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I’m stationed in the town of Latacunga for service, and am working with an organization called Pastoral Social Cáritas. One of the projects that the organization is working on is a farm in San Pablo, which is about a 25-minute…
One Friday while my host mom was traveling, my host relatives Bethany, Paulina, and Tito took care of me. We explored their town, Guano, including playing at a park and going to a bakery. We went out again at night…
This Indonesia 2026 Community Engaged Learning blog series was compiled and edited using excerpts from a photo essay assignment submitted by our students. We hope you enjoy these snapshots from the second half of SST. Kupang is home for three…
At the foundation, “Su cambio por el cambio,” I work with elderly people in the mornings. I enjoy playing games, leading activities, and learning about their lives every day. The majority of the elderly who go to the foundation live…
This Indonesia 2026 Community Engaged Learning blog series was compiled and edited using excerpts from a photo essay assignment submitted by our students. We hope you enjoy these snapshots from the second half of SST. Three of our students flew…
This Indonesia 2026 Community Engaged Learning blog series was compiled and edited using excerpts from a photo essay assignment submitted by our students. We hope you enjoy these snapshots from the second half of SST. One of our SSTers stayed…
This Indonesia 2026 Community Engaged Learning blog series was compiled and edited using excerpts from a photo essay assignment submitted by our students. We hope you enjoy these snapshots from the second half of SST. Salatiga is a small, compact…
This Indonesia 2026 Community Engaged Learning blog series was compiled and edited using excerpts from a photo essay assignment submitted by our students. We hope you enjoy these snapshots from the second half of SST. Semarang is a coastal city…
This photo depicts my host sister Areli interacting with the owner of a small market close to my host family’s house in Puyo. My host family often has me take their electric moped to this store in the evenings to…
I freely admit that I’m nuts about birds. In Ecuador, I’ve been carrying my binoculars with me everywhere to search for birds in each hedge, telephone wire, and garden. My sincerest apologies to my fellow SSTers who are likely fed…
At the end of week 2, we began our trips to visit students in their service assignments. This week took us north of Quito to Imbabura province to visit Ray and Izzy in Ibarra and Micah and Alina in Otavalo.…
In preparation to leave for their service assignments last week, the students discussed what “service” means. Rather than thinking of this service period as work, they defined it as: the opportunity to be part of something larger in Ecuador giving…
At our farewell party on Friday, host families, teachers, language buddies, university administrators, coordinators and friends of the Indonesia SST program gathered at UKDW for a program put together by our amazing students. The students sang, played guess-who games, and…
We shifted into this transition week by celebrating Lunar New Year, Lent, and the start of Ramadan. It felt fitting that so many people in Yogyakarta are marking a transition into a new season while our SSTers begin their preparations…
Our last group hurrah during Study Term was visiting Borobudur Temple at sunrise. We woke up at 4:00 am, climbed a small hill to a lookout point, and were rewarded with this view: We toured the exquisite, ancient Buddhist temple,…
It is a bittersweet weekend as we said goodbye to our Quito host families and each other and ventured off to our service placements. Our study portion in Quito culminated with a despedida (farewell) fiesta on Friday to thank our…
This week our Indonesia SSTers were broken up into 4 groups and given a topic and location to investigate. The assignment was designed to build independent research skills and dive deeper into one of our four Study Term themes: Indonesian…
We’re experiencing lots of fun and smiles during our final week in Quito! Today, Gaby taught us how to salsa dance. There were lots of laughs as we loosened up, flung our arms, twirled our hips, and spun to the…
As we enter the final week of our study portion of the term, it is amazing to reflect on all of the sights and experiences Ecuador has offered us so far: from hummingbird sanctuaries in the cloud forest to participating…
Since our arrival at the beginning of January, the whole group has been taking gamelan lessons each week with Pak Sigit and a team of capable (and patient!) instructors. The students each chose one of the many percussion instruments that…
This week our academic theme is Indonesian Arts. Of course we have been experiencing all kinds of beauty, music and culture each day since we arrived on the island, but this week we are paying specific attention to a few…
During environment week we spent 3 days in the village of Pedak-Gower, in Pati, five hours northeast of Yogyakarta. MDSI (Mennonite Diakonia Service Indonesia) hosted us and invited a number of local religious leaders, farmers, and leaders of Javanese cultural…
We are halfway through our study portion and our language skills are improving, slowly but surely. Each morning is spent in Spanish language classes with our three wonderful teachers, Silvia, Loli, and Fernanda. They help reinforce vocabulary and common phrases…
Our academic theme for week 3 is Environment. This week we learned about Indonesia’s incredible biodiversity by reading articles and stories, hearing lectures from experts, visiting and learning from people who live along the Code river in Yogyakarta, and touring…
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