When a contingent from Hartford Seminary visited Indonesia in fall 2016, it paid a visit to an Islamic boarding school in Jakarta and was greeted by a parade of performing students. President Heidi Hadsell and others on the trip said they had never seen such an elaborate welcome.

On Tuesday, the school’s principal and his wife, also an educator, came to Hartford Seminary for a brief visit to get better acquainted and to follow up on a memorandum of understanding signed last year. Sofwan Manaf and Rizma Ilfi Yahya ate lunch with students, faculty, staff and trustees and talked about the Darunnajah boarding school and its mission.

The school has 9,800 students in grades 7-12 who stay on 17 campuses. They study a broad curriculum, including Islam, and a significant part of the school’s mission is to “build character.” Extracurricular activities, run by the students, are required.

The school hopes to arrange an exchange for their teachers and Hartford Seminary students.