Speaker 1: Good money, good morning, good morning, welcome, welcome, welcome the idiots.
Speaker 1: Time now for our community connection right here on K one.
Speaker 1: The one you trust, familiar face to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Thomas Lowry in here with us. He's a regional developer,
Speaker 1: i should say, for international Cultural Exchange Services. How you doing.
Speaker 2: Today, good? Thanks for having me in.
Speaker 1: Well, it's always great to have friends in and you
Speaker 1: host the exchange students and you have the study abroad program.
Speaker 2: We were talking in the green room, folks. We really
Speaker 2: don't have a green room.
Speaker 1: We're really just kind.
Speaker 2: Of outside the studio hanging out. We were checking out
Speaker 2: AM and M's or anything like that. But anyway, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: You've been doing this for just a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but it's really something that's not all.
Speaker 2: That new to you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Previously it was pastoring Calvary Chapel here in Bartlesville, and
Speaker 3: before that we were doing international missions, so spent time
Speaker 3: in Africa, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: not totally foreign, no pun intendance.
Speaker 1: Well, this is great because you get the chance to
Speaker 1: bring some kids from all over the planet here to
Speaker 1: see the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and vicey Bercy yep.
Speaker 3: And that's the whole plan with the Fulbright Hayes Act
Speaker 3: of sixty one was to foster cultural exchange. You know,
Speaker 3: all of us have a different maybe experience and opinion
Speaker 3: with American culture, but we want that the United States
Speaker 3: wants that that culture exported, giving other countries an opportunity,
Speaker 3: especially if you think about in the sixties Iron Curtain
Speaker 3: and all things going on, and of course that you
Speaker 3: travel around the world, everybody has their eye on the
Speaker 3: United States. They're all interested in what's going on here,
Speaker 3: and so this gives an opportunity for students to come
Speaker 3: and learn firsthand internationally what it's like to be an American.
Speaker 2: Hey, describe the process.
Speaker 1: What you're you're you're man and a woman. You're you're
Speaker 1: looking for maybe an adventure, and one of the adventures
Speaker 1: might be hosting a for in exchange student.
Speaker 2: How does a couple go about this?
Speaker 3: So pretty simple. That contacts me and we get them
Speaker 3: an application. You got to pass a background check. You know,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have somebody else's kid in your house, so
Speaker 3: we want to make sure things.
Speaker 2: Are squared away.
Speaker 3: But you throughout the application and then we can start
Speaker 3: sending your profiles of kids that get to pick the student.
Speaker 3: All our students pass English proficiency tests, medical exam, psych evaluation,
Speaker 3: and uh and then we get them enrolled in whatever
Speaker 3: school district that you're in. And that's a great, pretty easy,
Speaker 3: simple process.
Speaker 1: It's very rewarding. I was telling Thomas that my aunt
Speaker 1: and uncle and you know, my cousin, they were hosting
Speaker 1: a young girl from Poland. This would have been in
Speaker 1: the seventies, and that was a little different because Poland
Speaker 1: in the seventies was not like Poland is today by Mark,
Speaker 1: and it took her a while to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of figure it all out because it was just
Speaker 1: so different. Now. I mean acted a lot of students
Speaker 1: take a look once they get here and been here
Speaker 1: for a few days and say, this is this is.
Speaker 2: Really different, really different.
Speaker 3: It can be quite quite a significant change cultural change
Speaker 3: for them. That's why we run them all through an
Speaker 3: orientation sure, and then part of that process of hosting
Speaker 3: the exchange student is you basically get me with it,
Speaker 3: stay in contact with the student in the school and
Speaker 3: the family and making sure everybody's you know, kids are
Speaker 3: doing what they're supposed to do in class.
Speaker 1: And so this really isn't a whole lot more different
Speaker 1: than pastoring because that phone's gonna ring and you guys
Speaker 1: have to go somewhere.
Speaker 2: It's pretty similar. It's pretty similar to pastor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, you when you were younger, you were telling
Speaker 1: me that you were all all over the world with
Speaker 1: your folks and with the ministry team they get doing
Speaker 1: mission work. Yeah, we're well, there were you spreading the work.
Speaker 3: We're in East Africa, in the Middle East, keep that unnamed,
Speaker 3: I guess, and uh in Vietnam. UH did a little
Speaker 3: trip there.
Speaker 1: So in some of these places, Christianity is not.
Speaker 3: Welcome, correct, Yeah, some of them are a little hostile
Speaker 3: in those places. And the great thing is with our students.
