interactions, professors who have led SST can continue the process of

integration. By having faculty members from various disciplines lead study-

abroad programs, the campus is doubly impacted:students return stimulated

and transformed, and faculty return similarly moved. GC Professor of Bible,

Religion Philosophy and Peace Studies Ruth Krall wrote after her SST

leadership:

Previously my conception of teaching and learning was that the teacher was responsible to be strong not weak; to be informed, not confused, to be loving and perceptive of others, not needful of love and perceptivity .... But in Costa Rica, I was not an expert. I was not always strong. I was not always loving and culturally perceptive .... Honesty about painful feelings and confusion did not appear to destroy [students'] inner security nor did it seem to cause a lack of trust. Walking the same road as they did each day made us co-learners .... One enduring result of SST in my personal life has been this basic challenge to my theories of teaching and learning. I am more committed to relational teaching.65

Many faculty return from study-abroad experiences with greater commitment

to experiential learning on campus as well. Experiential learning is one of

humans' earliest modes of social and intellectual development, and it breathes

life into students' study, making learning both practical and real.

International education which transforms teachers as well as students should

be valued by academic institutions and the churches which support them,

particularly when the experiences open students to lives of service.

65_{Ruth Krall, "Leading SST Convinces Krall Relational Teaching Is Best,"}
Goshen College Bulletin(November 1988):5. In the summer of 1997 when I
took our Dominican SST group to Haiti, we heard from Father Roger Desir, a
Haitian Episcopal priest. His lecture was one of the best I have heard in my
life. He had lived through all of Haiti's turbulent history of the last several
decades, and he had been jailed because of his advocacy work, and he had
spent 17 years translating the Bible into Creole so his people could read the
text in their own language. He had been committed to a life of service, and his
passion and commitment had given him a kind of character which made him
believable, and which made us want to sit at his feet. I was moved nearly to
tears, and humbled when I thought of my own shabby, text-based teaching in
light of his.

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