April 2022: Happy Easter!Editor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download our Easter 2022 letter. Recently, students in a one-room school on the way to Quesimpuco, high in the Andes of Bolivia, listened intently as the teacher explained the lesson. The school is near a small river, so that they could have water. Their parents had made the mud bricks and built this school. Because they had a building, the government sent a teacher. What joy they had felt when the teacher walked into their village the first time to start classes! Many children in this isolated district lived too far away to walk to school, and this handful of 35 students felt blessed, indeed, to be able to have the opportunity to attend. The teacher and students were all proud of their school! It is the rainy season in Bolivia, and flash floods are not uncommon. On this day, the students tell us that lightning struck the mountain peak nearby, and deep thunder followed. The light in the room darkened as dark clouds rolled in. The wind began to roar past. The teacher told the children, “A bad rainstorm is coming. You must go home quickly! The river could flood our school!” The children lost no time, as they ran home as fast as they could. March 2022: Spring Learn & Serve Retreats at SIFATEditor’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 Marie Lanier, Promotions and Marketing Coordinator During March, our SIFAT calendar is beginning to remind of us pre-COVID-19 days. We are seeing lots of green—the color designated for Learn & Serve events on our staff calendar—on the large dry erase boards in the office hallway. While working, our office staff hears shouts and cheers drifting across campus, and we see groups of students walking past our windows on their way to the cafeteria for lunch. These simple things lift our spirits and make us realize that we have been missing the hub of activity that spring brings to our campus more than we realized! Our Learn & Serve programming can be customized for different types of groups and various ages. Already this year, we have hosted an Around the World field trip and multi-day retreat for middle school classes, Global Health Days for college nursing students, a tour for youth leaders making plans to bring a group later this year and a retreat with work projects and programming for a mission team unable to travel internationally. At the end of the month, we will have three youth groups on campus for spring break retreats. For our small campus staff, the days are long, but the rewards are great!
 We are enjoying our spring Learn & Serve retreat groups at SIFAT! February 2022: Working Together During a PandemicEditor’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 Sarah Corson, SIFAT Co-founder
More than two years have passed since COVID-19 turned our daily lives and our work into a different world. Each day that passes makes us more thankful for the network of SIFAT graduates. For more than 40 years, we have been training community leaders in integrated development— spiritually and physically. One of our basic principles is help people to help themselves. Often, handouts take away people’s dignity and make them feel like beggars. Now that COVID-19 keeps us from traveling to countries where many of our projects are, we are more thankful than ever that we taught the principle of self-help. Graduates have returned home to teach their neighbors all that they learned. They have already been developing their own communities. So, it was easy for them to work together to help their neighbors during this pandemic. COVID-19 also produced another pandemic—a pandemic of hunger throughout the world. Food security is a great need everywhere. Our graduates are prepared and have stepped up to direct projects in their home areas. By helping our graduates get seed money, SIFAT has empowered them to direct their own development.  In Haiti, SIFAT graduate Samuel is working with groups of women on agricultural projects. GivingTuesday2021: Together We GiveDownload a PDF version to print and share with friends! Where has 2021 gone? That seems to be a frequent question, especially when we realize the holiday season is upon us. In stores, Thanksgiving paper products and Christmas ornaments are competing for shelf space and the possibility of making it into your shopping cart! At SIFAT, we hope that you will add another celebration into your holiday season — GivingTuesday! GivingTuesday began in 2012 when two organizations came together with the idea to set aside a day that was all about celebrating the generosity of giving, a great American tradition. Along with many other organizations, SIFAT joined with this idea in 2013. Your response has been overwhelming and humbling. This year, we will celebrate GivingTuesday on Nov. 30! Now, instead of dreading the end of the year with worry about our finances, we are excited to experience your response to our needs and to feel the love and commitment our SIFAT Family has to the mission our staff carries out each day. After GivingTuesday, we are able to work on our budget and focus on setting goals to start the coming year off with hope and motivation, instead of putting all of our energy into simply surviving.  Help us reach our goal of raising $130,000 on GivingTuesday! Our $65,000 matching fund will double your donation. October 2021: Final Phase of Construction in Aida LeonEditor’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 Sarah Corson, SIFAT Co-founder The long-awaited dream of having a safe place for the children of Aida Leon is about to become a reality. When SIFAT could no longer travel to Ecuador in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID pandemic, Esperanza Eterna’s Pastor Wilson realized that the church community center our SIFAT teams had been building for two years would be put on hold and not completed when the children of Aida Leon needed it the most. SIFAT donors did not allow that to happen! In the best of times, Aida Leon is one of the poorest communities in Quito. As in most marginalized barrios, the children suffer the most when the parents have no work, the schools are closed and even two meals a day is often a luxury. During this time of shutdown, many have been displaced from their homes, and child abuse increases drastically. The promise of a day care center for children, where they could be safe and have a hot meal, seemed a long way in the future.  The final phase of construction in Aida Leon has included pouring the roof, adding stairs, laying the exterior walls on the second floor and building the interior walls. This photo shows the progress as of September 2021. |
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