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48: A Slum Experience
By 2011, one-sixth of the people alive will be living in an urban slum. By 2030, that number is expected to double. Imagine, a third of our world living in a slum village somewhere around the world. As more people move from rural villages of our world into dense cityscapes, they face many challenges while seeking the life-giving opportunities that a city can afford them. Where will they find work? Where will they find food? Where will they sleep? SIFAT invites you to experience how millions in the world are living today. They have names. They have faces. They are real. Their stories are much like ours…we are just in different places…until now. Your youth or college group can spend 48 hours in our urban slum on Jan. 15-17, 2011 (MLK, Jr. holiday weekend). The retreat costs $48 per person and includes a t-shirt. For more information or to register your group, please e-mail Mary MacInnis at learnandserve@sifat.org. Connect with Comments: Did you attend 48: A Slum Experience last year? If so, how did it impact you? What parts of the experience stood out the most? Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas. She is now in her second year as an intern.
This week is going to be busy for our SIFAT staff, but you have several opportunities to get involved. Check out the schedule below to see what’s happening! Tuesday, 4-6 p.m.: Sarah Corson will be at His Place Christian Resources in Lineville, Ala., for a book signing as part of His Place’s Christmas Open House. For more information, click here. Sunday, 2 p.m.: Sarah Corson will have a book signing at Wedowee FUMC in Wedowee, Ala. The event will start with Sarah reading an excerpt from Risking Everything. For more information, click here. *Don’t forget to use igive.com or goodshop.com when you’re shopping online for Cyber Monday deals and Christmas shopping! Both of these sites allow SIFAT to receive a percentage of your total purchase. It’s free money for us, and a way for you to donate without realizing it! See our past posts about iGive and Goodshop to learn more. Risking Everything Arrives at SIFAT!
SIFAT cofounder Sarah Corson’s latest book, Risking Everything, chronicles the Corsons years as missionaries in the jungle of Bolivia. Drawing from articles she wrote with vivid detail at the time they happened, Sarah takes the reader into the reality of the world we live in…both then and still today. God’s call to mission rings out on every page of this book as she takes us into the hearts and lives of the people of Bolivia. Just in time for Christmas: Risking Everything costs $15 per book. Books can be purchased at the SIFAT Village Store or can be shipped to you for a small fee ($3 for the first copy, add $.50 for each additional copy). To order your copy, please call the SIFAT office at 256.396.2015 or e-mail info@sifat.org. Large quantity discounts are available. Photo caption: Sarah and Ken Corson unload the first case of books off the truck. Sarah shared that she began writing the book in 1977 on a typewriter, and now it’s finally published! Our current intern in Ixiamas, Bolivia, is 2008 Practicum graduate Becky Forrest. Becky served on short-term mission trips in 2007 and 2008 in Ixiamas. She is now in her second year as an intern. We are still having long lines to get gasoline, and we may soon be without since there is another blockade in Caranavi like the one at the end of April last year. When the gas trucks don’t get through then we don’t have power because our electricity comes from diesel generators. Right now, we are on a limited schedule. Just think if you had to do everything that uses electricity on certain hours. It makes it difficult. Of course, we are not as dependent on power like everyone is in the US. We are hoping the blockade doesn’t last too long because much of our food and supplies come by bus and trucks from LaPaz. September was very hot and dry with many wild fires in the countryside. One blazed through our farm (Two Trees) and destroyed the building and all of our cocoa trees. This is the 3rd time our trees have been destroyed by wild fires. It seems like every time the trees start to mature they are burned. Some of the young trees that were planted last November may survive, but we won’t know for a while. Join us in praying some may be revived when the rains start. They don’t have any burning regulations here and with hot dry winds and temperatures over 100 degrees the fires spread rapidly. In September, everyone is burning their fields getting ready to plant rice in October and November. We have had a couple of rains that helped put the fires out. There is no way of controlling fires here. Once they get out of control, they just have to burn out. However, we now have some areas we haven’t used for planting before cleared. With the help of some of our students and Delia (our groundskeeper at the Internado), Rachel has planted beans, peanuts and watermelon. Andres (our farm worker) has already planted our rice before the undergrowth came back up. Rachel, Mateo and I joined the principal of the schools in the surrounding communities for a visit to two schools, so we could share with them about the Internado. The small schools in the communities only have classes through the 6th grade. If they continue their education, they need to attend middle and high school in Ixiamas. We really had a fun morning sharing the word of God with these children. We made gospel bracelets and sang some fun songs like Father Abraham. We have plans to visit more schools in the next month to spread the word about everything we offer families here at our boarding home. Pray for the doors to open for children that need our services in the upcoming school year. Bolivar finished with three wells in Nuevo Esperanza before his visa expired, and he returned to Ecuador. We still have many people in outlying communities that need clean water. Please keep this in your prayers for a new project next year. Please remember all the staff and children here in your prayers as we are beginning to make plans for the new year. The school year here is from February to the beginning of December, so our year is quickly coming to a close. Grace, peace and love, |
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Much has happened since my last post. First of all, I am now home, and I will not be returning to work at the internado next year. Leaving was very hard and emotional since the staff and kids had become my family. However I feel God is leading me somewhere else yet to be revealed. The last two years have been a remarkable experience for me. I went to Ixiamas thinking I was going to help the children of the Internado, but as with most missions experiences, I have received so much more than I gave. There is no better way to increase your faith than to step out of the box — living in Ixiamas for two years was a giant leap for me. I just can’t thank God enough for giving me the courage even though there have been moments when I cried, “Lord what am I doing here?â€. Now, I will try to highlight some of the events since my last post.
