Skip to Main Content

News

Meet the Indonesia SST leaders

Dec 17 2025

We are Luke Kreider, Ph.D., and Janie Beck Kreider (M.Div., R.N.), and we are excited to lead the spring 2026 Indonesia SST unit. I teach religion, ethics and sustainability at Goshen College, and Janie is a nurse at Goshen Hospital and a former communications director.

We love learning about other cultures and global relations, and are eager to engage students in one of the most culturally, religiously, and biologically diverse countries in the world. Since I (Luke) teach in the field of religious ethics and study how religions and cultures engage with environmental problems, I am eager to learn all I can about how a country with large Muslim, Buddhist and Christian populations in a tropical context wrestles with environmental issues. Janie and I enjoy soccer and tennis, mountains and beaches, music, and spending time with our two energetic boys (ages 4 and 6).

Our eleven students come from both Goshen College and Eastern Mennonite University (EMU). I have had the chance to meet both groups in person, and we are both looking forward to getting to know them better. We hear that our students completed their Bahasa language classes by sharing a meal with their local language partners. Since our students are in two locations, the course was taught online, but each location had a local instructor who provided in-person practice. We want to thank Pak Salmon Pandarangga (online language instructor, Sumba, Indonesia), Pak Ditrich Rumboirusi (language partner for EMU students), and Chialis T (Goshen language partner) for their help in preparing our students.

 

 

  • Study Abroad

    A Visit to Derry/Londonderry

    In week two of our trip, our class went on its first train ride in Northern Ireland, and some of us rode a train for the first time! We were on our way to one of Northern Ireland’s more famous...

  • Study Abroad

    Rathlin Island

    At the start of our final week, we traveled from Corrymeela to downtown Ballycastle Harbor to meet the ferry that would take us to Rathlin Island. For some of us, it was our first time on a boat. The ride...

  • Study Abroad

    At the Gateway to the Amazon

    By Hillary Harder This week for our final group trip during the Study period, we traveled to the western edge of the Amazon rainforest. This was our first time leaving the central sierra region of Ecuador and traveling to a…