Short-term mission teams, our international field study training participants and Learn & Serve youth groups have been coming and going since May. Wow! There are so many different perspectives and experiences to share, but SIFAT needs your help.

Did you go on a life-changing trip to Bolivia, Ecuador or Zambia? Are you a student, chaperon or youth leader who spent a day and night in our Global Village and served in our local community? Or, maybe as a university student or Haitian community leader you learned simple, appropriate technologies that can save lives and meet basic human needs. If so, we would love to hear your story.

Submissions for the SIFAT Journal or SIFAT blog may be made by emailing your story (with a photo!) to Marie, lanierm@sifat.org. For possible inclusion in the Summer 2010 issue of the Journal, please send your article in no later than July 2, 2010.

Happy New Year! Constance, one of our 2008 Practicum graduates, has recovered from a successful surgery and is now back home with her family. She arrived in Nigeria on New Year’s Day. In her e-mail to us, she excitedly told of reuniting with her family at Sunday morning worship on Jan. 3. During January, she will be joining her church family in prayer and fasting as she seeks how God wants her to implement the training she received at SIFAT into her work with women and girls.
Thank you for all of the prayers and support for Constance during her doctor visits and sugery. If you missed reading about Constance’s Christmas miracle, you can find it in the Nov./Dec. 2008 Journal.

Don’t forget, you can always access both present and past Journals on the news page!

Do you often turn to your computer to search about a topic in the news, a restaurant menu or maybe even a phone number you need? Now, using GoodSearch, you can search the Internet and raise money for SIFAT at the same time. For each search, GoodSearch donates one penny to SIFAT.

One penny may not seem like much, but let’s do a little math to see what a few people can do. Each month, we mail approximately 2,200 SIFAT Journals. If each person used GoodSearch once a week for a month (4 times), SIFAT would receive $88. If everyone did this for an entire year, SIFAT would receive $1,056.–and that’s without ever increasing your monetary donations.

2200 x 4=$88 x 12 = $1056 = Sharing God’s Love in Practical Ways

The next time you are researching a mission trip to Bolivia or trying to find out how to construct a bamboo house in your backyard, go to www.goodsearch.com and find the answers to your questions, while raising money for SIFAT!

This article appeared in the May issue of the SIFAT Journal. To download a copy of the SIFAT Journal, click here.

Our e-Journal was sent out yesterday. Do you want to be on our e-mail list? If so, send a blank e-mail to info@sifat.org with the subject line “subscribe”, and you’ll be added. If you received the e-newsletter, the link to download the Journal has been corrected below.
Wow! A lot has been happening on our international campus, as well as in our international projects. You can read summaries of the articles in this month’s Journal below. To download a complete version of the SIFAT Journal, click here or go to the news page of our website.

Harvesting Rice, Seeing Change – Rachel Parsons, director of our boarding home (internado) in Ixiamas, Bolivia. shares about the school year. As of March 10, 40 students are living at the internado. Recently, they have been harvesting rice for the coming year. Rachel also shares a story about Alex, one of the students who lives at the boarding home. Through Alex, Rachel has been able to see change and the positive effects of being able to go to school and live at the internado.

Short-term Missions in 2008 – Peggy Walker, our international team coordinator, is excited about the 2008’s mission teams. With 688 people scheduled to go on 23 teams to Ecuador, we hope to be able to almost complete the church building attached to Mama Yoli’s Daycare Center ahead of schedule. Eight teams will travel to Ixiamas and Quesimpuco with 150 team members to begin working on new projects in both villages. In Ixiamas, interns and team members will continue building the girl’s dorm mentoring the young people in the internado. In Quesimpuco, work will begin on the footbridge proposed last year to cross the Chayanta River, providing much needed year-round access for the people across the valley.

SIFAT Remembers: The Integrated Gospel – Ken Corson, cofounder of SIFAT, continues his column with an experience he encountered while representing SIFAT at a seminary. He explains the reason an integrated Gospel is needed in ministry.

Sarah Trust Fund Update – The Sarah Trust Fund reached $123,430 during March. Remember, we are trying to reach $200,000 by November 2008. Are you interested in matching funds for this trust, donating stock or other planned giving? If so, contact our executive director Tom Corson, corsont@sifat.org.

Bridge Update: Honduras trip – In late February, Tom and two members of Auburn UMC’s Quesimpuco team traveled to Honduras to meet representatives of Bridges to Prosperity and see a footbridge being built. Bolivar Sanga, a SIFAT graduate and bridge engineer, was in Honduras receiving training from Bridges to Prosperity. This photo (left) shows the team at the Honduran bridge. The bridge in Quesimpuco will be about three times as long as this bridge.

Partnership for Clean Water – SIFAT is partnering with Water for All International to learn an appropriate technology that can make clean water a reality for many in the world. Our intern, Addison Shock, has spent time learning this simple well-drilling technology that uses manual labor instead of motors. Addison and WFA will work together to drill a well at our internado in Ixiamas, and we plan to follow WFA’s model of creating water clubs to be able to implement this technology to bring clean water to all the homesteaders in the Ixiamas area.

Sure, I can do that! – Volunteer Ellen Harper is profiled in this quarter’s volunteer spotlight. Ellen works with the CARES program, mainly, but has also helped decorate for International Night and Team Leader Training, as well as with office tasks. Our staff counts on Ellen and her usual response of “sure, I can do that!” when we ask her to help us.

Quieres pintar? – Do you want to color? Holly Bolinger used this simple phrase frequently during her recent trip to Ecuador with the Auburn University Women’s Healthcare team. Holly leads our local County Road 88 ministry, and she worked with the Bible school part of the team. In this article, Holly shares about how God opened her heart to the community of Carmen Bajo.

From the Desk of Tom Corson – This month, Tom writes about the recent board meeting and how SIFAT still follows Matthew 28:18-20 by sharing God’s love in pracitcal ways. He says that our responsibility is to model the love of Christ in all we say, think or do to share His love, peace and joy.

This is the fourth installment in our SIFAT Remembers column, written by cofounder Ken Corson. This article was published in our February Journal, which you can download here.

At the time I was discovering a more practical theology, one that served human needs—physical as well as spiritual. Schmaucher’s ideas, based on small scale and self-help rather than welfare, fit with my thinking. Thus before we left to work under the Bolivian Methodist Church, we went to Vermont for training in appropriate technology.

After two years of ministry in Bolivia, we returned to Alabama. Sharing stories of how we had used technology in the context of the church stimulated interest among Christians who heard us over several states. We called a meeting in our home church, Wedowee United Methodist, where we shared the great concern we felt for the hungry and suffering in our world. Those present responded by helping us create SIFAT as a Christian non-profit corporation. The founding name was Southern Institute for Appropriate Technology. However, at the first board of directors’ meeting, the founders agreed that we wanted the world to know that this was a work of faith, part of our living out our Christian commitment. So we adopted a second name also—Servants in Faith and Technology. The acronym for both names was SIFAT (See-fat). Not only did this name include faith, but also the aspect of servanthood which is a fundamental aspect of Christ’s teaching.