Dear SSTers,
There’s a new project about to unfold, but it cannot begin without you.An initiative to collect essays and snapshots from Goshen College’s study service term is underway. The SST Stories Project will aim to capture the varied experiences, spanning nearly 50 years, of current students, alumni, leaders and host families around the globe.
The program has been transforming groups of people for nearly half a century, but there isn’t yet a collective place where these experiences have been published or shared. SST is different for each person, but all experiences are valid, and many deserve to be given voice. For the next few months, we are seeking submissions from students, alumni, leaders, host families and professors–anyone with something to say about SST. The stories will then be edited, compiled and made available to the Goshen College community. If you’ve known bucket showers, mountain peaks, unconditional hospitality, or the joyful, difficult, unexplainable expansion of your world this project is for you. Send a story you’ve never told. Send one you’ve told a million times.
Write about food, dress, communication, people. Write about how it felt to be in a crowded bus or hike ancient ruins, to sit with a host mother for breakfast. Share how it was to be responsible for a group of twenty people in an unfamiliar place or how it felt to return years later. Write about adventures, hardships, embarrassments, falling in love. Write about the ways SST changed your values, inspired a career, or altered your definition of home.
Send your stories to sststories@gmail.com by March 1, 2015 or visit www.goshen.edu/sst/stories for more information.
Let’s make something good.
