Good money, good morning, good morning, welcome, welcome, welcome the idiots. Time now for our community connection right here on K one. The one you trust, familiar face to a lot of people. Thomas Lowry in here with us. He's a regional developer, i should say, for international Cultural Exchange Services. How you doing.
Today, good? Thanks for having me in.
Well, it's always great to have friends in and you host the exchange students and you have the study abroad program.
We were talking in the green room, folks. We really don't have a green room.
We're really just kind.
Of outside the studio hanging out. We were checking out AM and M's or anything like that. But anyway, it's fascinating.
You've been doing this for just a couple of months, but it's really something that's not all.
That new to you. Yeah. Yeah.
Previously it was pastoring Calvary Chapel here in Bartlesville, and before that we were doing international missions, so spent time in Africa, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. So yeah, it's not totally foreign, no pun intendance.
Well, this is great because you get the chance to bring some kids from all over the planet here to see the United States.
Yeah, and vicey Bercy yep.
And that's the whole plan with the Fulbright Hayes Act of sixty one was to foster cultural exchange. You know, all of us have a different maybe experience and opinion with American culture, but we want that the United States wants that that culture exported, giving other countries an opportunity, especially if you think about in the sixties Iron Curtain and all things going on, and of course that you travel around the world, everybody has their eye on the
United States. They're all interested in what's going on here, and so this gives an opportunity for students to come and learn firsthand internationally what it's like to be an American.
Hey, describe the process.
What you're you're you're man and a woman. You're you're looking for maybe an adventure, and one of the adventures might be hosting a for in exchange student.
How does a couple go about this?
So pretty simple. That contacts me and we get them an application. You got to pass a background check. You know, you're gonna have somebody else's kid in your house, so we want to make sure things.
Are squared away.
But you throughout the application and then we can start sending your profiles of kids that get to pick the student. All our students pass English proficiency tests, medical exam, psych evaluation, and uh and then we get them enrolled in whatever school district that you're in. And that's a great, pretty easy, simple process.
It's very rewarding. I was telling Thomas that my aunt and uncle and you know, my cousin, they were hosting a young girl from Poland. This would have been in the seventies, and that was a little different because Poland in the seventies was not like Poland is today by Mark, and it took her a while to kind of, you know, kind of figure it all out because it was just
so different. Now. I mean acted a lot of students take a look once they get here and been here for a few days and say, this is this is.
Really different, really different.
It can be quite quite a significant change cultural change for them. That's why we run them all through an orientation sure, and then part of that process of hosting the exchange student is you basically get me with it, stay in contact with the student in the school and the family and making sure everybody's you know, kids are doing what they're supposed to do in class.
And so this really isn't a whole lot more different than pastoring because that phone's gonna ring and you guys have to go somewhere.
It's pretty similar. It's pretty similar to pastor.
Yeah, now, you when you were younger, you were telling me that you were all all over the world with your folks and with the ministry team they get doing mission work. Yeah, we're well, there were you spreading the work.
We're in East Africa, in the Middle East, keep that unnamed, I guess, and uh in Vietnam. UH did a little trip there.
So in some of these places, Christianity is not.
Welcome, correct, Yeah, some of them are a little hostile in those places. And the great thing is with our students. They're coming from you know, they want to be here, and they understand that American families go to church and they'll be expected to attend church with them. In fact, I go through the profiles, the vast majority have checked off that they're Christian, you know, even if that's just they were baptized as baby ers.
Yeah, they're familiar with they're familiar with.
What's going on, but they they will go to church. It's it's what a tremendous opportunity to have a student come who maybe doesn't doesn't have the depth of faith that the family here has, and so to be able to come to you know, Bartlesville or one of our communities here and be able to go to intend to church and go to youth group and things that they've
never experienced before. And then to be able to take that home, you know, a fully immersive school year, and then be able to take that home and go, oh yeah.
I got some new ideas. Ye And we also do this with American students there they're able to exchange and you set that up too.
Yep.
We can facilitate so any student that wants to go study abroad, we can facilitate that they can go for a semester or a full year school year.
Now, how do we get a hold of you? Do you have like a website or yeah?
Best best way to get hold of me is just email me T Lowery at I C S USA dot org.
Well, there you go. It's pretty simple, pretty easy.
It takes care of it. And this is really something else because, like I said, I've only witnessed it once, but it paid off big benefits for the young lady who was the exchange student Yeah. Now, one of my daughters did go to the problem with one of the exchange students from Germany. Uh soccer player, because I got a kick out of him anyway, But anyway, but he he he adapted really well, he had no problem. Yeah, in fact, he wanted to go back home, get his stuff and come back.
And yeah, there's it definitely makes a connection, our connection for the student any area, and that's that's pretty profoundly important for us. Like be in Oklahoma, we don't host a lot of foreign exchange students compared to the other states, which is why.
I'm doing area. So we want to we want.
To vastly increase that because Oklahoma has probably to me anyways, traveling all over the world, in all of the United States, Oklahoma is one of the most unique cultures of anywhere in the world.
Really it is.
And our students that are coming from other countries, they're really interested in classic Americana right here. Yeah, cowboy culture, they want rodeo, they want to see horses, got Native American culture, everything, everything. It's a convergence of so many things here in Oklahoma. And so this is really an
incredible place and the students love it. When they come here, and you can imagine the culture here is I think is much better than the culture in the LA or Seattle or Detroit, which hosts a lot of students.
Having been around, yeah, I've been in all of these cities. Yeah, I'm not sure they be right here.
Yes, And we've got other unique programs too. We've got an F one student program for private schools so we can send we got a whole different pool of students who want to come to private school, Christian private school, so we're signing up those schools to be able to issue their I twenties, and so anybody that's involved in private school education should also reach out to me because those are very unique programs and pretty cool.
Well, let's get this developed here.
I'd like to see some more young faces here in town, and a lot of people know if you live here in Bartlesville, this is kind of an international community as it is already and thanks to some of our big employers and so it's not going to be anything too shocking for anyone. So, folks, if you've ever thought about this, please give Thomas Lowry a call or get a hold
of him by his email. We'll put that out on the website a little bit later and see where you interest lies and see what we can get going.
Yeah sounds great. Hey, thank you for being with us and thanks for sharing with this. Yes, sir, thank you for having me