Buchanan, 32, was rescued by a team of Navy SEALS that included some involved in the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
Paul Hagen Thisted, 60, from Denmark, was freed along with Buchanan in the dramatic nighttime rescue, which U.S. officials said left nine Somali captors dead. The two were working for the Danish Refugee Council and had just finished a workshop on land mines when they were kidnapped.
U.S. officials said the raid was triggered in part by intelligence reports that Buchanan's health was failing. They did not elaborate.
At Valley Forge Christian, a small religious school of 1,100 students at the edge of Phoenixville on the grounds of a former military hospital, Buchanan's teachers remembered her Wednesday as a passionate student who was focused on teaching in Africa.
Before enrolling in the college, she had visited Nigeria. McClure said that when he approached her in 2006 to ask where she wanted to do her student teaching, he was surprised at her reply: She wanted to work at a Christian school in Kenya - Rosslyn Academy, in Nairobi.
"She had a passion to teach in that school," said McClure, who had to ask state education officials whether she could earn her teaching certification by working overseas. They said she could, as long as she was supervised by a teacher certified in the United States.
"She was a very passionate young lady," McClure remembered. When he asked what she would do if her plans to teach at Rosslyn fell through, Buchanan replied: "I don't want to teach anywhere else."
"She felt like God was directing and guiding her to Nairobi," McClure says, calling Buchanan a mature and focused student.
