Hello again from Philadelphia! We continue to work and live amongst the gracious and lively Indonesian community here in Southern Philadelphia. For the past week and a half we have been delving deep into the ideas surrounding Interfaith Dialogue. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world with 12.7%…
Indonesia SST
Indonesia SST 2022 – an adventure in a COVID World
Welcome to our Indonesia SST 2022 blog, we’re glad you’re here! One of the first questions you might have is – “Why do your photos look like they are NOT from Indonesia?”. This fearless group of Goshen College students is embarking on their SST experience amongst a world complicated by…
Welcome to Indonesia (& Philadelphia) SST 2022!
Welcome to the Indonesia SST 2022 blog! Due to the complicated nature of travel during COVID-19, the spring 2022 Indonesia SST group is starting their semester in Philadelphia – at the Philadelphia Praise Center – to immerse themselves with the immigrant Indonesian community in the heart of Southern Philadelphia. The group is in the process or procuring passports to Indonesia, and will spend the second part of the semester in Indonesia.
Wrap up and relaxing in Bali
At the conclusion of their service assignments students all returned to Yogyakarta for some wrap-up activities that included project presentations to each other. Projects covered a wide range of topics, including Indonesian plants, food, economics, social issues, environmental issues, and education issues.
Service visits completed
Ron and Sally Jo concluded their visits to service locations with day trips to two facilities on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. Rumah Impian (Dream House) serves street children by providing school fees, offering after school activities, and providing lodging. Children are sent to the streets by their parents to earn…
Service visits – Kulon Progo
This past weekend Ron and Sally Jo visited six students located in the region of Kulon Progo, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours drive from Yogyakarta. They are in 4 locations spaced about 10 km apart and all are connected to the Catholic Parish centered in Boro. The first stop…
Service locations – Beginning visits
This week Ron and Sally Jo began visits to service locations. The first stop was to an interfaith organization, Interfidei, where Jace is assisting with the production of a video of their activities. Interfidei began in 1991 and focuses on interfaith dialog among youth because they are the future. They…
Week 6 – Wrapping up and preparing for Service
This week we went on our last two field trips, had our last group meeting and lunch at Rumah Goshen, had evaluation sessions with our SST leaders, Ron & Sally Jo, and with our language teachers, had a farewell celebration with our host families, said our goodbyes to them and…
Week 5 – Environment and the Arts
We were introduced to the process of farming rice by literally getting our hands and feet dirty doing the planting of seedlings. Plants are placed carefully at equal intervals so that cultivators can pass between them in multiple directions. We also had an opportunity to experience plowing a rice paddy…
Weeks 3 and 4 – Education and the Arts
Following a lecture on Education in Indonesia by Ibu Suwarsih, we made a visit to a non-traditional school where we visited classes and interacted with the students. Rather than “teachers” they have “facilitators” for each class and students work on a variety of projects that they are interested in. Some…