Ecuador: Meet our 2015 Intern
Bethany Lake will be sharing about her five-week internship in Ecuador this summer. She participated in two trips as a child that made a lasting impact on her life. Bethany also attended Learn & Serve Summer Experience with SIFAT. She has regularly supported SIFAT, as we chronicled in the May 2008 issue of the SIFAT Journal. We look forward to hearing about her adventures this summer with our short-term teams!
 Bethany’s first trip to Ecuador in 2007.
Hi, my name is Bethany Lake, and I am a sophomore at Elon University in North Carolina, double majoring in biostatistics and public health. I went on my first mission trip with SIFAT in 2007 as a fifth grader when my world was changed. I saw and understood global needs for the first time and recognized what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ. As I left Ecuador to return home, I knew that I wanted to be back, and I hoped that the Lord wanted me back in Ecuador, as well. The next year, my church once again took the high school students to Ecuador. I was able to again tag along with my mom and older siblings, even though I was younger than anyone else on the team. This within itself was an answered prayer to me. Just the opportunity to go back to the place that captured my heart was the most amazing thing! Fast forward eight years, and here I am, once again watching my dreams come true as I intern with SIFAT. I have had the dream of again returning to Ecuador as an adult to not only work with children, but also experience the medical/public health side of missions. Not a day goes by that I’m not in prayer for the people of Ecuador, and I am in complete awe of the way the Lord is working in my life and that I have the opportunity to go back to the place that captured my heart so many years ago.
 Bethany in 2015 as an international intern for SIFAT
Spring 2015 Journal
Our Spring 2015 Journals have been mailed. We also post each issue on the News page of our website. To read the latest issue, click here.
Worship on the Water 2015
Worship on the Water (WOW) starts this weekend! Sponsored by SIFAT, WOW is a casual, nondenominational worship service held at Lakeside Marina in Wedowee, Ala., Sundays at 9 a.m. from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend. Each week features a different speaker and musician. Whether you are a local resident or a weekend visitor, we hope to see you at WOW this summer!
Bolivia: April 2015 Quesimpuco Update
Ivan “Boo Lee” Roman, our Latin American Project Coordinator, will be sharing about SIFAT’s Quesimpuco projects each month. This is his first update, and we are excited to be able to share about the wonderful work our graduates are doing in this isolated community high in the Andes Mountains. SIFAT began working in Quesimpuco in the mid-90s. Many young professionals who lived in the SIFAT-sponsored boarding home and attended our high school moved away for higher education, but are returning to serve their own communities. More than 10,000 people live beyond Quesimpuco in the Chayanta Valley, accessible only by narrow foot trails carved into steep mountainsides. Quesimpuco is in the province of Chayanta in northern Potosi. One of the poorest and most remote areas in the Americas, the average annual income is $97.
Challenges for the Elderly in the Chaupirana Valley
Life in Quesimpuco and other villages in the Chaupirana Valley is not easy for anyone especially the elderly. With no markets or steady influx of goods from far away productive areas, our people there live on the verge of a tragedy should a prolonged rainy season or drought hit the area. Most of the elderly population live by themselves. The distance to their small plots bears a heavy load on their everyday struggle to survive. Facing a shortage of firewood, they walk great distances across rough terrain to collect a few sticks to cook the small yield their farms produce. With such insufficient nourishment, their health is poor and they are more than likely to skip a medical visit the few times doctors are available.
 Dr. Mamani with one of our elderly, Brother Lucas.
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Learn & Serve: Meet the Spring Interns
This spring, we are privileged to have three Learn & Serve interns volunteering at SIFAT. They help plan and implement our programming with the many school, church, university and civic groups that visit SIFAT. Always willing to serve, our interns – Laurel, Lee and Mac – have become part of our SIFAT family. They will be sharing more in the next few weeks about some of their experiences while here, but first, we wanted to introduce them to you, and in their own words, explain how they came to participate in the L&S internship program. We are taking applications until May 1 for next year’s interns! If you’re interested, learn more on our website.
Meet Laurel
 Laurel, a student at Mississippi State University, is taking a semester off before returning for her senior year. She attended Learn & Serve Summer Experience as a teenager and volunteered after graduating from high school.
My youth group came to SIFAT while I was in the 11th grade, and I worked on Flex Staff the summer I graduated high school. During my time on campus, I came to see how SIFAT operates and how it came to be this way. To me, it is such a beautiful concept. It is not necessarily a foreign concept, but the simplified vision of SIFAT (to share God’s love in practical ways) put words and a central idea to how I wanted to live. I want to not just say that I love my neighbor, but I actually want to act out my love. I legitimately want to show my neighbor, my brother, my sister, anyone I come in contact with that God loves them through my actions and lifestyle.
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