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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? June 13 – 18, 2010 was an absolute BLAST!!! We loved having so many groups from so many different walks of life on our campus learning and growing every day. Last week, we hosted three churches from Alabama, one church from Georgia, one church from Mississippi, and one church from Illinois for a total of 69 participants! All participants were stretched and taught in various ways throughout their week at Learn & Serve. Raphael Ogbole helped to teach many of the young men and women how to make mud bricks during their visit at SIFAT. These bricks will be used to help build a Nigerian house that will be added to our Global Village. The bricks will also be used to construct fuel efficient cook stoves to help reduce smoke inhalation among women and children in developing countries.  During the L&S week, Vicky Planta also taught workshops on edible insects. SIFAT held a conference this spring that discussed edible insects and the benefit of using them in daily diets to obtain protein and nutrients. The youth had a wonderful opportunity to learn about these edible insects during their stay at SIFAT!  Every Thursday, we take youth groups that have come SIFAT to learn about missions and what it looks like to bear fruit in their daily lives, and ask them to serve in our local community. We send these groups to different projects, giving the youth and adults an opportunity to give back what they have been learning about all week with their counselors. Some of our projects include visiting our local nursing home, lending a hand at another non-profit organization, and helping keep our streets looking nice with the city street department. We have seen that students enjoy sharing God’s love in a very practical, tangible way while they serve in these areas around SIFAT!  Keep checking out SIFAT’s Facebook page for updates on pictures. If you are interested in more information about Learn & Serve, please visit our website at www.sifat.org/learnandserve or call our office at 256.396.2015. Our first week of Learn & Serve was absolutely incredible! We had 102 participants from 5 different churches from the states of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.
The youth and adults enjoyed spending their time worshiping in the Quonset Hut, meeting new people in their SPEAR groups, being rained out of the Global Village…twice!, playing fun games on the soccer field and many, many other things!!
We are SO excited to introduce to you….
YOUR Learn & Serve Counselors for summer 2010!!! (From top to bottom, left to right – Hillary, Hamp, Taylor, Leah, Leigh, Lauren, Bryan, Carter)
All eight of the counselors arrived at SIFAT last weekend and have been spending their entire week preparing for an INCREDIBLE summer. This is such a special group of people who are all blessed with wonderful personalities, gifted with special talents, and are super pumped about hanging out with youth this summer! Three of our counselors (Carter, Hillary, and Taylor) have been campers at SIFAT, and are now apart of our summer staff. What a wonderful example of the fruit and the growth of our Learn & Serve summer camp over the past few years! This year, the L & S theme is “Fruit”. Each of the counselors will be leading youth of all different ages and from all different states, including: Alabama, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and even Illinois. The counselors will be asking these youth, “Where is the fruit in our lives?”, and they will help lead a discussion of the process that it takes to produce fruit that brings glory to God. Have you made plans for summer 2010? Whether you are an individual or a youth group, we have space available for you at Learn & Serve 2010! Weeks Two and Five have opened up again because of cancellations, which means you just got an early birthday present. You can still register for camp now. Visit www.sifat.org/learnandserve for more information and instructions on how to register.
 Â Â LEFT: Counselor Margaret (left) leads students in gathering leaves from our greenhouse. Students learned how to dry and preserve these leaves using Leaf for Life, which is also used in our community development training.
  RIGHT: During camp, students have the opportunity to serve on campus. Some tasks include working in the gardens. We also enjoy food in the cafeteria grown at SIFAT.
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