March 2023: SIFAT Intern’s Appropriate Technology Learning Curve
Editor’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.
I felt a tinge of fear in my heart. “God, I will not be immediately good at this, and people might think I am stupid.” But, God strengthened me and gave me courage to apply, to take a step into the unknown. “I have to learn how to do these things, so I can teach other people.”
Six months later, I have learned valuable technologies that are simple and effective. Have I struggled? Absolutely! My first time using a drill was to construct a raised bed out of tin, and it took many failed attempts, including falling in the dirt face first. But, our campus staff worked together and built not one, but two large raised beds, which we are excited to use this spring and summer. SIFAT taught me how to construct a leaf dryer out of bamboo, which I used throughout the fall to dry kudzu leaves and fruits in the sun; a solar cooker, which I used to cook rice and focus more heat on my leaf dryer; a non-electric refrigerator; clay bricks for a kiln, rocket stoves, and a demonstration brick wall in our appropriate technology shed. Earlier this year in Costa Rica, I got a taste of tropical organic gardening. For the first time, I used a hoe, added compost to a bed and planted corn seeds. I learned how to grow beneficial bacteria to apply to seedlings, so that they grow healthier and more abundantly, a technique called mountain microbes.
Madison helps Eliza, daughter of SIFAT staff member Shelby Dickey, make bricks using appropriate technology.
If I can do it, anyone can do it. I look forward to learning yet more appropriate technologies. I am confident that even if I do not know anything about a technology at first, I can work to understand it, build it and be satisfied with both the work process and the finished product. Sharing God’s love in practical ways — I can do that now and continue into the future, no matter where life takes me.
Interested in interning at SIFAT?
Visit www.sifat.org/learn-serve for more information or to apply for a semester or year-long internship! Questions? E-mail learnandserve@sifat.org.
Madison shares about India at an Around the World program at a school in our local community.
Don’t Miss Out on Learn & Serve’s Summer Experience 2023!
It’s time to register for Learn & Serve’s Summer Experience. This is our second year rebuilding after the pandemic, and we need YOU!
Every year, our campus staff picks a theme, and we are excited to announce this summer’s theme is Our Father. Our Father is a series of devotions, sermons and meditations to direct our hearts toward prayer and adoration to God. We are exploring the importance of God being our Father and why Jesus chose to teach us to pray using the name Our Father.
Join us this summer:
Week One June 18-22
Week Two June 25-29
Week Three July 9-13
Week Four July 16-20
Week Five July 23-27
Who? 7th-12th graders (ages 13-18), youth groups or individuals.
Cost: $280 per person.
Questions? Learn more at www.sifat.org/learn-serve or email learnandserve@sifat.org.
Two teams served in Quito, Ecuador, this month. Auburn University’s College of Nursing held a women and children’s medical clinic with education classes in Aida Leon, while AU’s McWhorter School of Building Science continued working on our construction project in Machachi. We cannot wait to share more pictures and stories with you on our social media and in the next issue of The SIFAT Journal later this spring.
Want to join a team? Clear Lake UMC needs additional people for their team on July 17-23. For details about this trip or to learn more about leading a team from your church or community, email internationalteams@sifat.org.
Mission Team Members Needed in Ecuador
Two teams served in Quito, Ecuador, this month. Auburn University’s College of Nursing held a women and children’s medical clinic with education classes in Aida Leon, while AU’s McWhorter School of Building Science continued working on our construction project in Machachi. We cannot wait to share more pictures and stories with you on our social media and in the next issue of The SIFAT Journal later this spring.
Want to join a team? Clear Lake UMC needs additional people for their team on July 17-23. For details about this trip or to learn more about leading a team from your church or community, email internationalteams@sifat.org.
