During the first six-and-one-half weeks of the term abroad, students study the

language and culture of their host country, often at a university or language-

training institute and under the tutelage of nationals. They have daily contact

with their faculty directors and student peers, however, and meet together

regularly as a group to process their experiences. They also are usually

located in the capital city, which means communication and transportation

technology are more readily accessible. In service assignments for most SST

units, however, students are flung across their host countries, either alone or

in pairs, often in remote settings without running water, electricity, or

phones or other communication systems. In some villages, no one besides the

Goshen student speaks English, so SSTers are forced to communicate in the

country's tongue, or to gesture with communicative proficiency. A decade

after the Study-Service Term's inception, Director Arlin Hunsberger was

charged by the student newspaper with not adequately orienting students for

their study abroad. In response, Hunsberger appealed to the program's

original design, which he implied "actually proposed a healthy amount of

initial disorientation abroad as a primary goal of the undertaking."⁴⁴While

students go on SST only after two college courses in the country's language,

such study can never fully prepare them for immersion in a host family.

While most groups stay overnight in a hotel on their first night in the

country, one former SST leader, in an effort to intensify the initial

disorientation process, met students at the airport with a card listing the name

and address of their local families, and told them to find their way "home."

Disorientation, when it does not overwhelm, contributes toward humility and

44_{Susan Fisher Miller, Culture for Service, 270. The encounter between}
Hunsberger and Goshen College Recordstaffers took place in the 28 January
1977 and 4 March 1977 issues.

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