Training: Environmental Monitoring Training in JuneSIFAT is excited about an upcoming training opportunity to be held June 28-30, 2016, on our campus. The following press release is from the 4-H Alabama Water Watch Program, with whom we are partners for this conference. The 4-H Alabama Water Watch Program is partnering with five environmental centers around the state, including SIFAT, to provide teachers and volunteer educators with the opportunity to learn to use the Exploring Our Living Streams: Stream Biomonitoring and Water Chemistry Monitoring Curriculum. During this two-day workshop, participants will learn to use the EOLS curriculum, which is correlated to the Alabama Course of Study and is endorsed by the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative. Participants will also be certified as water monitors and will learn how they can certify youth as 4-H AWW Water Monitors. Participants who complete this training will receive Continuing Education Units from Auburn University. Food and lodging is provided. This opportunity is funded in part by a grant from the EPA Office of Environmental Education. *There is a $25 application fee due with registration. Workshop Locations and Dates:
Click here to download a flyer. For more info and to register, click here or call he AWW Office at 334.844.4785. New Campus Bridge Under Construction!Many of you may remember the news of our suspension bridge (on SIFAT’s campus in Lineville, AL) collapsing this past July during our Learn & Serve Summer Experience. We continue to thank God for his protection of our participants and his provision for our organization after the event. We now have reason to celebrate — a new bridge is under way! A new suspension bridge is being built on our Galilee Campus. The bridge will span Mad Indian Creek connecting our campus once again. This bridge is not only functional, it will also serve as an example of a monumental bridge project SIFAT implemented in Quesimpuco, Bolivia in 2008.  This bridge, in Quesimpuco, Bolivia, is the inspiration for the new suspension bridge on SIFAT’s Lineville, Alabama campus. Learn & Serve: Summer 2012 Worship, from Abstract to ConcreteLearn & Serve Summer 2013 Worship Leader Becca Griffin tells her perspective on how worship at Learn & Serve this past summer provided a bridge for students between concrete and abstract expressions of faith:
Many of the words that are used in singing/teaching/talking about faith tend to be abstract and make it difficult for youth to connect. There is no more lack of desire or devotion for them than anyone else, but a lack of concrete example when it comes to living out the faith that they sing about/learn about/profess. Perhaps connecting the ideas of faith with reality is not a struggle for youth alone, but abstract concepts like love, justice, and following Christ, when only spoken about and not experienced or lived out, make it hard for youth to really learn, practice, or live out those things that they affirm, or have been taught in word to do as Christians.  Learn & Serve students singing in worship at SIFAT’s Quonset Hut.
“I feel relieved to know that no one is critically injured,†King said. “It was good to simply see the people we love, but there is a lot of work to do.†(photo left: Damage on Eleuthera from Hurricane Irene)
Arriving around 1 p.m. Friday afternoon, King and Shock unloaded supplies, checked on friends and surveyed the damage. Shock also delivered water filters donated by SIFAT to be used by BMH. King and Shock returned to the Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport, where Shock is in charge of ground operations for the Bahamas Habitat staging area. He is coordinating donations, weighing supplies and preparing pallets for volunteer pilots to load on their planes. The pilots will be routed from this facility to different areas of the Bahamas. Your help is needed. Donations can be made directly to Bahamas Habitat at www.bahamashabitat.org. You can also buy Home Depot e-Gift Cards (Recipient e-mail: MethodistHabitat@gmail.com). By receiving online donations, Bahamas Habitat and BMH can efficiently purchase and ship needed materials to families, as well as purchase fuel for the airplanes delivering the supplies. For more information about SIFAT, please visit www.sifat.org. (photo right: Abe McIntyre of Bahamas Methodist Habitat, Addison Shock of SIFAT and Cameron King of Bahamas Habitat fly in the first plane of supplies to Eleuthera). |
|
As Hurricane Irene hit the Bahamas last Thursday, Servants in Faith and Technology (SIFAT) staff member Addison Shock joined pilot Cameron King of Bahamas Habitat to prepare for an immediate response to the storm’s destruction. The next morning, they flew supplies to Eleuthera, Bahamas, where Bahamas Methodist Habitat (BMH) is located. SIFAT and Bahamas Habitat have worked together similarly in Haiti for the last year and a half.
