Later this week, a delegation of four students from a high school in Beirut, Lebanon, are scheduled to touch down at Central Wisconsin Airport, beginning a weeklong stay.

They'll bunk with host families, visit the Capitol in Madison, tour a Lincoln County dairy farm, and attend classes at Wausau East High School, among other activities. They'll leave Wausau with a slew of happy memories and a deepened appreciation of American culture and values -- citizen-ambassadors able to explain us to the people of the Middle East.

We were on the other side of the equation in February, when a group of 13 Wausau East students visited the Beirut high school attended by our Lebanese guests -- and returned with a three-dimensional understanding of the region.

The high school exchange is the most recent example of our hometown's global connections.

For the past three years, Wausau has been a destination for the Middle East Partnership Initiative, known as MEPI, a State Department-sponsored summerlong cultural exchange that brings college students from the Middle East and North Africa to the United States.

This year, MEPI will bring 40 students to Wausau for a one-week stay in July. That's up from a couple of dozen students in each of the first three years of the program.

The students begin and end their U.S. journey in Washington and visit other big cities -- Chicago and Philadelphia have been on the list in past years -- but Wausau stands out because it is the only part of the trip during which participants stay with host families. (If you're interested in hosting a MEPI student in July, call Bonnie Bissonette at Northcentral Technical College at 803-1815. Bonnie is the local MEPI coordinator.)

Wausau's international links go well beyond the educational exchanges, of course. Among others: