Matt Gray, 2009
"The sustainable development class has had more of an impact on me than any other class I have taken at Northwestern. The class challenged me to take my faith and values and to think critically about why and how I am actually going to live them out. Through the questions I asked and was asked, I learned in a way that affected who I am, in that I cannot continue to live the comfortable self-focused way most people live in the West. Rather, I have committed to making both small everyday decisions and larger life decisions in a way that I critically think about how I will commit to loving people. If salvation does actually start here now on earth, that means that life here matters. Therefore I will seek to love people in a way that they realize God's love through the way I strive to improve their lives in whatever way I am called to. So, whether it is by continually encouraging, empowering, giving dignity, providing food, shelter or education, or by giving my money, I have committed to doing this in a discerning and trinitarian focused way, with the hope that lives will be improved and people will realize the fullness of life which comes through a relationship with God. The sustainable development class helped me put words to this realization, and gave me the tools to try fulfill this purpose."
Dr. Roland Hoksbergen, Calvin College
"In addition to all the extracurricular learning that occurs naturally, the four components of the Romania Semester --faith, context, theory and practice-- are nothing less than a powerfully and beautifully integrated whole."
Dr. Roland Hoksbergen, Calvin College
author of Serving God Globally: Finding Your Place in International Development
Dr. Roland Hoksbergen, Calvin College
author of Serving God Globally: Finding Your Place in International Development
Joanna Gallagher, 2011
"Grati [a New Horizons Foundation staff member] was worried when I got to the office at 4:30p - she thought the Development Studies class had lasted that long and felt sorry for me. If my brain had the capacity, I would have class all day! I feel like I leave class glowing like Moses when he came down from the mountain. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dana, for sharing your time and insight."
Kelly (Larson) Organ, 2010
"I remember quite vividly one of those moments when I realized that my education in the classroom wasn't yet complete. I was studying abroad in a small, rural town in Romania, working with a community development organization that is building social capital in youth through outdoor adventure education and service-learning. And I felt prepared, going into it. I’d written tons of papers on Eastern European politics and history in my International Relations courses; I’d read up on international development theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Martha Nussbaum; and I’d been in Romania for two months already, living with a wonderful host family and taking classes from the founders and directors of this NGO. Yet on this one rainy day in November, I was frustrated, because I did not see my experience connecting to everything I'd learned about in class. So one day, as I was walking up the mountain to my host family’s farm, rocks in hand to protect me from stray and feral dogs, it hit me. In all my classes, and all my expectations, development work had been rather glamorous. Not easy, not simple—I wasn’t thinking that. But I didn’t expect it to look quite like it did: like sitting in a freezing cold room with 15 excited teenagers for five hours a week, playing games in a language I couldn’t really understand. I didn’t expect it to be so seemingly hopeless sometimes—so repetitive, so frustrating, so little evidence of change. I knew it would be hard, but my classroom learning hadn’t given me the wisdom yet that I learned in that semester abroad. In my time in Romania, honestly, I learned endurance, and I learned the practical application of my theoretical education. I learned that the work of the Kingdom of God is sometimes, honestly, slow-going work that feels awfully small, and that sometimes kids understand the Kingdom way better than those of us who are busily looking for some theoretical paradigm through which to understand it. When I would stop and look at the big picture, what happened in Romania was exciting—I could identify conversations and moments where kids were living out moral truths and civic virtues that were countercultural and world-changing. But most of the time, it was far more mundane than that. Yet even in that smallness, it became beautiful to me--because in those small acts of faithful persistence, and in the hope for change that wasn't fully realized yet, I saw the Kingdom of God."
from speech at Calvin College’s Honors Convocation Spring 2012
from speech at Calvin College’s Honors Convocation Spring 2012
