October 2023: Fall Worship Night at SIFATEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Kaitlyn Glenn, campus program assistant  On Oct. 8, 2023, 72 youth and their leaders came to SIFAT for our Fall Worship Night, where they enjoyed playing games, hayrides, worshiping together and a bonfire with s’mores!
It is important to cultivate community at home and abroad to effectively share God’s love to encourage and help one another. SIFAT’ s campus staff hosted a worship night to bring local youth groups together and to build community with churches in our area. Seventy-two youth and adults attended, and a wonderful time of fellowship was enjoyed together. Students enjoyed a meal, hayrides, games, a bonfire with s’mores and a worship service led by the staff. Josiah Corson gave a short sermon, while Shelby Dickey and Kaitlyn Glenn led the worship music. Intern Alex Angel has fit right in with our staff and was a great help assisting with the program, and local friends came to help out, as well. We also welcomed back some of our previous interns. Our Fall Worship Night was a success, and two youth leaders reported that their students cannot wait to come back. We look forward to hosting more worship nights and hope that events like this will continue to open doors to minister to local citizens, teaching others how to share God’s love with the community around them. Thank you to all who worked to make this event possible! August 2023: Introducing a New Generation to SIFATEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Matthew Ivey, Student Minister, Brandon FUMC, Brandon, Miss. I first came to SIFAT around 2004 as a middle school student and fell in love. I attended multiple retreats as a student, and I even helped serve on support staff for summer camp when I was older. If you would have told that 15-year-old kid that he would end up in ministry and serve as a student pastor, he would have laughed at you! Here we are years later, and I have had the opportunity to take my students on a trip to SIFAT!  Matthew (front left) came to SIFAT as a student, and now he is bringing his youth group to Learn & Serve! March 2023: SIFAT Intern’s Appropriate Technology Learning CurveEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Madison Gnoose, Learn & Serve Intern Appropriate technology is the most intimidating part of my internship so far. I did not spend much of my life before SIFAT working with my hands or with tools, because someone else was always around to do those sorts of things. Plus, I have always felt more comfortable in academics. Picture someone who majored in wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture. Do you see someone in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uniform tracking bears, running through the forest looking for endangered woodpeckers or wearing waders while wrestling alligators and catching man-eating catfish. Now, erase that image! I was the girl who used artificial intelligence algorithms to better guide coastal conservation and understand waterbird migration and wrote manuals for citizen science water quality monitoring groups. I sat at my computer all day. Halfway through my junior year was the first time I considered learning additional skills and using my ecological knowledge to help real suffering human beings, not only wildlife. It became my dream to help developing communities in agriculture, which meant I needed to learn these skills first. After graduating college, as I read over SIFAT’s website and prepared to apply for this internship, I remember thinking, “Learning about poverty, global hunger and how I can help? Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do! Leading youth in loving those in need as God loves us all? Amen! Gardening? Amazing! Constructing water filtration systems, fuel efficient wood-burning stoves and other technologies? Well …”  Madison Gnoose is one of our campus interns this year, serving alongside our Learn & Serve staff. August 2022: Lifelong Lessons from Summers at Learn & ServeEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. This month, we are sharing two articles written by youth leaders that brought their groups to SIFAT this summer. One has attended Learn & Serve for years, while the other had her first experience alongside her students. Both believe in this program and its valuable lessons for youth and adults. Thank you for supporting SIFAT and our programs both here in Alabama and internationally! Click here to download a PDF version. Written by Clinton Wheeler, Youth Minister, Cookeville FUMC (Tenn.) SIFAT has been a part of my life for a long time. I came to my first Learn & Serve Summer Experience when I was in middle school. I remember walking across the bridge one morning and saying to myself, “I don’t ever want this feeling to end.” For the first time, I heard God’s voice telling me that I was called to youth ministry and that this is what he has in store for me. The next night, I accepted Christ as my savior and have been involved with youth and SIFAT ever since.  Each day during our L&S Summer Experience, participants have small group discussions and time with their youth groups to talk about their experiences and explore the week’s theme. June 2021: Summer at SIFATEditor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version. This month, we share about summer at SIFAT in Alabama this year – Worship on the Water and Learn & Serve Retreats! Written by Marie Lanier, Promotions and Marketing Coordinator Worship on the Water 2021The summer season has kicked off in Alabama! From Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend, SIFAT sponsors Worship on the Water (WOW) for our local community and visitors to Lake Wedowee. A guest speaker and musician/musical group lead the service, which starts at 9 a.m. and lasts about an hour. We meet under the pine trees on the shore of the lake at Lakeside Marina, just north of downtown Wedowee on US Highway 431. After postponing and eventually making the difficult decision to cancel last summer, it has been a breath of normalcy to return to our Sunday morning tradition. |
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