The sustaining possibilities of service-learning engagements

In this article, we explore two possibilities which arise from service-learning engagements, both from a narrative perspective. First, we consider the possibility that service-learning may be a sustaining experience for in-service teachers. And, second, we suggest that intentional inquiry into this experience for in-service teachers may foster the experience of sustaining themselves and of being sustained in their professional and personal lives. Through storying and re-storying our experiences during a service-learning engagement in Kenya over seven years ago and through storying the reverberations of these experiences in the intervening seven-plus years, we suggest that when attended to narratively, the interactions and situations encountered in intentional service-learning engagements through narrative inquiry give in-service teachers ways of sustaining themselves and being sustained as teachers.