OUR STORY
True education begins with understanding.
For more than 30 years, ENCOUNTERS has created international educational
What began as a small effort to bring students together across cultures evolved into programs designed to help students engage directly with the world around them — through relationships, shared experiences, and real environments.
We believe learning becomes meaningful when students are not simply observing culture, but participating in it.
How it began
ENCOUNTERS began with a simple belief:
Language and understanding grow through human connection.
Early programs focused on bringing students into everyday environments where communication happened naturally — through shared meals, classrooms, friendships, and daily life.
These experiences revealed something important:
students grow most when they engage directly with people, not simply information.
What we discovered
Over time, we saw that the most meaningful learning rarely came from formal instruction alone.
It came from:
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navigating unfamiliar situations
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communicating in real time
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adapting to new environments
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building relationships across cultures
Students developed confidence not because everything was guided step-by-step —
but because they were actively involved in the experience itself.
That understanding continues to shape ENCOUNTERS today.
What guides us today
Everything we design is grounded in a few core principles:
• participation over observation
• communication through real interaction
• confidence through experience
• cultural understanding through relationships
• growth through engagement with the real world
We believe meaningful exchange happens when students become active participants in the environments around them.
How ENCOUNTERS evolved
As partnerships expanded across schools, organizations, and international communities, ENCOUNTERS evolved into a broader network of experiential programs built around participation and engagement.
Programs became:
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more collaborative
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more immersive
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more adaptable
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more connected to real-world interaction
Each experience is developed around the students, the environment, and the relationships created through participation.
30+ years later
Today, ENCOUNTERS continues to work with schools, educational partners, families, and organizations across multiple countries.
What remains unchanged is our belief that cultural exchange should be:
What remains unchanged is our belief that cultural exchange should be personal, participatory, relationship-centered, and grounded in real experience.
Because understanding does not develop from distance.
It develops through encounter.
By Tim Gillette, Founder
One Encounter Can Change a Life
It all began with relationships.
Growing up in a small rural community in Michigan, my world at seventeen was small. I had never traveled internationally, didn’t speak another language, and didn’t know anyone living overseas. My parents—farm people themselves—hadn’t had those opportunities either.
Then, during my senior year, six exchange students from six different countries arrived at our school. I became friends with one, then another, and eventually all six. I was fascinated by their ability to move between worlds—to live in another culture, speak another language, and see life from perspectives I had never imagined. I even asked one of my German friends, "When you dream, do you dream in German or English?" At seventeen, I couldn’t imagine what it was like to think in another language.
Those friendships made the world accessible. When they asked, "Why don’t you come over?" I realized: I can. The day after high school graduation, I left for Europe—a decision that changed the trajectory of my life. One Connection Leads to the Next My newfound curiosity led me to study German, live in Germany, and earn a degree in the language. Later, traveling to Brazil to visit one of my high school exchange friends opened another door into Latin America.
One relationship kept leading to another. One encounter kept opening another corner of the world. My growing interest in global relations led me to study diplomacy at Michigan State University and later move to Washington, D.C., where I immersed myself in government and international affairs while preparing for a career as a diplomat.
That experience remains a foundational part of our Washington, D.C. programs today. We want students to grasp the value of relationships while engaging with the institutions, leaders, and decisions shaping our world.
My path eventually led from Washington to Los Angeles, where I started a company, and then to Hawaii, where I met my wife, who is from Taiwan. Taiwan ultimately became home. I have lived here for more than 30 years, continuing my work with young people in character, leadership, vision, and international understanding.
Looking back, a single thread runs through it all: Relationships opened the world to me.
The Heart of ENCOUNTERS
At ENCOUNTERS, we believe deeply in education, character, and culture. While classrooms prepare young people for the future, relationships open the doors into that future.
Our programs are built around two key principles: engagement and interaction.
We don’t want students simply looking at another culture through a bus window, listening to lectures, or checking landmarks off an itinerary. We want them:
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Talking, listening, and sharing meals
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Asking questions and working together
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Discovering differences and finding common ground
When these interactions are genuine, something happens that a classroom alone cannot manufacture. Students begin seeing another culture differently—and, just as importantly, seeing their own identity with newfound appreciation. You don’t have to lose your identity to understand someone else’s; encountering another culture helps you recognize the richness of your own.
Seeing the World in Color
When I think back to my seventeen-year-old self, comparing my world then to my world today is like comparing black and white to full color. Black and white can be beautiful, but when color appears, the world becomes vivid, dynamic, and bigger than you realized.
That is what happened to me, and that is what I want students to experience through ENCOUNTERS.
Not simply seeing more of the world—seeing the world differently.
Because I still believe what those first six friendships taught me: Change your mind, and you can change your world.