Speaker 3: They're coming from you know, they want to be here,
Speaker 3: and they understand that American families go to church and
Speaker 3: they'll be expected to attend church with them. In fact,
Speaker 3: I go through the profiles, the vast majority have checked
Speaker 3: off that they're Christian, you know, even if that's just
Speaker 3: they were baptized as baby ers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're familiar with they're familiar with.
Speaker 3: What's going on, but they they will go to church.
Speaker 3: It's it's what a tremendous opportunity to have a student
Speaker 3: come who maybe doesn't doesn't have the depth of faith
Speaker 3: that the family here has, and so to be able
Speaker 3: to come to you know, Bartlesville or one of our
Speaker 3: communities here and be able to go to intend to
Speaker 3: church and go to youth group and things that they've
Speaker 3: never experienced before. And then to be able to take
Speaker 3: that home, you know, a fully immersive school year, and
Speaker 3: then be able to take that home and go, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I got some new ideas. Ye And we also do
Speaker 1: this with American students there they're able to exchange and
Speaker 1: you set that up too.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: We can facilitate so any student that wants to go
Speaker 3: study abroad, we can facilitate that they can go for
Speaker 3: a semester or a full year school year.
Speaker 1: Now, how do we get a hold of you? Do
Speaker 1: you have like a website or yeah?
Speaker 3: Best best way to get hold of me is just
Speaker 3: email me T Lowery at I C S USA dot org.
Speaker 2: Well, there you go. It's pretty simple, pretty easy.
Speaker 1: It takes care of it. And this is really something
Speaker 1: else because, like I said, I've only witnessed it once,
Speaker 1: but it paid off big benefits for the young lady
Speaker 1: who was the exchange student Yeah. Now, one of my
Speaker 1: daughters did go to the problem with one of the
Speaker 1: exchange students from Germany. Uh soccer player, because I got
Speaker 1: a kick out of him anyway, But anyway, but he
Speaker 1: he he adapted really well, he had no problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in fact, he wanted to go back home, get his
Speaker 1: stuff and come back.
Speaker 3: And yeah, there's it definitely makes a connection, our connection
Speaker 3: for the student any area, and that's that's pretty profoundly
Speaker 3: important for us. Like be in Oklahoma, we don't host
Speaker 3: a lot of foreign exchange students compared to the other states,
Speaker 3: which is why.
Speaker 2: I'm doing area. So we want to we want.
Speaker 3: To vastly increase that because Oklahoma has probably to me anyways,
Speaker 3: traveling all over the world, in all of the United States,
Speaker 3: Oklahoma is one of the most unique cultures of anywhere
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 2: Really it is.
Speaker 3: And our students that are coming from other countries, they're
Speaker 3: really interested in classic Americana right here. Yeah, cowboy culture,
Speaker 3: they want rodeo, they want to see horses, got Native
Speaker 3: American culture, everything, everything. It's a convergence of so many
Speaker 3: things here in Oklahoma. And so this is really an
Speaker 3: incredible place and the students love it. When they come here,
Speaker 3: and you can imagine the culture here is I think
Speaker 3: is much better than the culture in the LA or
Speaker 3: Seattle or Detroit, which hosts a lot of students.
Speaker 1: Having been around, yeah, I've been in all of these cities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they be right here.
Speaker 3: Yes, And we've got other unique programs too. We've got
Speaker 3: an F one student program for private schools so we
Speaker 3: can send we got a whole different pool of students
Speaker 3: who want to come to private school, Christian private school,
Speaker 3: so we're signing up those schools to be able to
Speaker 3: issue their I twenties, and so anybody that's involved in
Speaker 3: private school education should also reach out to me because
Speaker 3: those are very unique programs and pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get this developed here.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see some more young faces here in town,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people know if you live here
Speaker 1: in Bartlesville, this is kind of an international community as
Speaker 1: it is already and thanks to some of our big
Speaker 1: employers and so it's not going to be anything too
Speaker 1: shocking for anyone. So, folks, if you've ever thought about this,
Speaker 1: please give Thomas Lowry a call or get a hold
Speaker 1: of him by his email. We'll put that out on
Speaker 1: the website a little bit later and see where you
Speaker 1: interest lies and see what we can get going.
Speaker 2: Yeah sounds great. Hey, thank you for being with us
Speaker 2: and thanks for sharing with this. Yes, sir, thank you
Speaker 2: for having me