bad, that it is not about the religion, it is about some people who actually did some things that are not in our religion,” Semesta said. “It’s kind of like religious tolerance and communication.”

She has lived that tolerance herself by going to church with her host family, Brian and Stacy Boomgaarden. She said she likes going to church with them because it’s a family activity and she gets to meet new people. Sometimes she’s even familiar with some of the Biblical texts in the sermon.

“Islam and Christianity are from the same roots, so if I hear the sermons, I will still understand sometimes what’s going on because I have those kinds of things in my religion too. It’s kind of interesting to see how it is similar and how it is different, but most importantly, it is how we respect tolerance between the two religions and that’s exactly why I’m here.”

As part of the YES Program, Semesta has spoken about her culture and religion to groups including the Kiwanis, residents at the Good Samaritan Society and students at Edgerton Public Schools.

She said the program also shows the students from the predominantly Muslim countries that the U.S. is not like what they see on television and in movies. Before she arrived in August, for example, she thought an American high school would be like a music video, the movie “High School Musical” or the TV show “Glee.”

“It turned out to not be like that,” she said with a laugh.

Once their time studying in the U.S. is done, students who participate in the YES Program are charged with returning to their home country and sharing what they’ve learned about the U.S. with others.

“I think it’s just something great to do,” she said. “To actually be the bridge between two countries — I think that’s a very special thing to do. Not everyone gets to do that.”

It’s something she felt so strongly about that she sacrificed an early graduation to come here. Semesta said she skipped a grade in elementary school and would have graduated high school after this year if she stayed home, but because she decided to study abroad, she will have one year of high school left when she returns to Indonesia.

“One year here is not comparable to graduating early,” she said. “There’s so much experience that graduating early wouldn’t be able to give me.”

Semesta participates in many of the same activities at Pipestone Area Schools that she does at home including speech, choir and Knowledge Bowl, and in the spring she plans to be in track and field. In April she’ll also be going to Washington, D.C. to take a workshop to learn how to teach English to people back home.

“I am planning to teach children who didn’t have the advantage to learn English,” she said. “I think it will be very beneficial if they know how to speak English because it will open a lot of doors for them.”

Semesta’s attitude about education and interest in traveling abroad might be in her DNA. Her father, Triwibowo Yuwono, and mother, Agung Astuti, are both college instructors, and her brother, Azhar Sukma Alam, just graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering. Both her parents lived in England for a period and her brother spent some time going to college in Japan. Semesta has also spent time in Singapore and Australia for holidays and other shorter exchange programs.

When she leaves the U.S. in July, she plans to return to Indonesia, finish school and fulfill her YES Program duties. She then hopes to return to the U.S. for college — possibly at the University of Minnesota. She’s already preparing for college in the U.S. by taking advanced placement classes and the SAT and ACT tests.

“I aspire to be a scientist,” she said. “I’m kind of torn now to be either a scientist or an engineer, but my passion always lies in science, particularly chemistry. It is more likely that I am going to be a researcher than a lecturer like my parents.”

Semesta said chemistry has been part of her life since she was a young child. She’s won national chemistry championships in Indonesia and she plans to participate in the spring in an American chemistry competition. She’s also taking advanced placement chemistry at PAS.

“I grew up in a family of scientists,” she said. “Although my dad is a microbiologist, he works a lot with chemistry too. I grew up with test tubes and different chemicals with my dad in the lab, so I guess that shaped me the way I am right now.”

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